09 November 2023 , 22:30
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Gareth Southgate has predicted Harry Kane will become an even better player once he starts winning trophies.
England captain Kane, 30, moved to Bayern Munich in the summer to fulfil his dream of lifting silverware and has made a remarkable start to his career in Germany.
Kane has already netted 19 goals for his new club but Southgate says trophies are the “missing piece” on his CV and the confidence of being a serial winner can lift England’s record goalscorer to new heights.
England boss Southgate said: “I think clearly it’s a missing piece for him at the moment and I’m sure if you spoke to all our guys who have won trophies it changes how you view yourself.
“It isn’t going to change what we think he is capable of and isn’t going to change his talent. But in terms of his mindset and how he will feel I’m sure that’s something he will benefit from. Any player wants to win trophies that’s what we are all geared to.
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“He is of course proud of his individual awards but if you talk to him he wants to win something with his club or his country. That’s how he is driven - like they all are.
“His football has always been really good. What's brilliant for him is he's taken on a new challenge, a fresh life if you like. And moved to a big club abroad, which isn't straightforward but he's adaptable unbelievably well.
“So I think the confidence he will take from that will be enormous. It struck me driving home from our last game, we were understandably talking about Jude but Kane had scored two, his overall performance was incredible and looking at the sheet, [his] caps and goals is staggering, really.”
Harry Kane scored twice for Bayern Munich against Galatasaray on Wednesday (Getty Images)Southgate admits he now feels blessed because he has Kane and Jude Bellingham in his squad as he insisted that the double act are - on form - the best pairing in world football.
“Well, I think on form it would be hard to beat them. I'm trying to think of everybody's strike force to be fair, and see what others have got. But the long the short of it is we're really happy,” said Southgate.
“We love the pair of them. Jude's positional evolution is really interesting because the goals weren't something that were obvious at Dortmund, he was 12 in 92, I think. He's now 13 in 14 games at Madrid.”
The Southgate love-in was not just reserved for Kane and Bellingham but also for Marcus Rashford. Southgate insisted he “loves” Rashford but also warned expectation levels have risen with the United striker after his mega new contract.
Marcus Rashford was sent off during Manchester United's defeat against Copenhagen (Getty Images)The Manchester United forward has been under the spotlight having been sent off in the Champions League and given a public dressing down for going nightclubbing after losing the Manchester derby.
Southgate, who has named a 25 man squad for the Euros qualifier double header with Malta and North Macedonia, added: “You don’t always know with Marcus whether that (love) would be what he wants or not, but that’s how it is. I guess the point I was making was clearly his club form hasn’t been where he would want it to be, he hasn’t scored the goals that he scored last year.
"In the end - and respectfully - with the big bucks comes the big pressure. He is he is the guy that got all the goals last year. But we’re selecting him on the basis that he did really well in June for us and the next squad was only a couple of games into the season.
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“We were really happy with how he played in Scotland and then really happy with how he played against Italy. So as we’ve got him in a really good place with us, there was no way we thought of leaving him out.”