Tottenham striker scores in injury time, England wins ticket to World Cup 2018

The Tottenham striker scored the only goal as England won 1-0 against Slovenia in the penultimate qualifying round.

Goal: Kane 90'+4

Harry Kane made his mark on his return to the Three Lions captaincy with a run and close-range finish in the fourth minute of stoppage time, before Kyle Walker made a superb effort to steal the ball from goalkeeper Jan Oblak and deliver a precise cross to his former Tottenham team-mate.

Kane's solitary strike moved England six points clear of second-placed Scotland with one game remaining in the group stage, helping Southgate's side book their place in Russia next summer without losing a single qualifier (W7 D2).

Kane scored his 11th goal in 22 appearances for the Three Lions. Photo: AP.

Throughout the 90 minutes of regulation time, England created significant chances to open the scoring against Slovenia, who played defensively. Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford caused the visitors' goal to wobble and had to rely on the brilliance of Oblak, who was playing for Atletico, and luck to avoid conceding.

However, Slovenia's efforts to earn a point to keep their playoff hopes alive were thwarted in the final minutes, with Oblak's quick throw-in for a counter-attack ending up as a punch in the goal when Kyle Walker got back to intercept.

This was England's 14th consecutive home win in qualifying. A ticket to the World Cup was a success for Southgate's team, but the performance against Slovenia was not very impressive. England are lacking a creative player in midfield, something Sterling failed to do when he was pushed into an attacking role.

He has achieved good results but his playing style has not yet made a breakthrough to expect to go deep in the 2018 World Cup.

The unoriginal attacking scenarios meant England put little pressure on Slovenia’s defence despite their superior ball possession (67%). This suggests that England could be stuck against opponents with well-organised defences, let alone top-class teams. Solving this problem will give Southgate a headache as he doesn’t have much time left until next year’s World Cup.

In the remaining developments in Group F, Scotland had an important victory over Slovakia to take second place from their opponents. What is more noteworthy is that the only goal for the home team was scored from an own goal by center back Martin Skrtel.

According to VNE