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

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 captaincy with a run and close-range finish in the fourth minute of stoppage time. Kyle Walker had earlier 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 to 23 points, six ahead of second-placed Scotland with one qualifying round remaining, and helped South Gate'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.

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

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 back into the goal when Kyle Walker got back to intercept.

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

England has achieved good results but their playing style has not yet had a breakthrough to expect to go far in the 2018 World Cup.

The unoriginal attacking scenarios made England put little pressure on Slovenia’s defense despite possessing superior ball possession (67%). This shows that England can be stuck against opponents with well-organized defenses, not to mention top-class teams. Solving this problem will give coach Southgate a headache because he does not 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 over the second place of the group from their opponents. What is more remarkable is that the only goal for the home team was scored from an own goal by midfielder Martin Skrtel.

According to VNE