Will he or won’t he? Will Harry Kane feature for the England Under-21 national team at this summer’s U-21 European Championship in the Czech Republic, or will the 21-year-old Tottenham Hotspur striker (19 goals in 26 Premier League games, 29 goals in all competitions) be given the summer following his first season as a first-team regular?
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According to England U-21 manager Gareth Southgate, Kane will in fact feature at this summer’s youth tournament, despite fears from both club and country that the player may become overworked. Kane, who marked his senior-team debut on Friday with a goal 79 seconds into his shift, previously scored six goals in eight games during England’s 10-game qualifying campaign.
Southgate, on Kane, from the Telegraph:“Roy Hodgson and I know the seniors are in a good group position and he feels that the experience of going to the Czech Republic in the summer will be more beneficial to Harry than the two games he has got. That is absolutely the case regardless of his displays between now and then.”
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“We still feel we can give the players the best possible preparation to go into the seniors and achieve success if they have got the experience of the European Under-21 Championship behind them in the summer. That is still the case with Harry.”
It’s a big summer for Kane, who will almost certainly figure into Roy Hodgson’s senior-team plans for EURO 2016, following another full season as the main man for Spurs. At some point, Kane will need three weeks to a month to put his feet up, recuperate and decompress following his breakout 2014-15 season.
That said, with next summer’s senior-team tournament on the horizon, competitive tournament experience won’t be the worst thing for Kane, considering the senior team’s summer qualifiers will have little or no consequence following easy, early qualification.
