The only surprise was that it was his second touch of the game and not his first, but either way Harry Kane’s first goal for England was perfectly in keeping with the remarkable story of the boy from Chingford who has a habit of confounding expectations.
This was the box office introduction to life as an international footballer that you might optimistically have imagined for Kane at the beginning of the night, and as usual he lived up to it. Given that he already has 19 Premier League goals this season and was up against the 94 ranked team in the world, perhaps his debut goal was not that surprising but the point is broader than that: it is that Kane keeps taking his chances.
Float a back post cross in his direction 78 seconds into his England debut, against a tiring but determined Baltic state, and you can be sure of one thing: Kane will be ready. To borrow the phrase from the modern lexicon, he seems to have been born ready; a man permanently in the right frame of mind to take life by the lapels - and this was no different.
Sure, England were already 3-0 up and coasting to their seventh straight victory after the summer’s World Cup finals. They would have won whether or not Kane had directed his downward header past the goalkeeper Giedrius Arlauskis, but for a goalscorer it is the taking of the chance that matters. On the night that Wayne Rooney went to 47 goals, and within two of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record, so Kane started his pursuit of Rooney.
This was Kane’s night, even if he played just a small part of it. The stand-out player of the game was Danny Welbeck, the man whose place is under greatest threat from the Spurs man. Welbeck’s strong running and ability to open up the spaces behind a determined but limited defence is invaluable on nights like these.
As for the bigger picture, the march to Euro 2016 continues with some ease. England have won all five qualifying matches, averaging three goals a game and have conceded just once.
Despite the early goal and the purposeful passing that they managed early on in the game, England found themselves slowing down around 25 minutes, hemmed in by a Lithuania team that showed more ambition than many of the smaller nations that play at Wembley in qualification.
England had started well by getting the ball forward quickly at the first opportunity, never more so than in the fourth minute when Fabian Delph looped a ball over the Lithuania defence and Rooney decided to shoot at the near corner rather than across Arlauskis. He struck the inside of the post that time but even then it felt like a goal was close.
Welbeck’s power and running down the right, and the liveliness of Delph in midfield caught Lithuania cold and the away team were a goal behind within six minutes. This time it was Welbeck cutting in from the right channel who had a shot and when the ball popped up off the goalkeeper Arlauskis it was the England captain who headed it in.
The goal had been a good move, encompassing Michael Carrick and Raheem Sterling before Welbeck embarked on his run and, in those early stages, England looked liberated from the usual cautiousness. Nevertheless, Lithuania were prepared to run and shut down their opponents and while at times their tackling will have caused shudder at certain Premier League clubs, it was effective.
The away team never ceded large areas of the pitch to England as is so often the case when the lower-ranked teams play at Wembley but instead they backed themselves to get close to the home side’s players and challenge them to pass the ball through. Generally, speaking Hodgson’s team failed to do that in the mid-stages of the first half and the game slipped away from them.
There were chances, such as a nicely judged header by Rooney from Welbeck’s cross that looped over Arlauskis and clipped his bar. Jordan Henderson snatched at a shot and struck it wide when the opening had been hard-won on 24 minutes. Then Lithuania forced their way into the game and created a chance on 33 minutes when the left-back Vytautus Andriuskevicius crossed and Phil Jones only just got their ahead of Deivydas Matulevicius.
There were fewer problems after that. A penalty appeal went against Welbeck. Then, on 44 minutes, England caught out Lithuania with their second short corner of the half. The ball was worked to Henderson and his driven cross was headed by Welbeck, clipped captain Tadas Kijanskas and went in.
The second goal reduced the resolve in Lithuania and England’s start to the second half was an assortment of chances that really should have been buried. Delph struck a bouncing volley from Rooney’s cross that was very well saved by Arlauskis. Then the Lithuania goalkeeper stopped one hit venomously inside his other post by Welbeck.
There was a curious moment just before the third goal when Welbeck looked to have won a certain penalty when he ran past Kijanskas and went down. The Czech referee Pavel Kralovec waved it on to some astonishment but the replays showed only the faintest of brushes between knee and thigh and no contact between feet.
Moments later Sterling scored his first England goal, running to the near post to meet Rooney’s ball from the right. But that was only the warm-up act to the main event of the night. He finally rose from his seat around 70 minutes and had to wait some time to come on eventually for Rooney, but when Kane did it only took him considerably less than two minutes to score.
Out on the left, Sterling worked the space well and struck a nice cross to the back post where Kane had materialised unmarked and ready. He headed the ball downward and in - and the night had its most memorable moment. Another small challenge overcome for the man of the moment, and you would not bet against him doing it again in Turin on Tuesday.
England (4-3-3): Hart; Clyne, Jones, Cahill, Baines; Henderson (Barkley 71), Carrick, Delph; Sterling, Rooney (Kane 71), Welbeck (Walcott 76).
Lithuania (4-5-1): Arlauskis; Freidgeimas, Zaliukas, Kijanskas, Andriuskevicius (Slavickas 83); Cernych, Chvedukas, Zulpa, Mikuckis (Stankevicius 67), Mikoliunas (Kazlauskas 88); Matulevicius
Referee: P Kralovec (Czech Republic).
Man of the match; Welbeck
Rating: 6
Att: 83,671
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