Why Thomas Tuchel should push Harry Kane to the margins, writes CRAIG HOPE. Yes, he performed the go of the match within the 5-0 win over Ireland at Wembley, however he now slows England down

There is a big enough body of evidence now to know that, in an England shirt at least, Harry Kane‘s body is starting to slow. Maybe that is because those around him just want to move that little bit quicker.

For the England of tomorrow, the blueprint was drawn in Greece on Thursday, not against a 10-man Championship team at Wembley on Sunday.

In Athens, without Kane, England were fast, fluid and incisive. Back in London, with Kane, the brake lights were on, at least until Republic of Ireland rolled their bus into a ditch and the road opened up.

Yes, an outrageous Kane pass that led to Ireland’s red card was the moment of the match, but isn’t the idea to move away from such ‘moments’? Was that not the complaint at the Euros, that England had become dependent on individual inspiration rather than collective cohesion?

If Kane is now existing in those moments for England – and for 51 minutes before that pass he was more of a hindrance than a help – then surely he needs to be used at the right time, rather than all the time.

The decision new manager Thomas Tuchel makes in game one will have the biggest bearing on whether his last will be at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19, 2026. The German is here to win the World Cup after all, not to gratify an English great.

Gareth Southgate kicked off his reign by shiny-shoeing Wayne Rooney into touch and what followed was two finals and a semi-final. 

If only he had bookended his tenure by dropping Kane in Germany over the summer, then maybe one of those finals would have climaxed with a trophy, instead of witnessing the footballing atrophy of our record goalscorer.

There is a middle ground. It is not as simple as Kane good, Kane bad. Kane is still brilliant, just not at the things this England team needs to evolve. You would not drop Fred Astaire into the dance troupe Diversity.

Kane does not move himself or the ball quickly enough any more. When he tries to, it leads to heavy touches, like the one that saw him lose control and crash into Ireland’s Liam Scales in the first half at Wembley.

The defender – later to be sent off – put the ball in the stands and Kane very nearly followed. It was not quite the epiphany Kevin Keegan saw when Mark Lawrenson was too quick for him in 1984, prompting his decision to retire, but it was – quite literally – a kick in the guts.

That it happened midway inside Ireland’s half was telling, too. This international break has told us many things, but above all it is that Jude Bellingham is England’s best player, when given the space to be so. In Greece, it was created by fast forwards running away from him. 

Against Ireland, it was only when the opposition went down to 10 men.

For in the first half, this was the England we have come to know and dislike. Kane dropping deep in search of the ball, ignoring the red rope of Bellingham’s domain. If it were not Scales kicking him, it could well have been Bellingham booting his team-mate back upfield.

But then what? At centre forward, Kane’s presence is like a firewall to fluidity. He will invariably get a chance and score, but his England goals have an increasingly get-out-of-jail feel. This generation have enough good players for them not to be stuck behind bars, and it is on Tuchel to unlock and unleash that potential.

The greatest legacy of Lee Carsley’s six-game stint in charge was in Athens, by allowing the incoming boss a window to what the next 18 months could look like. Indeed, should look like.

He dropped Kane and a forward unit of Bellingham, Ollie Watkins, Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke were liberated and direct. Average age: 23.5. Average speed: very fast.

They still need to convert that promise into goals, for it was only when Kane came on that England turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-0 win. That is why this does not need to be a Rooney-esque removal, a brutal lowering of his colours.

Kane has a big part to play, just not so big that he becomes the immovable object, the statue at whose feet we worship, but a statue all the same. The superstar is no longer a shooting star.

Consider, too, that he will turn 33 just nine days after that World Cup final in the USA and the need to adopt a longer-term strategy becomes all the more pressing.

There is no point skipping through the cakewalk that is qualifying only to stumble into top opposition in a knockout tie and find that the boots weigh heavier than ever.

There will be moments when Kane is needed, when the younger ones have gone so quick that the game and opponents have slowed. That is when, and how, he can impact.

Flip what Southgate did in the summer. He started him in all seven games and withdrew him in five, on all but one occasion when the team was not winning and in a state of toil, most notably in the final.

The captain later said he was not fully fit – that was annoying – in what felt like him offering a reason to stay in the side post Southgate. But given that he got slower as the finals wore on, the mitigation for his poor performance was weak.

The dog is not chewing on the textbook just yet, but there must come a point when we start to draw conclusions from what is consistently in front of us.

Carsley has seen it. After Sunday’s 5-0 win, he warned Tuchel there may be some tough decisions down the line.

When he tried to shoehorn all his star names into the team – albeit not Kane, who was injured – they fell over each other and lost to Greece at Wembley, his only defeat in six matches.

Sometimes, the whole is more important than the parts. ‘There’s competition for places,’ Carsley said. ‘The best chance of us winning is, if we can, find (all the big names) a place (in the team). You saw the Greece game at home, I tried that and we lost. So it is a challenge.

‘It needs work. One thing you don’t get with the international camps is time. So we just have to find that balance.

‘A lot of the international coaches at a UEFA event I went to said, “You’ve got a lot of good players”, as if that’s a negative thing.

‘If they’re all in form at exactly the same time then it’s a challenge, but players do come in and out of form and it’s about putting them in the team when they’re flying and resting them when they’re not.’

If that balance is found, Carsley is confident success will follow. ‘We are in a good position to do that (win the World Cup),’ he said. ‘We have the talent to do it.

‘I have been lucky now to be at the last couple of World Cups and the timing of the players being in form, physically and mentally, at the right time, picking the right squad – we have got all of the tools.’

Those who insist Kane should start come hell or stale water will point to his three goals in Germany and a share of the tournament’s top scorer prize, and with him there will always be goals.

But if the ultimate goal is to win the World Cup, Tuchel cannot be blinded by golden boots. Carsley has shone a light on the future, and it is one with Kane in the shadows.