Kane treble as England demolish Montenegro to book Euro 2020 spot

London (Reuters): Harry Kane scored a first half hat-trick as England booked their place in the finals of Euro 2020 as group winners with a crushing 7-0 victory over Montenegro at Wembley Stadium on Thursday.

England lead Group A on 18 points with one game remaining and can now look forward to next year’s tournament in which the semi-finals and final will be played at Wembley.

Montenegro, level on three points with Bulgaria at the bottom of the table, offered no examination of the credentials of Gareth Southgate’s side for the tournament, which begins in June, but England’s total of 33 goals from seven games certainly shows the potency of their attack.

Southgate again put his faith in youth, with the starting line-up’s average age of 23 years and 255 days, the youngest Three Lions side since 1959.

As expected, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling was left out by Southgate as punishment for his role in an altercation with Liverpool’s Joe Gomez at England’s training camp on Monday. Gomez was booed by some fans at Wembley when he entered came on as a substitute.

But even without Sterling, England have no shortage of options in attack with Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford lining up alongside Kane in a three-pronged attack.

 “We have had one slip-up in the group and responded really well. Got the job done and wanted to put on a show in our 1,000th game and with five goals in the first half I think we did that,” said Kane, who moved up to fifth in England’s all-time top-scorer rankings.

 “Super quality passing and crossing and clinical finishing,” said Southgate, who warned that England’s defence would face sterner tests in the tournament.

“We have to get both ends of the pitch right. We conceded a couple of chances we shouldn’t. There is still work to do without the ball but we are improving,” he said.