Harry Kane had a wonderful season with Tottenham last year.

He was their top goalscorer again and he must have got used to loads of hugs and cuddles from his teammates.

As we saw when England played against Tunisia he got plenty more of them.

Unfortunately, this time most of them were from the opposition as a result of their way of defending against set pieces, and corners in particular.

A lot of interest this year is about the VAR being included, not just at the World Cup but soon in the Premier League.

But, with due respect, anybody could have seen what was happening and yet it was allowed to carry on when no-one, even the opposition manager, could have argued if England had been given at least two penalties.

The fact they weren’t made the game more difficult as Tunisia, who didn’t look like scoring until they were awarded a dubious penalty, held tight but fortunately Harry Kane earned his celebrations from the right department – his own teammates – by planting his header into the corner in injury time.

Having said that I probably make people sick of hearing me ask why do teams not put people on the posts when they are defending corners?

If Tunisia had of done that then Harry probably wouldn’t have got the winner.

It’s not the only goal that has gone in like that but for all these facts and figures that are trotted out in football these days I would like someone to count when the Premier League starts how many goals go in at the posts when in the old days a defender would have stopped them.

Also I would like to know how many goals are scored with shots outside the box.

At the World Cup on the few occasions this has happened the panel of experts are drooling about the wonderful finish, but most of them sitting there when they were youngsters were encouraged to do that whenever the opportunity cropped up.

When the World Cup fixtures were set out a lot of the bigger nations were expected to come through against the countries who do not have such strong leagues and players, and this more or less happened in the first game when Russia, ranked 70 in the world, hammered Saudi Arabia.

It almost looked as if it was a continuation of the opening ceremony which would go down well, particularly with President Putin and the vast Russian crowd.

Since then, however, what looked easy on paper hasn’t always happened.

Just look at results for the likes of Poland and Germany.

I am sure it will crop up in Gareth Southgate’s team talk before the Panama game tomorrow that no match is ever easy.

Our players should know better than any as they play in the Premier League where, let’s be fair, on any given day the bottom team can get a good result against the top four or five.

Hopefully Gareth gets the result he is after, even though he can only punch the air now with one hand having fallen when he was out on a run himself, as this would then ensure our progress to the next stage.

The game against Belgium, therefore, providing they have got through their opening two games, will only come down to who will finish first or second in the group, but the first hurdle will have been climbed.

I think everyone, especially our media, have been impressed with the attitude of everyone from the manager right through the team.

When it gets to the stages of sudden death, in other words one game at a time and winner takes all, it might be a good thing that we will possibly be underdogs, but the impression given out so far is bring it on as the players will be happy to play against anyone.

They share the aspirations of the supporters.

Let’s get out there and win.

  • Some of the gossip coming out has took my notice, particularly with two players, Jack Wilshere and Gareth Bale, who need assurances of first team selection in the coming season.

With squads of 25 or more the answer from any manager would be ‘show me what you can do first, fight your way into the team and then if you are not selected knock on my door and I will tell you why.’

No one can be guaranteed a game in the middle of the summer.