Harry Kane’s role in Sunday’s Euro 2024 win against Serbia was different to what we are used to seeing him do for England, but it was just as important for the team.
We know Kane can drop deep and play wonderful passes forward for runners to get behind the opposition but, whether we were on top in the game or under pressure, he had another job to do in Gelsenkirchen.
As he explained afterwards, he stayed high early on because Serbia were defending deep and marking man-to-man. If he had dropped into midfield he would have brought a defender back with him, when we wanted to give our midfielders and other forwards as much room and time on the ball as possible.
The plan was to leave the midfield to it because, although Kane was not getting the ball, he was still drawing defenders to him, which allowed our other players more space.
Kane only touched the ball once in the first 35 minutes, when we were dominating the game, but he was still providing the focal point England needed up front. That is something he is very good at and it became especially important when we were under pressure in the second half.
When he was coming deep to try to help out, there was no-one to hit for an out-ball when we did win it back, and Serbia were very quickly on the attack again.
He was better off staying high up the pitch, holding the ball up and protecting it, and winning free-kicks – and he did that well later in the game.
Unfortunately one of the problems we had was we were often in too much of a hurry to take them, and ended up losing the ball again straight away.
That showed a lack of experience because in those situations, when you are under pressure, you have just got to be clever, take your time and take the sting out of the game.
‘Part of the job for any centre-forward’
As Kane said himself, there will still be England games when he will drop deep but the way this one went dictated that things were done differently.
What he did instead was just part of the job for any centre-forward, whoever you are. When you are not touching the ball, let alone getting chances, you have still got to do your bit for the team.
It is something I did all the time myself, running the channels or moving defenders around. You know you have got to affect the game somehow and, even if you are not getting involved at all in an attacking sense, you can play your part.
At the same time, of course you are always thinking about scoring too – which is what I kept saying about Kane in my match commentary.
You willingly do all that other work, but you are also just waiting for that one chance that might come your way.
Kane had to be very patient but he got one in the end, from a lovely ball from Jarrod Bowen. Unfortunately for him, Predrag Rajkovic made a great save to keep out his header.
What next from Kane?
For a long time, Kane’s role for England was similar to the way he often played for Tottenham Hotspur.
Go back to the 2018 World Cup and he was coming back to the halfway line to collect the ball and linking play with wide forwards who would hug the touchline and fly forward.
That worked, but this is a different England team, and we do not need Kane to be the playmaker now we have got such gifted midfielders behind him.
Players like Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold can do that too so, instead, part of Kane’s role is to bring them into the game as much as possible.
We will still need him to score goals, of course, but I am not worried about that side of his game either on the back of one difficult match at these Euros.
Some positives, but plenty to work on too
England’s plan worked early on.
We had plenty of energy, Bellingham was brilliant – he was superb all game – and Bukayo Saka was absolutely unplayable down the right in the first half, but he did not have a look-in once Serbia came into the game after the break.
When we scored after 13 minutes, I was thinking we would go on and begin this tournament with the same sort of convincing wins that Germany and Spain started with, against Scotland and Croatia respectively, but we certainly did not do that.
Instead, from the last 10 minutes of the first half onwards, we really suffered. We could not get possession and Serbia increased their tempo, their aggression and everything else.
England could not really handle that, and we could not keep the ball either – so we had to defend well to hold out, and relied on Jordan Pickford to make a really good save to hang on for the three points.
It was a reminder of how, despite all the talent in this England squad, going the distance in Germany is going to be an extremely difficult task.
At the same time, we should remember that tournaments are not won or lost in the first game.
Before kick-off, Cesc Fabregas was talking about how his Spain side lost to Switzerland in their opening match at the 2010 World Cup and, at Qatar in 2022, Argentina were beaten by Saudi Arabia. Both teams went on to lift the trophy.
We have beaten Serbia and kept a clean sheet, so there are some positives to take into our next game in Group B against Denmark on Thursday – it is just there is plenty to chew on and work to do to improve.
Alan Shearer was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan in Germany.