Harry Kane says England morale at Euro 2024 will not be helped by criticism from former Three Lions striker Gary Lineker and insists the presenter has a 'responsibility' to choose his words carefully.
England have been less than convincing in their opening two group games against Serbia and Denmark, despite coming away with four points. Plenty of former pundits have issued their discontent, with Lineker critical of the team as a whole and also Kane's contribution so far.
England face Slovenia in Cologne on Tuesday knowing just a point should be enough to guarantee their passage to the next stage of the competition, and Kane himself admits some positive noise from back home wouldn't go amiss at this stage.
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"Building the lads up with confidence would have been a better way to go about it," Kane said at an England news conference on Sunday to preview the game. "The bottom line is we haven't won [any tournaments] as a nation for a long, long time and a lot of these [ex-players who are criticising] were a part of that [failure] as well.
"They know how tough it is. I would never disrespect any ex-player, what I'd say is just remember what it was like to wear the shirt and that their words are listened to. We all want to win a major tournament, I'm sure they want us to win a major tournament, being as helpful as they can would be a better way to go about it."
Gareth Southgate is expected to make changes against Slovenia, with major questions still being asked as to who will play in midfield after the 53-year-old bizarrely admitted that finding a replacement for Kalvin Phillips has been tough.
"During the tournament just support us and then after the tournament you can judge us," Kane added. "During it [the tournament] it's down to us as players to get it right, of course, people will have their opinion but ultimately it's us who make the decisions and finds [the] solutions.
"A lot of people talking about what we haven't done well but what we have done well is defending, we are calm, we have been here before."
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