Harry Kane says England will head to next year’s World Cup as one of the favourites after their perfect qualifying campaign.
England made it eight wins from eight qualifying games by beating Albania 2-0 on Sunday night.
Three Lions captain Harry Kane scored both goals, with England also maintaining their record of not conceding during this qualifying campaign.
And asked how he rates the quality of this England squad compared to others he has been part of, Kane said: “I think it is as good as we have ever had.
“When you look at the starting XI, when you look at the players coming off the bench, we are going to go into the tournament as one of the favourites.
“We have to accept that. We have been like that for the last few tournaments, and that’s part and parcel of it.
“We have been building. We have had a great year together with the new coach and now we look forward to a big 2026.”
England were frustrated for large parts of this win, with Albania proving stubborn opponents.
The deadlock was finally broke in the 74th minute, when Kane bundled home a corner from Bukayo Saka.
Fellow substitute Marcus Rashford set up the second goal, crossing for Kane to finish with a bullet header.
We are going to go into the tournament as one of the favourites.
“Look, if you are going to go far in any tournament, you need the whole squad,” said Kane.
“You need the players who don’t start to come off the bench and make an impact. That is what football is about. It is not just the XI that start.
“We are going to need everyone and the guys who came on today made a difference.
“We have set the standard now in the last few camps, and we carried it on into this camp.
“This was an important win. You don’t want to finish with a loss at the end of the year, and then have to wait until March to play again. We can go away and enjoy this now.
“I think it was a really tough game, probably one of the toughest games we have had in the group.
“We had to be patient. We had to grind them down - defensively, they are really solid - and we did that.
“We ended up with a 2-0 win, another clean sheet, and we can be really happy.”
