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Harry Kane walked off the Wembley pitch on Tuesday night with the match ball, a 125th England cap and the appearance record of Peter Shilton alongside his name. A 3-0 win over Czechia — Vladimir Coufal’s own goal on 27 minutes, then Kane’s 90th and 91st international goals either side of the interval — closed a four-game September-October window that told Thomas Tuchel more about his England team than the three months since the World Cup had managed.
The headline numbers are flattering: three wins from four, 14 goals scored and three conceded, including a 7-0 demolition of Croatia in Rijeka that stands as the heaviest defeat in Croatian football history and England’s biggest Nations League victory. The one blemish, a 3-2 loss to Spain at Wembley on 26 September, remains the most instructive 90 minutes of the lot. Here is what we learned.
The front four is now England’s defining asset
Kane, Jude Bellingham, Anthony Gordon and Bukayo Saka have become something England have not had in the modern era: an attacking quartet that is both individually elite and tactically interchangeable. Any of them can occupy the No 9 or the No 10. All four track back. Opponents cannot assign them.
Rijeka was the proof. Kane struck twice (8′, 53′), Bellingham scored and set up three, capping a 27-pass move for his own goal, Gordon scored his fourth in four England appearances, and Saka added two before Morgan Rogers completed the rout on 87 minutes. Bellingham, 23 and England’s player of the year for 2026 after seven goals at the World Cup, is the engine of it. Gordon has visibly grown since his move to Barcelona, adding guile to the pace that always made him a problem. Saka, back from the Achilles injury that interrupted his tournament, looks restored.
And Kane, at 33, remains the fixed point. His 91 goals sit 38 clear of Wayne Rooney’s 53, and the first England player to reach 100 international goals will almost certainly be wearing the armband. The question Tuchel must answer before next summer is not who starts in attack. It is who replaces Kane when the inevitable arrives.
Midfield: the competition Tuchel wanted
Declan Rice sat out the window managing his workload after injury, and in his absence England’s central midfield became an open audition — which is precisely what Tuchel had been asking for.
Alex Scott’s first senior start, in Rijeka, was the revelation. The Bournemouth midfielder controlled territory alongside Elliot Anderson against Luka Modric and Mateo Kovacic, only to pick up a thigh problem that forced his withdrawal from the squad on 5 October and will keep him out for several weeks. Anderson has made himself close to undroppable. Myles Lewis-Skelly started at Wembley in a 4-3-3 alongside Anderson and Bellingham and did not look out of place. Everton’s James Garner, whom Tuchel has privately labelled England’s “mini Valverde”, is next in line.
Tuchel was careful not to overstate it. “Is Declan still for me a fixed point in my team? Yes,” he said. “But some other players are coming and impressing and it’s an ongoing competition.” Of Scott specifically: “We will not survive on two central midfielders. Declan knows about his importance, and he’s one of the very best midfielders in Europe. Nothing will change that. But it’s exactly what we need. We need more, more, more, more variety.”
That is a manager who has learned the right lesson from England’s recent tournament history, where thin midfield cover repeatedly forced square pegs into round holes.
Two defensive problems quietly solved
Trent Alexander-Arnold was left out of the World Cup squad over defensive concerns. He returned in this window and answered in the only currency available to him: an outstanding delivery at Wembley, including a 30-yard free-kick that forced Lukas Hornicek into a save. On this evidence, excluding him again would require a stronger argument than Tuchel currently has.
On the opposite flank, Newcastle’s Lewis Hall impressed across three matches and found an instinctive understanding with his club team-mate Gordon — it was Hall’s pass that released the winger early in Rijeka. Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly now have genuine competition where England had none.
What it means going forward
England sit second in Nations League A Group 3 on nine points, three behind a Spain side with a perfect record, with Croatia at home and the return in Spain still to play. Qualification for the Nations League Finals is in their hands.
The wider context matters more. This is a squad processing a World Cup that ended with a 2-1 semi-final defeat by Argentina and a third-place win over France — close enough to hurt, good enough to build on. Tuchel said his players “harnessed the pain” of that exit in Croatia, and called the Rijeka performance complete.
It was. But 7-0 against a declining Croatia and 3-0 against a Czech side with no points tell you less than 2-3 against Spain, who came from behind at Wembley after Kane missed a penalty. England have the best attacking four they have assembled in fifty years and, finally, options behind it. Whether that is enough to beat Spain remains the only question worth asking.
Ahmad Ali is Sports Editor at SportsPortal.net.
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**Sources:** [Yahoo/BBC – Phil McNulty analysis](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/midfield-options-fab-front-four-223452262.html) · [England 3-0 Czechia match centre](https://www.englandfootball.com/england/mens-senior-team/fixtures-results/2026-27/nations-league/england-czechia-uefa-nations-league-tuesday-6-october-2026-match-centre) · [Croatia 0-7 England – ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/report/_/gameId/401861113) · [Czechia 0-2 England – Sky Sports](https://www.skysports.com/football/czech-republic-vs-england/554024) · [England 2-3 Spain – ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/report/_/gameId/401861066) · [Tuchel on Scott and Rice – Reuters/The Star](https://www.thestar.com.my/sport/football/2026/10/05/soccer-england-boss-tuchel-says-scott-can-challenge-rice-for-midfield-spot) · [Kane equals Shilton record – Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/6/kane-equals-england-record-and-scores-twice-in-3-0-win-against-czechia)
Two notes on sourcing: the Croatia goal minutes I used are ESPN’s; one aggregator listed Scott’s injury as 29 September, which conflicts with the 3 October Croatia date confirmed by England Football and ESPN, so I left the date out. The Rijeka tie was played effectively behind closed doors (a UEFA sanction on Croatia, with ~6,000 schoolchildren admitted) — available if you want it added as context for the scoreline.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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