How England Can Replace Harry Kane

There is one part of the England squad that is certainly not in the midst of a golden generation. The strikers. Since 2018, it's basically been Harry Kane and a far worse option who hopefully won't have to actually play any meaningful minutes at any point during a major tournament. The conversation of who will replace Kane has been a source of anxiety in the England set-up for years and we are rapidly approaching the time when we have to tackle it head-on. So, who is the true heir to Harry Kane's England No. 9 shirt? Or shall we just retire it and never play with a striker ever again? More on that later, by the way. We've got the five best options ranked. Let's go. Number five, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, the prem-proven short-term fix. Calvert-Lewin is only 29. Is that not a bit mental? Put him in the Dwight McNeil category of how are you in your 20s? I thought you were 32. McNeil, by the way, is 26. Dwight McNeil is 26 years old. Anyway, he can't play up front, so let's move on. Of the existing Kane deputies, him, Tony, Watkins and Toney being the main ones, Calvert-Lewin is the youngest and the most in form. He may not offer the all-round play that the others do and is certainly not the most durable, but he is certainly viable and knows where the back of the net is. He's played for England before and feels like a fairly safe option. You know what you'll get. You'll know how good he is and he might be the perfect interim option post Kane. He's basically the Sam Allardyce of England strikers, except in terms of how they view the world. Toney and Watkins playing in Saudi may be good news for their freshness each summer and both are certainly good enough to contribute, see Euro 2024, but post Euro 2028, both will be 32 and have been playing in Saudi for a long enough time that their ability to compete at the highest level can, rightly, be questioned, unless the Saudi league turns mega competitive in the next few years, which is not impossible. All things being equal, I would have Tony and Watkins above Calvert-Lewin, but trajectories have to be taken into account, so DCL sneaks in at five. Number four, Will Lancashire, a literal Harry Kane replacement. A young English striker from the Spurs academy, yeah screw it, that'll do, he's probably the same. His move to Middlesbrough made him one of the most expensive championship players ever and he's looked a cut above since he made his debut. He's 21 and it's pretty unclear what his ceiling is, although the fact that Spurs, who are already short on strikers and goals, were willing to sell him maybe a red flag to some, but development is certainly not linear in football. A few good years at Borough, ideally with a promotion and a season or two in the Premier League thrown in for good measure, and we will have a better idea of whether Lancashire has what it takes to play for England. He's highly rated within football but as someone who admittedly doesn't know much about him I'm a bit worried that he's so far off despite being in his early 20s. Having said that few would have tipped Kane to have the career he's had for the three lines so Lancashire will keep the faith that he can follow the same path. Although Kane had made his debut already at Lancashire's age. Anyway he's in at four. Number three Jude Bellingham as a false nine. England's talisman. Let's get one thing straight. Bellingham could absolutely do this for England. He is a truly world-class player. He's played there for Real Madrid, no less. And to be honest, you could play Bellingham at left-back and he would still put everything on the line and probably be England's best player. Even with Kane in the team, Jude was often effectively a second striker, with England defending and attacking in a 4-4-2 for much of the 2026 World Cup. Him moving forward would also open up another midfield slot. And given the embarrassment of riches England have in the 10, Palmer, Rodgers, Eze, Josh King, Gibbs why the overall starting XI would probably be better off in terms of quality per position than any alternative. You could even have a split striker situation with Bellingham and Rodgers for example both playing as false nines. It's absolutely not the same level of quality to be clear but Palace did this to good effect in 2017-18 with Townsend and Zaha. Between them they had all the ingredients to threaten defences and absolutely did. Rodgers and Bellingham are both well-rounded players and would be a nightmare bouncing off each other in a pair. In the post Kane era the priority has to be maximising Bellingham. If that is playing him as a false nine then great but shoehorning him into a position that limits his overall impact on a game would be counterproductive. Of course his goals for England are key and it is impossible to argue that he is better when closer to goal but he is best when he has freedom to run everywhere. He's not an elite hold-up player and his passing is not the same level of Kane meaning his link-up play probably wouldn't be as strong. It's still not totally clear what his best position is, but if you had to say one, it's a second striker. And who knows, with the right players around him, this might work. I just fear that a Saka-Bellingham-Gordon front three lacks something. Physicality, explosiveness, coherence. England aren't a possession-heavy team, and the post-Kane era can be a gateway into trying strikers who are physically dominant win their duels and work in teams that are sat back, like England often are. I'm not sure Jude is that. We will probably see this at some point for England in a major tournament. if it works, we are sorted. But I think there are better options, such as... 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Delap has been touted as the obvious successor to Kane since he was at Ipswich and possibly even earlier when he broke into the City First team albeit momentarily. You might think this is high considering his time at Chelsea was at best underwhelming, at worst embarrassing at times. But let's have some perspective. He's only 23 years old. This is his third season of Premier League football and he's already looking reborn at Forest. They deemed him worthy of a £50m transfer fee and whether you agree with that or not, it did still happen. He can score goals, has room to develop and is a mean striker of a ball. But the biggest plus, he is a battering ram of a striker who can stretch the defenders and hold the ball up equally well. That is something England have lacked when Kane has played up front, even if the positives have obviously outweighed the negatives. The recent world champions have not had Harry Kane-level strikers up front. To run through them, the last few starting world champion strikers are Julian Alvarez, Olivier Giroud and Miroslav Klose. Of course, legends for their achievements, but when you take into account their age and performance levels in the runs they had, you realise that a number nine is not the be-all and end-all to win the World Cup. My point is, De Lappe will be a mighty handful for most centre-backs, and occupying them to free up Bellingham, Saka, Rashford, Palmer, whoever, will be worth just as much as a few goals. De Lappe is, right now, the most likely choice to be Kane's successor, but there is one more name who excites me more than anyone. Number one, Brian Maggio. We only needed one game to know. Maggio has only played 72 minutes for Aston Villa, yet he's number one on the list. What? How does that work? But what a 72 minutes. Against PSG in the Super Cup, Maggio was brilliant. The youngest starter in the competition's history and the youngest goalscorer too. He announced himself on the world stage and then some, pinning Pacho multiple times, finding space at will in the box and capping off his ridiculous first half bully ball session with a weak foot volley into the roof of the net. Maggio got all of Europe excited. Aston Villa spent £10m on him on his 17th birthday in a signing driven by Unai Emery. £10m for 2026's PSR-strangled Villa is basically like Chelsea spending £100m on someone. It's a show of faith. They wanted him to play at the back end of the 25-26 season, but FIFA regulations blocked Villa from having him in their matchday squads. Long story short, he was born in London but grew up in Luxembourg, so technically counted as a foreign player, where rules are stricter around signing for the first team at a young age. Anyway, it was eventually all sorted, and he started the Super Cup, then scored, then got injured. He is young. He is raw. He has flaws. But his physical profile is absolutely ridiculous, to put it bluntly. And if you can combine his natural gift of a physique with even a decent level of consistency in link-up and goal scoring, he will be borderline impossible to defend. It's similar logic to why Liam Delap could be so effective for England, except with actually being really good at football being another possible avenue. Sometimes, as a fan, you just see it. And against the best team in the world, albeit in a glorified pre-season friendly, Maggio looked like he belonged at the top level. In fact, he looked like someone who could play for England tomorrow and not look out of place. Maggio is young enough, but good enough to be called up for England and learn from Kane for the rest of his time with the national team. Give him some minutes off the bench, the odd start away at Andorra for the next few years, but make his main task be listen to and do literally everything Kane tells you to. Imagine Harry Kane's ruthlessness and football brain with the body of Brian Maggio. Could anyone on planet Earth stop that? That is basically Erling Haaland. The key to the post-Kane era will be blooding the successors ahead of time. We all know that the next England striker will not be as good as Harry Kane, because Harry Kane is England's greatest player since 1966, and you do not just spawn another one of them from nowhere. We do not know what the future of the number nine will look like, but what we do know is that we have an abundance of attacking talent elsewhere, and the short-term goal should be to maximise their goal scoring. Forget Brian Maggio, Liam de Lappe and Will Lancashire for a second. Post-Harry Kane, it will be down to Jude Bellingham, Makai Osaka, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rodgers, et al. to deliver the goods as senior, established international players. And who knows? Maybe the next Harry Kane is in your team's academy right now, waiting to be called up for the 2030 World Cup. How many would have predicted Elliot Anderson being England's number six in the US after the Euro 2024 final? Or that Dan Burn and Jed Spence would capture the hearts of a nation even in March of this year? Football is unpredictable. Maybe it will just be Eden Hazard after all. I certainly hope so.