Spurs' Dominic Solanke is back in the England squad – but has to prove he can fill Harry Kane's boots

It’s one month short of seven years since Dominic Solanke made his England debut, playing the last 15 minutes of a 0-0 draw with Brazil. Back then, he was a hot prospect who had just moved from Chelsea to Liverpool in the summer and had been awarded the Golden Ball at that year’s Under-20 World Cup, which England won. Few would have thought that his second cap would take so long to arrive.

The context of his call-up to Lee Carsley’s second squad as interim head coach of the Three Lions is very different. No longer a 20-year-old tyro on the up, Solanke is a 27-year-old who commanded a transfer fee worth up to £65m when he moved to Tottenham Hotspur in August. In the intervening years he has gone from wonderkid to laughing stock to high-end centre-forward, all without adding a second senior international cap.

Solanke will not be Carsley’s first choice up front. The man whose shoes he was ultimately signed by Spurs to fill, Harry Kane, is the captain and undisputed number nine. Instead, he will hope to prove himself a worthy understudy alongside Ollie Watkins over the course of the Nations League games against Greece and Finland.

It’s tempting to cast him as Watkins’ adversary – two strikers competing to be Kane’s preferred back-up – but that does both the players and Carsley something of a disservice. Solanke isn’t in the squad to battle with Watkins for a place at the 2026 World Cup, but to prove that he can fulfil Kane’s role if he should become unavailable.

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Solanke is perhaps the only top-level striker eligible for England who can perform a facsimile of Kane’s role – the deeper striker who quarterbacks the attacks rather than spearheading it, dropping in behind the wide forwards to drag defenders out of position and link up play.

Watkins simply isn’t cut out for that role. The Aston Villa striker excels when played as far up the field as possible, playing off the shoulder of the last man and exploiting higher defensive lines. That’s the role Gareth Southgate had in mind when he brought Watkins on to score the decisive goal in the Euro 2024 semi-final against the Netherlands after the Dutch line started pushing up in the second half. It’s surely the role Carsley wants him to play as well.

Watkins will take over from Kane (or perhaps play alongside him) when England are desperate for a goal, or when there is space in behind the opposing defence to exploit with passes over the top. Asking him to play Kane’s role if the Bayern Munich striker was injured, say, would be forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Solanke, on the other hand, has some of the same attributes that Kane does – at least on paper. He has the upper body strength to hold the ball up, he’s comfortable dropping into deeper areas to pick up possession when required, and he’s able to link up with the forwards around him to dangerous effect. To make the comparison, Kane has 11 league assists in his last two top-flight seasons, while Solanke has 10, and Kane has only generated shooting chances for his team at a marginally higher rate.

Of course, Solanke has earned his spot in the squad in no small part thanks to last season’s goal-scoring exploits, when he hit 19 in the league for Bournemouth, and he scored most of those inside the penalty area, playing a more advanced role as a traditional central striker. The question isn’t just whether Solanke can do a version of what Kane can, but whether he can do it and still add the goals.

Plainly, Solanke is not as good a finisher or all-round striker as Kane, and that isn’t a disparaging remark. Kane is a generational forward who has scored more goals for England than anyone else in history for a very good reason. The question Solanke has to answer is whether he can do well enough if called upon to take Kane’s place in the crunch moments. For now, he will probably just be glad to have the chance to answer it after so many years in the international wilderness. Finally, seven years on, he is living up the old hype.