As Harry Kane held his World Cup Player of Match award on Sunday evening he might just have afforded himself a wry smile about the changing nature of the coverage around his performances.
For once again the captain was the hero, having scored England's second goal in their 3-0 victory against Senegal and having been involved in all three of their goals. Yet other than finally receiving some good service from his team-mates, Kane himself did very little differently to what he has in recent matches in Qatar.
The difference was the movement of those around him. In the group stage matches, Kane was also dropping deep to link up the play in the same way he constantly does for Tottenham and there are few better playmakers out there in the game. Kane clips crossfield passes and through balls that some of football's best midfielders would have pundits purring about them for.
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Yet for Kane he often finds his performances judged by the displays of others. For when you play with Kane you know that his ability as both a number 10 and a number nine means that when he pulls back deeper you will get the ball if you sprint beyond him.
At Tottenham Son Heung-min has benefited repeatedly from such link-ups and the Spurs midfielders have also taken the opportunity to burst forward towards the opposition box.
So when England's players were not doing that, so the criticism was instead levelled at Kane from the pundits, suggesting he was dropping too deep and leaving nobody for his team-mates to aim at. In contrast, during one of Spain's matches, Alvaro Morata was praised for simply remaining near the opposition goal as a target, with Kane brought into the conversation as well.
Yet Kane has created more goals than anybody else in this World Cup and he would have more assists to his name had others applied the finishing touch, such as Marcus Rashford when played through in the first half against Wales. Even against Senegal there were more chances, including a dangerous cross across the face of goal that Bukayo Saka might have reached had he gambled on it.
Jump to Sunday night and praise was gushing forth for the very same link-up play from Kane as he had provided in the previous matches, simply because this time the likes of Foden, Saka, Bellingham and Henderson were all running beyond him to take advantage of a world class striker's ability to create.
The irony is that if Kane received the same service he provides, his goal tally would be even more remarkable. Opta pointed out after his strike on Sunday night that the 29-year-old forward has now scored seven goals with just seven shots on target at the World Cup, the "most of any player with 100% of their shot conversion rate with shots on target since at least 1966".
Kane now sits just one goal behind Wayne Rooney's record of 53 for England. Rooney managed that feat in 120 matches, Kane is one behind from just 79 games. At his two World Cups, Kane has had 10 direct goal involvements from 10 matches, with seven goals and three assists.
The England players have played with Kane enough times now to know what he can produce yet it took Sunday night seemingly to remind them that they can profit from what he produces and Gareth Southgate has a team with youth and pace that is perfect to do exactly that. It's no coincidence that those around Kane have changed as the manager has tweaked the side to take advantage of him.
France will provide the toughest World Cup test yet for this goal-laden England squad but if Southgate's players can trust in their world class talisman more than the pundits do then they've got every chance of reaching the semi-finals.
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