Harry Kane insists England team-mates must stop talking about winning major silverware and focus on finally finishing the job after latest World Cup heartbreak

Harry Kane

has told his

England

team-mates that the talking about taking the final step on the road to silverware must stop and the time has come to just finish the job.

Thomas Tuchel

’s squad still appeared in a state of shock as they left Miami following Saturday’s absurd 6-4 victory over France, which clinched third place at this World Cup.

The win secured a best-ever finish on foreign soil but the scars of their painful late semi-final defeat by Argentina are still evident.

Kane believes the manner of that defeat will linger for weeks and revealed that the group had been theorising over how best to deal with specific scenarios against the best opposition since losing the

European Championship

final to Spain in 2024.

‘The last 30 minutes of Argentina is not the team we want to be,’ Kane said. ‘We spent a lot of time over the last two years talking about that situation, to attack those moments. The bottom line is we lost anyway.

‘It’s easy to go away and talk about it. We need to get better at actually being in those situations.

Harry Kane has urged his England team-mates to prove they can go on and win a major tournament such as the World Cup

‘We have to learn, improve. The coach will have improved from these learnings. I can talk as much as I want but ultimately it’s about showing it next time we’re in that situation.’

Kane insisted that the Nations League campaign, which pits them against Spain, Croatia and Czechia from September, should better equipe England ahead of the home Euros.

And he has thrown his backing behind Tuchel amid fierce criticism from supporters and pundits for the way in which a one-goal lead against Argentina was managed.

‘It’s the enthusiasm he has, the emotion he brings, the tactical experience he has,’ Kane added. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re going to get it right every time. We want to get it right on the biggest occasions and he expects that from himself as well. He’s a fantastic coach.

‘It was his first major tournament. He’ll learn a lot from the players, the situations, the pressures, the travel. And the players will learn a lot from the other night.’

That the players had been discussing their inability to close out the biggest games before Tuchel’s arrival suggests that internally they will shoulder a portion of the blame.

Tuchel had appeared hurt by widespread condemnation, claiming that his first media conference since Argentina had felt as if England had been knocked out of the group stage without picking up a win.

England suffered a heart-breaking World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina

‘He not only gave the players belief but he gave the country belief that it was our year,’ the England captain said. ‘That is why it hurts even more than other years because everyone believed we were going all the way. Everyone has to process it. He has to process it himself.

‘We’re still in that grieving stage, the emotional stage, and we’ll be in that for the next few weeks.

‘It’s so hard. I think the fans are behind the team and are behind the manager. When something like this happens it’s very emotional – and rightly so. We’ve all been England fans when we wished we’d done this or that and it didn’t quite happen. That will die down naturally.

‘We had a lot of good things, a lot of tough situations we overcame. The group is incredible, the best England group I’ve been a part of in terms of togetherness. The boss was a big part of creating that as well.’