England fear no-one after opening round of World Cup 2018 fixtures, warns Harry Maguire

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Simon Johnson19 June 2018

Harry Maguire says England don’t fear anyone at the World Cup especially with Harry Kane already among the goals and firing them to their first victory.

Kane scored in each half, the second in injury time, to give Gareth Southgate’s side a vital 2-1 win over Tunisia.

England’s match in Group G fell on the penultimate day of opening round fixtures in the competition and Maguire reveals that the squad have tuned in to see some of the favourites in action.

Speaking to Standard Sport, he said: “There are some top, top teams at the World Cup but none that we are going to fear.

“We have been watching a lot of the big teams so far, including the Portugal match with Spain. That was excellent and set the standard.

“But we created numerous chances against Tunisia. You see the other big teams and they haven’t had anywhere near as many as we made. We have to take a lot of positives from that.

“We have confidence among ourselves anyway. We are not getting carried away, it is just one game. There are two group games left to play, two that we have to go out and win.”

Kane provoked a strong reaction in some quarters on the eve of the clash with Tunisia by suggesting he was targeting a hat-trick against Tunisia to draw level with Cristano Ronaldo in the race for the Golden Boot.

Other top strikers like Diego Costa, Romelu Lukaku and Antoine Griezmann had also found the net so far.

But Kane, who put memories of failing to score at Euro 2016 behind him, showed he is among the elite with two neat finishes from close range.

Maguire feels he has sent out a major statement of intent and added: “No-one will want to face him. He is a top, top player.

“After two goals in his first game, I’m sure he will already be thinking ‘can I get more, can I keep this up?’

“Let’s see where the momentum takes him. If Harry keeps scoring goals then we have a chance of winning the whole thing. Long may it continue.

“People see players like Ronaldo and Costa and regard them as forwards that can make the difference. We look at Kane the same way.

In Pictures | Tunisia vs England, World Cup | 18.06.2018

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“He has proved for the last three-four years in the Premier League that he is right up there at the top. We know that if we get the service to him, he will get us goals in this World Cup. It’s about breaking teams down and when we do get the opportunity, get him on the ball.

“Harry is always involved, he’s always on the move in the box and he’s just so hard to mark. You saw for both his goals, it was clever movement from him, he finds himself that yard.

“If you look at the game, he gets marked so tightly. He gets two people on him all the time and it’s quite tough for him. But he’s got that ability to get away from them and he’s very hard to mark as a defender.”

England’s thrilling climax to the game was in stark contrast to their opening encounter at Euro 2016, when a late equaliser from Russia denied them three points.

Kane’s intervention was all the more significant as Southgate’s men had missed a number of chances in the first half to win in emphatic fashion.

Assist: Maguire set up Kane's late winner
Getty Images

They also felt victims of VAR decisions not going their way - firstly when a penalty awarded against Kyle Walker for a challenge on Ben Youssef was not overturned and Ferjani Sassi levelled the scores from the spot.

However, images also showed Kane wrestled to the ground off the ball in the area at two set pieces, which wasn’t spotted by referee Wilmer Roldan and yet VAR didn’t intervene.

Maguire admits the nature of their triumph has given them even more hope about making an impact in Russia.

“It is really important for us to show that character. We have proved to ourselves that we can recover from setbacks and that is something we can take with us into the rest of the tournament.

“We have seen a replay of the penalty, we feel it’s really soft. We found it really tough to come back from that because we should have had the game won by then, it effected us for the next 10 minutes.

“We had a game-plan, we knew we had to stay strong mentally and stick with it. By coming back to win, it gives us great momentum going into the next matches. That is really important for ourselves.”

The biggest negative of the night was Dele Alli coming off with a thigh injury, which has made the midfielder a doubt for the match against Panama on Sunday.

The Spurs star will have a scan, but when asked by Standard Sport about the severity of the problem as he left the Volgograd Arena, he appeared to downplay any concern by insisting ‘it’s alright’.

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