Malta v England - Harry Kane confident September's arrival will end barren spell

England's Gary Hill (left) and Harry Kane during a training session at St Georges' Park. Picture: Nick Potts/PA

Spurs hitman Kane has never scored a Premier League goal in August, an eyebrow-raising statistic for a player who has won the Premier League’s golden boot two years running with a combined 54 strikes.

He has hit the woodwork this term but has yet to find the net in matches against Newcastle, Chelsea and Burnley and is glad to be turning the calendar page, even if he is happy with his overall game.

“Obviously, for some reason the ball doesn’t seem to go in in August. Who knows why?” he said.

“I haven’t scored in August yet, so there is still room for improvement. I feel like I am in a good place physically at the moment, so that’s good.

“My job now is to try to score for England in the next two games and go from there. The Malta game is on September 1, so we’ve all had a little joke about it. I should be good to go now.

“I’ve had two very good seasons without scoring in August before, so I just need to keep my head down and work hard because I know the goals will come.”

If everything goes to form against a Malta side ranked 190th in the world, and Slovakia at Wembley three days later, England should have one hand on qualification. Maybe even two, depending on other results.

But Kane accepts the real measure of the Three Lions, who have sorely underperformed on the big stage for too long, awaits in Russia next summer.

“We’ve not won anything for a long time,” he said.

“We’ve had some good teams in the past but we’ve still won nothing. From our point of view, we’re in a situation where we’ve got to try and win something and that would be one of the biggest achievements in English history.

“The biggest thing is playing tournament football. But it’s producing on that big stage. It’s something that we’ve got to change.

“There’s nothing I can say in words that can change that.

“We’ve just got to try and prove that on the pitch. We will do all we can, work hard together and hopefully it will come together at the right time.”

“The most important thing for us now is to qualify for the World Cup and we can do that by winning the next two games.

“If that’s done and dusted then we can really start preparing.”