Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham have taken significant measures to improve on-field relationship

Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham exchanged just one pass during England’s draw with Slovenia

Richard Jolly
Senior Football Correspondent
Sunday 30 June 2024 03:06 EDT
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Harry Kane has revealed that he and Jude Bellingham are discussing how to build an understanding after two of England’s star men have barely combined at Euro 2024 so far.

Bellingham and Kane are England’s two goalscorers so far but they only exchanged one pass in the 0-0 draw against Slovenia and they have studied video footage as they look to dovetail better.

Striker Kane nevertheless believes they are closer to gelling and said he has no concerns about the form of Bellingham, who has had two quiet games after scoring the winner against Serbia.

Bellingham turned 21 on Saturday and the England players sang “Happy Birthday” to him at training but Kane has also had more serious conversations about how they can bring the best out of each other.

He said: “From a captain’s point of view, I am always talking to all of the players and with Jude we are always talking about how we can improve. We watched clips of the Denmark game to see how we can play better. We would have liked to have played better and had more of a connection.

“But I still feel like the movements are there. We’re moving really well and I thought it was a lot better than the first two games. The relationship is still fairly new. Even though we have played a bit together there’s still things we can both do better. We’re hoping that as the tournament goes on we grow more and more. From Jude’s point of view he just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.

“In tournament football a lot of things are accelerated really quickly. In the first game he was the best player and man of the match and in the last couple of games none of us have reached the level we really wanted.

“It’s two games. It isn’t the end of the world. I know things are being heightened and there will be a lot of talk, but that’s part and parcel of playing for England in a major tournament. Jude has dealt with that unbelievably well for his age. He’s dealt really well with going to Real Madrid for his age.

“So there’s no worries about Jude. He’s a great guy, he believes in himself 100 percent and from both of our points of view we want to go out there tomorrow and start stepping up our levels.”

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