The striker is unconcerned by his lack of goals for Tottenham this season and talk of tiredness as he focuses on England and San Marino’s porous defence

If Harry Kane is troubled by his goalless start to the campaign, confidence seeping away and experiencing the kind of pressure to which he seemed immune last season, it is certainly fair to say he disguised it well when he appeared before the cameras and the questions started about his shift in form.

Four games hardly constitutes a goal drought and there were three other occasions last season when Kane went just as long without scoring, en route to the remarkable 31-goal haul that has established him now as a mandatory pick for Roy Hodgson’s squad.

His most revealing line was that the one-on-one opportunity he wasted against Everton last weekend was “the first real chance I’ve had all season when I’d say I probably should have scored”. That was not a criticism of his Tottenham Hotspur team-mates, but it was a relevant detail at a time when he is being described as short of confidence in front of goal. Kane may not have scored but his argument is that he has not missed a hatful of chances either.

“I should have scored from that chance,” he said. “I know that. But as a striker you are going to get chances where you miss and, after that, it is about how you cope. Some strikers go down a bad path and lose their confidence but not me. I am still confident and I have a lot of self-belief. If I get chances in games I know I am going to score so I am really not too worried.”

Wales move above England in Fifa rankings for first time Read more

Kane did accept that his start to the season “could have been better” and there was also some advice from Alan Shearer, an England striker of old, when they took part in a charity match recently. “We shared some things because he’s been in the same sort of situation as I am now and he gave me some good tips. It was great to hear what he went through sometimes and what he did about it.

“He just said that you are going to go through games without scoring but the best strikers in the world just put it to the back of their mind and focus on the next chance or goal. Talking to players like that can only help me – players who have been there and done it at the top level for years. That’s what I’m aiming to do.”

The dreaded phrase that is threatening to fasten itself to Kane is of being a one-season wonder, yet he is probably entitled to think it is wholly premature even asking that at such an early stage of the new campaign. “I know I am more than that. I don’t think last year was lucky. I worked very hard to get where I was but I think it was always going to be the case [people would say that] because I came on the scene so unexpectedly.

“People were always going to wonder: ‘Can he do it again?’ But nobody should be thinking: ‘Can he score 10 goals in his first four games of the season?’ We will see at the end of the season how it is. Even if I don’t score as many goals as last year, I am playing week in week out. This is the first time I have started [games at] the start of the season. Last year I wasn’t even in the team until November so it is a new experience.

“I would like to have scored by now, but football doesn’t always work like that. I still feel I have been playing well, contributing to the team and working hard.”

San Marino should be obliging opponents for a striker needing a goal and Kane is untroubled, too, by the suggestion that the sapping effects of playing in the Under-21 European Championship might eventually catch up with him, with another tournament for the senior squad to follow next summer.

“I feel absolutely fine. I think it was always going to be a case that if I didn’t score early on in the season people were going to ask if I was tired.

“It was a great experience for me. I made it quite clear that I wanted to have that experience. The tournament didn’t pan out how we wanted but it was still great to be in that environment and, with Euro 2016 coming up, to play in a European Championship and see how it works.”