Vincent Janssen today claimed he is ready to spearhead Tottenham’s attack in Harry Kane’s absence after scoring his first goal for the club following a £18.5million move from AZ Alkmaar.

Christian Eriksen was on a hat-trick after opening the scoring in last night’s 5-0 EFL Cup win over Gillingham but allowed Janssen the chance to open his account from the penalty spot.

The 23-year-old duly delivered before further strikes from Josh Onomah and Erik Lamela capped an impressive Spurs performance which set up a fourth-round tie away at Liverpool.

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino confirmed Kane’s ankle ligament injury will rule him out for at least “the next few games” – it is feared the England forward could be unavailable until November – but despite starting just one Premier League game, Janssen insists the opportunity has come at the right time starting with Saturday’s trip to Middlesbrough.

“I have been here now for a lot of weeks,” he told Standard Sport. “I had the pre-season here and the manager gave me chances. It is nice to get minutes and I am happy I will get a chance to do that.

“I am ready to play. It is nice to get my first goal but it is not the most important thing because I have enough confidence and if I hadn’t scored yesterday, for me it was sure I would score in the next game. It was nice to score the first one but it was not such a big issue.

“It is more physical football [in England] and you know that when you come to England there are a lot of players who like to play this game. I like it also so it is not a problem and I just have to adapt and it goes very well.”

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Pochettino’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation is expected to mean that either Kane or Janssen starts in attack when fit but the pair started together against Crystal Palace last month and the Dutchman is keen on developing that strike partnership when his team-mate returns to full fitness.

“I feel bad for Harry but if he is fit I want to play with him,” added Janssen. “He is a very good player. We played some games together and it went very well. He has a lot of qualities – he is one of the best strikers in the world so it is nice to play together with him.”