England should stick with Harry Kane as penalty taker despite World Cup miss according to stats
- Planet Sport writer
- 12 December 2022
Harry Kane’s missed second penalty proved costly on Saturday – but past England spot-kick statistics show no evidence to support a change of taker.
It is the fourth time Kane has taken two penalties in the same England game and his first miss in those matches, while on the two occasions England have switched mid-match the second taker has missed.
Here, we take a closer look at England's history of multiple penalties.
Hat-trick Harry's spot-kick success
Three times on the way to his record-equalling 53 England goals, Kane has scored two penalties in a match as part of a hat-trick.
The first of those, against Panama, helped him to the Golden Boot at the last World Cup as he scored six times in total on England's run to the semi-finals.
He repeated the feat in a 4-0 European Championship qualifying win over Bulgaria the following year and again, scoring four goals in all, as England beat San Marino 10-0 last November in the qualifying campaign for the current World Cup.
Kane has scored 17 international penalties altogether, excluding shoot-outs, the only man to hit double figures for England - with his 21 attempts also a national record.
Frank Lampard is second on both counts, scoring nine out of 11, while Wayne Rooney and Ron Flowers had a 100 per cent record from seven and six penalties respectively. Alan Shearer scored six out of seven.
Kane has also been successful with both of his shoot-out attempts for England, against Colombia at the last World Cup and Italy in the Euro final. He is one of only 10 players to take multiple shoot-out penalties for England, with Stuart Pearce's 1990 World Cup miss against West Germany the only blemish on those players' records.
Double delight
Kane is the only player to take two penalties in an England international on more than one occasion, excluding shoot-outs.
Three other players have scored twice from the spot in one game, the most recent before Kane being Gary Lineker in another World Cup quarter-final, against Cameroon in 1990. Lineker, like Kane, had a late spot-kick to force a 2-2 draw - though that was his first of the game, with the second coming in extra time to clinch a 3-2 win.
Sir Geoff Hurst achieved the feat in his 'other' England hat-trick, in a 5-0 friendly win over France three years after his 1966 World Cup final heroics, and two of Sir Tom Finney's four goals in a 5-3 win over Portugal in 1950 came from the spot.
No case to switch
Some observers suggested Kane should have let somebody else take the second penalty but such a move has not helped England in the past.
Only twice have England had two penalties in a game taken by different players, in friendlies against Brazil in 1956 and Romania last year.
Marcus Rashford scored the first against Romania but Jordan Henderson missed the second, while John Atyeo and Roger Byrne both missed in the 4-2 win over Brazil.
Kane is the third England player to both score and miss a penalty in the same game, following Sir Bobby Charlton in 1960 and Allan Clarke in 1971.
These games cover the only instances in which England's multiple penalties directly changed the result of the match - Kane's miss cost England the chance of extra time, Rashford's was the only goal of the game against Romania and Charlton's successful penalty earned a 1-1 draw against Scotland in the Home Championship, though his subsequent miss cost England a win.
Clarke's two spot-kicks came in a 5-0 win over Malta.
