England and Tottenham golden boy Harry Kane will play at the Under-21 European Championships, Roy Hodgson has confirmed after he slammed the argument that professional players suffered from burnout, according to the Guardian.
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The England manager claimed that Kane wanted to “finish the job” and that clubs need to accept that international players will face challenging schedules.
Hodgson said: “I’m not a great lover of the burnout argument, I’ve got to say. If you want to be an international player then you’ve got to accept tournaments take place in the summer at the end of the season.
“You can say: ‘What about Qatar?’ but that’s a long way off. In my lifetime in football, as soon as the season has finished, footballers have gone to tournaments. Anyone who wants to be a top-class international footballer and really believes he can help his country get to these tournaments can’t then talk about burnout.”
Roy Hodgson’s wishes that clubs should accept international players will play in a lot of games may fall on deaf ears, with Everton manager Roberto Martinez having already spoken about his wish for Ross Barkley to have a proper rest this summer. Barkley, along with Raheem Sterling, both look likely to miss the tournament.
The Tottenham striker helped Gareth Southgate’s Under-21 side remain unbeaten and qualify for the tournament this summer in the Czech Republic.
“Harry wants to finish the job he has already started. He has been a major part of their qualifying campaign for the last 18 months. He’s had to work his way into the team and in my conversations with him it has been pretty obvious he would like to play in this tournament,” Hodgson continued.
“We will miss him because he has done well for us in the last 10 days but I said very early on I was more than happy to accept Gareth Southgate would have the first pick of Harry, certainly, and that John Stones might come into that category. So if Gareth wants to pick them, that is fine by me.
“He is going to be important for Gareth and I would like to think that if the under-21s can continue to do well, and Harry can play an important part and maybe help them go far in the tournament, that certainly won’t hurt his chances in the senior team. I am happy to back him”
Kane’s involvement in the tournament will see him miss a friendly against the Republic of Ireland on 7th June and the Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia a week later.