Harry Kane scores debut goal as England ease to victory over Lithuania

Harry Kane enjoyed an international debut to remember as he notched his first England goal in a thoroughly comfortable 4-0 victory over Lithuania.

Tottenham striker Kane, who was introduced as a substitute after Roy Hodgson predictably declined to bow to public expectation and play him from the start, nodded home a second-half cross to extend a lead that was opened up thanks to goals from Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling.

The result means England maintain their 100% start to Euro 2016 qualifying and Hodgson's side have now won seven consecutive fixtures in the aftermath of a disappointing 2014 World Cup campaign.

The early signs looked ominous for the visitors in front of a capacity Wembley crowd, with captain Rooney eager to continue his fine international form and edge ever closer to Sir Bobby Charlton's long-standing record of 49 England goals.

Rooney signified his early intent with the game barely four minutes old, striking the post after racing onto a clever through-ball from Fabian Delph and deceiving goalkeeper Giedrius Arlauskis who had been expecting a curled effort towards the back post.

To their cost, Lithuania failed to heed that early warning and Rooney successfully converted his 47th Three Lions goal just moments later.

With Sterling having lost the ball following a collision with Saulius Mikoliunas, Welbeck collected possession on the right-hand flank and struck an effort that was parried by Arlauskis straight into the path of the onrushing Rooney, who reacted quickest to head home.

While Lithuania appeared nervous in possession and entirely haphazard in defence, England looked far more fluid in a 4-3-3 formation as opposed to the slightly more conservative diamond system that has been deployed by Hodgson in the recent past.

An enthusiastic Rooney hit the woodwork again after 19 minutes, sending a looping header back across goal and against the crossbar after Welbeck had beaten his man with a swift change of pace and delivered an inviting ball to the back post. Jordan Henderson fired over from the rebound.

A subsequent rare break from Lithuania ended with Deivydas Matulevicius steering Vytautas Andriuskevicius' cross wide and England created two more half-chances through Rooney and Welbeck before the latter doubled the hosts' lead on the stroke of half-time.

Henderson was given far too much time to cross from the left-hand side after a quick Leighton Baines corner and the Arsenal striker stooped low to head home a low cross via a hefty deflection off the unlucky figure of Tadas Kijanskas.

Lithuania, ranked 94th in the world by FIFA, will have been glad of a rest after a drab first-half effort, but almost conceded a third shortly after the break when Rooney lofted a delightful pass across the 18-yard-box to Delph, whose sweetly-stuck left-footed volley was diverted over by the forearm of Arlauskis.

The latter was alert once again to parry a powerful shot from Welbeck, who was then denied a penalty by referee Pavel Kralovec after going down rather easily under the challenge of Kijanskas.

Any hopes the Lithuanian goalkeeper may have held about keeping a second-half clean sheet were quickly extinguished in the 58th minute when Sterling registered the first goal of his fledgling England career.

Rooney was the architect, providing a perfectly-timed low ball across goal to meet the run of Sterling, who had shown evidence of his trademark pace when drifting into the centre of the penalty area before tapping home with ease.

Despondent and comfortably second best in every department, Lithuania responded by capitalising on a rare mistake from Michael Carrick, making his first international start for 17 months, but lone frontman Matulevicius could only blaze his hopeful shot high over Joe Hart's crossbar.

With his side cruising to another easy victory, Hodgson sent on Kane for his England debut and the Premier League's joint-top scorer did little to dampen the crowd's enthusiasm for him by scoring with just his third touch of the evening.

Sterling did brilliantly to evade attention and create space for a teasing cross and Kane nodded the ball over the line just 87 seconds after his introduction despite the last-ditch efforts of Arlauskis to keep the scoreline respectable.

England continued to dominate thereafter, but failed to create many further clear-cut chances save for a Welbeck effort that was kept out by a desperate Arlauskis after Karolis Chvedukas failed to clear sufficiently from a corner.

Such a straightforward victory leaves England top of Group E on 15 points with a hugely positive goal difference in what is proving to be a simple campaign to reach next summer's finals in France.

A friendly against a defensively resolute Italy in Turin on Tuesday (March 31) should provide a much sterner test of their qualities, however.