England release Harry Kane back to Tottenham ahead of Spain friendly

Harry Kane will play no part for England in their friendly clash with short-handed Spain at Wembley on Tuesday night (15 November) after Gareth Southgate confirmed that the striker has returned to Tottenham Hotspur.

Kane was unsurprisingly named as a substitute for the 114th edition of world football's oldest international fixture against Scotland on Friday, after marking his first competitive appearance for seven weeks by netting a penalty in the 1-1 north London derby draw against Arsenal five days earlier.

Daniel Sturridge, who deputised against both Malta and Slovenia as Kane recovered from ankle ligament damage, repaid the manager's faith with a first-half goal, while Adam Lallana and Gary Cahill added further headers.

That meant the 23-year-old's services were ultimately not required during a 3-0 World Cup qualifying victory over the 'auld enemy' that saw England stay top of Group F and Southgate take another giant step towards being appointed as Sam Allardyce's permanent successor.

Southgate intimated in his post-match press conference that there were no existing agreements with clubs to release any of his players early, but has now confirmed that Kane is heading back to White Hart Lane ahead of another London derby against West Ham United and next week's Champions League trip to Monaco.

There will not be a replacement called up ahead of that meeting with Spain, which represents the final outing of the caretaker manager's initial interim four-game stint in charge.

"Harry Kane has gone back to Tottenham," he told FA TV. "Harry reported for us last week, obviously he hadn't played a full game for some seven weeks. It's important that he gets a different training programme to what we're going to follow over the next couple of days.

"[We're] really grateful to Tottenham for letting us have him for the qualifier. Once we'd assessed our injury status and that fact that we were fine and covered and what we would do for this game, the sessions we are going to do aren't what Harry needs at this moment in time having had such a long lay-off."

The Telegraph claim that Kane's release is indeed part of an agreed arrangement, with Southgate only including him on the bench against Scotland as a contingency plan in the event that his side were left needing to find a late goal.

While he should be fully fit to face West Ham, Christian Eriksen's availability for that match is likely to be called into question after Denmark revealed via Twitter that the midfielder had sustained a minor injury after scoring a brace during the 4-1 defeat of Kazakhstan and was not in contention to play in Tuesday's friendly against the Czech Republic.

Mousa Dembele has already returned to Tottenham after being ruled out of Belgium's qualifier against Estonia with what Roberto Martinez referred to as a "soft-tissue problem", while striker Vincent Janssen was forced to withdraw from the Netherlands squad for their meeting with minnows Luxembourg after suffering a concussion against the Belgians that Danny Blind claims caused him to lose 20 minutes of memory.

Injured quartet Ben Davies, Toby Alderweireld, Dele Alli and Erik Lamela were all prevented from joining up with their respective national teams.