Harry Kane not concerned by England’s friendly loss to Spain

Spain struck twice in the final 20 minutes as goals from Mario Gaspar and Santi Cazorla ended England’s 15-match unbeaten run in Alicante on Friday.

England will also play Germany and the Netherlands in March, while Spain will face Italy and Romania that same month in preparations for Euro 2016. “But to win the game we would have to do better”.

Neither captain Iker Casillas in the Spain goal nor his England counterpart Joe Hart were much troubled before Cesc Fabregas lifted the ball over the England defence for Gaspar to strike in the 72nd minute at the Jose Rico Perez stadium.

The England captain will not start Friday’s friendly against Spain in Alicante, with manager Roy Hodgson expected to pair the in-form Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane and Everton midfielder Ross Barkley in attack. “We have to learn a lesson from it, and remember that playing against teams of this quality, you can not afford to make any technical mistakes in wrong areas, as you’ll get punished”.

Spain’s Bayern Munich midfielder Thiago Alcantara has withdrawn from the European champions’ squad for Tuesday’s friendly against Belgium after injuring his right knee against England.

“France will be tough, they have got a few great players as well, but we’ve just got to stay confident, stay focused and do the right things”.

“It’s good to test ourselves and we gain a lot from it, a lot of experience and we know what we need to work on”.

“It doesn’t look good – he has severely twisted ankle, [which] normally means ligament damage, but we won’t know until X-ray or scan tomorrow”. “We’ve certainly got the pace to do that if that’s the route we want to go down”.

“The gap might be a gap in terms of their style of play, which is very possession-based, and our style of play, which is probably less possession-based”, he told the press following the friendly.

“For 70 minutes we were well in the game but goals change games, it was a special goal and it opened it up”.

“It is a prestigious result against a very strong team that threatened us the whole game”, said Spain coach Vicente del Bosque.

After the match, the Atletico Madrid player’s focus was occupied by the well-being of his sister Maud, who was at the concert by the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal.