Life After Kane: Does England's Future Lie Without a No 9?
England's all-time top scorer Harry Kane won't play forever, and BBC Sport has raised a question Thomas Tuchel and his successors will eventually have to answer: who leads the line when he's gone?
The uncomfortable truth, according to the report, is that English football's production line isn't exactly overflowing with ready-made replacements. Kane's blend of clinical finishing, aerial threat and deep-lying link-up play has made him almost irreplaceable in a traditional centre-forward mould, and the current pool of alternatives doesn't offer an obvious like-for-like successor.
That's fuelling talk that England may need to rethink their attacking identity altogether, potentially shifting towards a false nine setup rather than searching for another out-and-out striker. Such a system would lean on movement, interchange and midfielders drifting into forward areas instead of relying on a fixed target man.
Nothing is decided yet, and Kane remains first choice for now. But BBC Sport suggests the conversation about England's post-Kane era - and whether a false nine is the way forward - is one that will only grow louder as his international career edges towards its close.