Tammy Abraham fails audition to be Harry Kane's understudy at World Cup

International football is about taking your chances because they do not come along very often - especially when that chance involves being the understudy to Harry Kane.

England’s attacking options for the World Cup are pretty much set with one clear vacancy: who will be the centre-forward to lead the line if, perish the thought, the captain is injured?

It was, finally, Tammy Abraham’s turn. The 24-year-old deserved it after an outstanding season. Scoring 17 goals in Serie A is not to be sniffed at, not in your first campaign in Italy and not in a side, that in Roma, only finished sixth. It was also a season that ended with Abraham winning a medal, the fledgling Europa Conference League, a competition in which he scored another nine goals.

So he was in form and he had earned the opportunity with Gareth Southgate at last deciding to rest Kane even though, predictably, the striker had made it clear that he wanted to start. Using Abraham against Italy made sense; he knew them, they knew him (even if his no-nonsense marker Federico Gatti, who upended him in the opening minutes, is on loan in Serie B with Frosinone and has not played in the top flight).

So Abraham had two first-half chances. Unfortunately he did not take either. For the first he intercepted a poor pass from goalkeeper Gianliugi Donnarumma, as England pressed and preyed on this young Italian team’s efforts to play the ball out from the back. The goal beckoned but Manuel Locatelli was quick to put Abraham under pressure. Still it felt he should have done better than slice the ball wide.

For the second, which followed England’s most fluent move of the first period, he used all of his 6ft 3in frame to rise and meet the rebound as Mason Mount’s shot cannoned back