Roy Hodgson plays down rumours of Harry Kane start

England manager Roy Hodgson has warned that it would be "dangerous" to assume that Harry Kane will make his full debut for the senior side against Lithuania on Friday.

The 21-year-old has been in scintillating form for Tottenham Hotspur this season and scored his first Premier League hat-trick at the weekend to take his tally for the campaign up to 29.

Photographs emerged earlier today of Hodgson holding a sheet that appeared to have Kane starting alongside captain Wayne Rooney up front, but the Three Lions boss refused to reveal his plans and slammed the "espionage" that sparked the rumours.

"That is dangerous to [assume Kane will start]. First of all it is dangerous to spy on those things at a training session," Hodgson told talkSPORT.

"The fact is that piece of paper is a piece of paper we take out to training because we have to select teams. I don't think it's right to suggest that in order to avoid this type of espionage I have to remember everything I have thought about but we change people around quite often.

"If that is what people want to read into the espionage that is up to them but I hope they are not going to come and blame me if I don't start with Kane and Rooney and say 'we had it on your piece of paper' because they shouldn't be looking at it in the first place."

On the sheet of paper pictured, Hodgson also had a midfield of Andros Townsend, Ross Barkley, Ryan Mason and Theo Walcott, while Manchester United pair Phil Jones and Chris Smalling were the centre-back partnership.