England captain Harry Kane praised his teammates for making Serbia “look average” after the Three Lions cruised to a commanding 5-0 victory in Belgrade on Tuesday (September 9).
The World Cup qualifying win at the Rajko Mitic Stadium extended England’s unbeaten run to five matches and underlined the impressive start made under new boss Thomas Tuchel.
Kane headed in the opener from a Declan Rice corner before Noni Madueke doubled the lead two minutes later.
Ezri Konsa, Marc Guehi and Marcus Rashford also got on the scoresheet to seal an emphatic win after Serbia was reduced to 10 men after captain Nikola Milenkovic’s sending off.
The Three Lions have had a near-perfect qualifying campaign under Tuchel, with Tuesday’s win being their seventh straight competitive fixture without conceding a goal.
This equals their longest-ever run of clean sheets, which was achieved under Sir Bobby Robson between 1988 and 1989.
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Tuchel also becomes just the fourth manager to win his first five competitive games with England, joining Fabio Capello, Ron Greenwood and Sven-Goran Eriksson.
England labored past Andorra last weekend, but there were no such issues in Belgrade, with Kane and Co producing arguably their finest performance under Tuchel so far.
What did Kane say about England’s performance?
Kane, who set the tone with the match opener, highlighted the intensity and teamwork England showed across the match.
"I spoke a lot yesterday about how we wanted to play – being on the front foot and being aggressive, and I think we showed our level today," Kane said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
Thank you for your support in Belgrade and back home tonight, #ThreeLions fans! 🦁 pic.twitter.com/YiNbGpcEdl
— England (@England) September 9, 2025
"Even in the other games, we did well, but we didn't reach top form. We scored five and made it look comfortable. We can be proud of ourselves.
"It has been a great camp and we are in a great position. They found it difficult to play. Whenever they did break, we recovered quickly.
"Overall, we can be pleased with the whole week and we will take this into the next camp. The energy has been higher and the level has been higher.
"We felt we had a good performance a few days ago. I know it wasn't the performance that everyone was excited about, but we did what we had to.
"Serbia are a good team, and we made them look average tonight."
England will next be in action in October, when they host Wales in a friendly at Wembley before continuing their World Cup qualification campaign away to Latvia.
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