Roy Hodgson has confirmed Harry Kane will make his full England debut in the next few days, but refused to reveal whether the Tottenham striker would start Friday's Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania at Wembley.
Kane, 21, has been tipped to be thrown straight into the England team following his first call-up to the senior squad, with the Premier League's joint-leading scorer a natural replacement for injured Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge in Hodgson's starting XI.
Reports have suggested that Hodgson has been working on formations in training that have featured Kane as his lead striker, but he would not be drawn on his selection as he faced the media in a pregame briefing.
"I'm not prepared to give our lineup, but I'm pretty sure that over the course of these two games that we are going to see him make his full debut," Hodgson said. "People are going to have to see whether that is from the start [against Lithuania] or against Italy on Tuesday, or maybe coming on as a substitute.
"What I can say is we have been very happy with Harry this week and he has done well. I can certainly say that he has not in any way damaged his chances of playing in the full senior team this week."
England captain Wayne Rooney was full of praise for Kane as he prepared to play with Tottenham striker for the first time, saying: "The season he has had has been incredible.
"His first year in the Premier League, to score the goals he has scored and his performances have been excellent, so I think he fully deserved his call-up to the squad.
"We have seen in the last few days [in training] that he is a goal scorer and if we gets a chance he can finish. It's great for English football to have someone scoring goals the way he is."
Hodgson hailed the emergence of Kane as another example of England evolving towards a fresh new era, with a youthful feel to the squad fuelling Hodgson's hopes for a bright future in his team.
"If you look at the squad and you look at the age of the squad, we have a situation where Wayne [Rooney] at 28-29 years old with 100 plus caps, the next one is Joe [Hart] approaching 50 and lots of players who haven't reached 10 caps yet and haven't reached the age of 23 to 24 years," continued the England boss.
"We are being helped by some of the clubs who are starting to turn their backs on so-called big-name foreign players to give homegrown and young players in their academies a chance.
"Tottenham are a good example of that and were Southampton before. Harry Kane is quite rightfully getting plaudits and he is the best talisman for that.
"I'm pleased that people are looking into how we can make very good players in academies and turn them into top class footballers. At the end of the day, it will come down to how many managers are willing to take a chance on a player."
Sources told ESPN FC on Wednesday that Hodgson had agreed to allow Liverpool's Raheem Sterling to miss the Italy game next week as his club are keen to give him a rest ahead of crucial Premier League fixtures.
The England boss suggested a final decision on the squad he will work with for the second international on England's horizon has yet to be finalised, but hinted that Manchester City's James Milner is another that may be rested after the Lithuania qualifier.