England secured a spot among the six top seeds for next year's Euro Cup with a 4-0 victory over Kosovo on Sunday, in which their captain Harry Kane scored his twelfth goal of the campaign.

The England national team played most of the match at half throttle and Harry Winks put them ahead at the 32nd minute, but goals from Kane, Marcus Rashford, and Mason Mount near the end brought the team's total to 37 goals in the eight qualifying matches.

England had already qualified for Euro 2020, which will hold its semifinals and final at Wembley, and finished first in Group A with 21 points. Their only loss came last month when they were defeated 2-1 by Czech Republic, who qualified as the second team in the group.

Kosovo finished in third place with 11 points. Their chances of automatic qualification vanished after they lost 2-1 to the Czechs on Thursday, but they could still advance through the playoffs.

"It was a tough game and a good test for us," said England manager Gareth Southgate. "It was a difficult pitch, players were slipping, passes were going astray," he added.

"We needed a tougher game and a challenge. I'm glad we found that. We had to withstand periods of pressure and gave them opportunities – on another night that could have been a problem. But in attack we were ruthless," he said.

England needed some time to impose their terms on the match but opened the scoring when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain sent a pass to Winks, who had all the time and space necessary to place the ball into the bottom corner of the near post and score his first goal for the national team.

Kosovo had exposed England's defensive weaknesses when they lost 5-3 in their visit to St Mary's Stadium in Southampton in September. (D)