Hodgson rejects easy England cap claims

England manager Roy Hodgson has praised the efforts of Arsenal’s Kieran Gibbs and Tottenham’s Kyle Walker following the Three Lions’ 3-0 win over Lithuania in Euro2016 qualifying on Monday. “It will be hard games but we will try to prove ourselves”, he said.

“These players in Vilnius, I am sure they will feel they have done enough to keep their names in the front of my thinking and that is all I can ask from them“. “Growing up I just wanted to be a footballer – captaining the country would be something you never thought about”.

“In tournaments matches are cup finals, one-off games”.

“Some players coming back from injury will mean we’ll have a lot of competition for places”, Hodgson said. But qualification was the main thing. This was arguably a shadow XI but were still easy winners. “I might have to have a few words with Thierry”, he said. “It’s about performing well, and if everyone’s fit, with the talent we have, we could do very well”. We’ve shown the togetherness and the will to win and we’ve done that. “But I did say to him that there’s a good chance he will be with the under-21s next time”. They didn’t let us down. “I think there’s no better man to advice you on how to get a goal here or there”.

“We will use the friendlies to learn, to see where we are”. If we concentrate and play properly we can do well.

“We were hoping that we’d have qualified by that time, and we are, so there’s no reason to complain about it”. With 10 points from nine matches, they have been competent over the course of this campaign, but lack the star names and the quality to trouble the stronger sides in Europe. We’ve just seen it with rugby.

England have tough friendlies organised against European champions Spain, Euro hosts France and world champions Germany before the finals. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain added a third in the 62nd.

“We know it is going to be a hard game”.

Igoris Pankratjevas did not hang around to give his verdict on the match.

He said: “Everything has its ending”.

Klopp’s first game in his new job will be on Saturday lunchtime at Spurs, who are unbeaten in the Barclays Premier League since their defeat at Manchester United on the opening day of the season.

England made eight changes from the team that beat Estonia 2-0 at Wembley on Friday with Joe Hart, Wayne Rooney, Gary Cahill, Michael Carrick and James Milner all left at home.

“Everyone is on the same page and wants to win games and that’s what we’ve done”.