England manager Roy Hodgson has warned players they must focus on Monday’s final Group B fixture with Slovakia, instead of worrying about the knockout stages.
The Three Lions need just one point to secure qualification to the Round of 16, however a win would see them top the group with Wales or Russia finishing in 2nd.
Hodgson is keen for the England stars to retain focus on the job in hand, regardless of who they might face in the knockout stages.
“I don’t know if finishing top of our group is important at this stage, as you never know who you are going to play,”? he said.
“You might think, “?We want to avoid this one or that one’, then the team you don’t expect tops the group and the second-placed team is the harder one to play.
“We’ve not given any thought to that whatsoever. We will need to start looking after the Slovakia game.
“We are covering all the matches with our scouts “? our scouts are covering eight, nine or 10 teams – but we are not bothered by that at the moment.
“We have four days between games and my message to the players “? although they won’t need it rammed down their throat “? is that we need to win this one against Slovakia as well.”?
The England boss was visibly delighted when Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge scored a last-gasp winner against Wales on Thursday.
“I enjoyed that “? especially after what happened on Saturday night against Russia,”? he added.
“Had we won that game, I still would have jumped up when Daniel scored but maybe not to the same extent, as four points is really important for us.
“Beating Wales gives us a damn good chance of getting out of the group and if we get a good result against Slovakia we have a good chance of finishing top.
“Moments like the Sturridge goal can change tournaments “? although I don’t think they should have needed to, as our performance against Russia was sufficiently good and against Wales the players didn’t show any signs of particularly being daunted by losing those couple of points late on in Marseille.”?
If England do manage to beat Slovakia and top the group, they will play against the third-placed team in either Group A, Group C or Group D.
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