World Cup: Steven Gerrard admits England are clutching at straws to make next round
Steven Gerrard admits England are now “clutching at straws” after their defeat to Uruguay last night.
England have now lost both their opening World Cup games, and Gerrard admits that while he’ll never give up, England now find themselves clutching at straws to avoid a World Cup group stage exit.
Gerrard’s Liverpool team-mate Luis Suarez scored twice to condemn England to a second successive 2-1 defeat and they could be eliminated from the tournament as early as on Friday night if Italy fail to beat Costa Rica.
The Azzurri beat England on Saturday night but while Gerrard has first-hand knowledge of their powers, he concedes relying on them to win their next two games is not the position in which the national side wanted to be.
“Italy are a fantastic team and capable of winning both games but we’re clutching at straws,” the Three Lions captain said.
“The position we’re in is the position we didn’t want to be in coming into the tournament, relying on other people’s results. It’s very difficult at the moment.
“We’ll have to wait and see what happens in tomorrow’s fixture. The manager will have to wait and see what happens before deciding what he is going to do.
“If there’s nothing to play for then I don’t know if he’ll play a completely different team. But it’s a very tough moment, at this moment.”
Even if Italy do beat Costa Rica, progression will still be out of England’s hands because they would then need Uruguay to lose to the Italians and win their final game against Costa Rica.
