TERRY AND FABIO AT ODDS
ENGLAND (2) vs SWITZERLAND (2)
● Capello: England’s poor show and Euro 2012 slip-up was down to tiredness
● Terry: We weren’t tired – what’s another game when you’ve played 50?
ENGLAND captain John Terry has risked the wrath of manager Fabio Capello by contradicting the Italian’s reasoning behind his side’s lacklustre display against Switzerland on Saturday.
The Italian saw his side miss the opportunity to take control of Group G and enhance their prospects of qualifying automatically for next summer’s European Championships by stumbling to a 2-2 draw.
Capello blamed the loss of two valuable points on tiredness and fatigue, but Terry rejected that theory out of hand and refused to hide behind such a flimsy excuse.
“We’re certainly not going to come out here and use an excuse like that,” he said. “We’ve had 50, 60 games this year so another game’s not going to make any difference at all.”
It is far from the first time Terry has aired his grievances with his international manager with the infamous press conference he held during last year’s World Cup described at the time as an act of mutiny.
Capello stripped Terry of the captaincy last February following allegations about the Chelsea defender’s private life before restoring him to the role earlier this year, which suggested the two had patched up their differences.
But Capello may take a dim view of his skipper disagreeing with him in public. Rather than tiredness, Terry blamed the concession of two first half Tranquillo Barnetta free-kicks – both of which goalkeeper Joe Hart should have dealt better with – on sloppiness and lethargy.
“They weren’t particularly good free-kicks at all, either of them,” said the defender. “We should deal with stuff like that.
“The first one, there’s enough of us in the box to clear it, and it’s gone straight in. So we’re disappointed with that one.
“I haven’t seen the second one. But it’s not about digging out individuals. We work on that as a team and collectively we take that responsibility.”
England immediately pulled a goal back through Frank Lampard’s penalty after John Djourou had fouled his Arsenal team-mate Jack Wilshere and Ashley Young came off the bench to equalise early in the second half with a fine low strike.
Striker Darren Bent then wasted two glorious chances – the second an open goal – to seal all three points.
Terry said: “I thought we showed an awful lot of character to come back in the game and give ourselves a few chances to go on and win it.
“First half, we didn’t really get out of the blocks and the tempo was a little bit slow.
“I thought the way we played second half was quite encouraging and I thought we had enough chances to go on and win the game 3-2 or 4-2.
“We didn’t get the luck we deserved but we’ve got three games left and hope to win all three.”
Montenegro failed to make England pay by dropping two points themselves in a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria.
The two sides therefore remain level on points going into their final three qualifiers, one of which will see England travel to Podgorica.
“We’re right in the race still,” said Terry. “We still need to go there and that now becomes a must-win game, so we’re looking forward to that.
“Absolutely [it’s a must-win game] – it was always looking like that anyway.
“We get four weeks off now, so go away, have a couple of weeks off and get going again. We need to pick up a win after this.”
Rose strike sparks England into life
A SOLO goal from Danny Rose helped England cruise to victory against Norway in their final friendly before the European Under-21 Championships.
Chelsea striker Daniel Sturridge put England ahead inside nine minutes and Tottenham midfielder Rose struck a brilliant second five minutes before the end of the first half. England begin their tournament campaign against Spain on Sunday.