England ready for battle

Fol­low­ing the hard fought and nar­row 3–2 vic­tory against Sweden at the Olympic Sta­dium in Kiev last Fri­day, The Three Lions are now second in Group D. Next up for Roy Hodgson’s revital­ised Eng­land team are co-hosts Ukraine, who they take on at the 50,000 capa­city Don­bass Arena Sta­dium in Don­etsk this upcom­ing Tuesday.

Roy Hodg­son: “Against Ukraine, a player like Wayne Rooney can make a major dif­fer­ence and I am delighted to wel­come him back. If I did leave him out, all hell might break loose in the dress­ing room. I am happy that a pos­it­ive res­ult, draw or win, would see us through the group. I would be more than sat­is­fied with that. There are no easy pick­ings for us. Our goal has to be that we do not slip from these stand­ards and, hope­fully, the addi­tion of a player of Wayne Rooney’s class will take pres­sure off the defenders.”