Lampard backs England to qualify

11 September 2013 17:31

Frank Lampard has backed England's returning stars to fire the Three Lions to World Cup qualification.

Roy Hodgson's men moved a point clear at the top of Group H with a 0-0 draw in Ukraine on Tuesday night, but the performance at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev drew stinging criticism from former England striker Gary Lineker.

The ex-Tottenham forward, who scored 48 goals for his country, mocked England's passing and described the team's overall performance as "awful".

Lampard argues that a point in front of a hostile 70,000 crowd was not a bad result, especially when England were missing a number of their top players like Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck.

The only way that England will definitely qualify for Brazil will be if they beat Montenegro and Poland next month, but Lampard is confident that the team will be able to do it with their best attacking players available.

"Playing two games at home and with the way we have been performing there lately, I fancy us to do it," Lampard said.

"We will have to tackle that one in a month's time. The first thing here was not to lose and it was a shame that we couldn't win the game but we have to believe in ourselves that we can go and do it next month.

"We all know how difficult it is when you go away in competition football in the group games.

"Of course we wanted to win but you have to dig in sometimes and we did that in the second half.

Obviously we will be stronger for the options [when Rooney, Sturridge and Welbeck return].

Source: PA