England News

• Nickname:Three Lions
• Founded: 1872
• Manager:Roy Hodgson

• Ground:Wembley Stadium
• Capacity:90,000

Rio backs Crouch to shine

01 Apr 2009 - 09:02:20

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Rio Ferdinand has backed Peter Crouch to be a key player when England take on Ukraine in Wednesday's World Cup qualifier at Wembley.

The Portsmouth striker has the chance to shine after Emile Heskey, Darren Bent and Carlton Cole all picked up injuries.

The 28-year-old has not started an England game since the ill-fated 3-2 defeat to Croatia in November 2007 although he has made eight substitute appearances since that match.

Crouch has shaken off the knock he picked up in Saturday's 4-0 friendly thrashing of Slovakia and Ferdinand expects him to shine against Ukraine.

The Manchester United defender said: "When Crouch comes on he scores. If you look at his record at international level it's good.

"He poses a different threat than anyone else in the team and international players can't deal with him. He knows his strengths and, if we can play to them, then that would be good.

"If we beat Ukraine we'd be in a strong position but it would by no means be over. If we can get a positive result it would be great but we must keep our focus.

"It can quickly change from positive to negative so there's no room for complacency.

"We need to make sure we do what the manager says. The manager has his ideas and methods on how to beat Ukraine and we have to put them into practice."