Johnson looking forward
Sunday, 13 June, 2010
Glen Johnson says England's focus has already shifted to Algeria.
Glen Johnson says he and his England team-mates are already focusing on Friday's match against Algeria after drawing their opening game of the World Cup 1-1 against the United States.
England were, of course, hoping for three points against the Americans but Liverpool defender Johnson insists there is no cause for alarm and The Three Lions are still on course to qualify for the knockout stage.
He said: “It’s disappointing we didn’t win the game but the lads are quite happy with the performance and we look forward to the next game.
“The Algeria game is the most important now and we’ll worry about that first and see what happens."
Johnson, who impressed with his raids from full-back against the USA and came close to scoring a stunning goal following one weaving run, also revealed manager Fabio Capello remained calm in the aftermath of the game.
“The manager said he was happy with the performance and felt we were unlucky not to win the game," he added.
That's a view shared by David James, who said: “The manager was happy with a lot of the play. we created some chances and Tim Howard was man of the match. It’s a testament to how much pressure we put on him."
England captain Steven Gerrard has now urged his team-mates to show a big improvement, starting against Algeria in Cape Town.
"I wouldn't say this result creates a lot of extra pressure," he said. "It would have been nice to start with three points but we conceded a goal at a bad time after going ahead. It was a shock and a set-back to concede but I think we played ok.
"There's room for improvement and hopefully that will come in the next game.
"We went into the match very confident we could take three points and I thought we deserved to shade it - after scoring the goal the team played some nice stuff and we controlled big parts of the game. But there's room for improvement and hopefully we'll do that against Algeria.
"It was important not to lose. In the first game there's a lot of nerves, a lot of tension. Ideally we would have liked three points but we've got one and we move on."