VIDEO: Homework pays off
Sunday, 27 March, 2011
Ashley Young reveals how training ground practice led to special second goal.
By Nicholas Veevers in Cardiff
England’s Ashley Young played a crucial role in helping the Three Lions to victory in Cardiff and revealed afterwards that some of the instructions relayed to the squad on the training ground proved instrumental towards the result.
The Aston Villa man was felled in the area by club-mate James Collins to earn a seventh minute penalty from which Frank Lampard scored, before setting up another of his Villa Park team-mates in Darren Bent for the second following a fluid move up the pitch.
“We had worked on that during the week and we knew there would be space in behind them, which we could exploit to our advantage,” he revealed to FATV.
“We managed to do that and the way we scored the goal was brilliant.”
With a two goal advantage in place after less than a quarter of the game played, that enabled England to see out the match and pick up the three points and Young was pleased with the team’s performance.
“It was a tough game and it’s not an easy place to come but we scored early, when Lamps stuck the penalty away like he always does,” he added.
“We got the second after good work down the right and Benty has finished it off and we knew we’d have to dig deep in the second half which we did and we got the win in the end.
“There were some good individual and team performances today, so it’s pleasing.”
Click here to watch the full interview with Ashley, in which he also discusses his role in the team today and the importance of the midfield’s performance in the win.