Though the game is the first in a double header, England's thoughts have been firmly on the mind of tonight's first opponents, Austria.

Next up, England face a difficult trip to Chorzow to play Poland on Wednesday with another three World Cup qualification points up for grabs.

However for now the focus is on Austria and Tord thinks that the hosts will be tough opponents.

"I think we have to take this game first and do as well as possible for this game and then we will see after the game tonight what we are going to do against Poland.

"I think they will be very aggressive, very determined and they will work very hard because they know that if they can make a good result here," he said.

"At home they have a chance to qualify so they will work hard for a good results and a good start to this qualifying group.

"I hope the players a re aware that this is a competition game now – not like playing against Ukraine, friendly games, so I think we’ll be up for it.

"We have played almost better in the away games, so I hope we will continue to do that."

Tord also spoke to TheFA.com about what happens in the England camp on matchday as well as giving us the latest on the fitness of Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard.

"Steven is going to have a fitness test but he is rather confident and we saw already yesterday that he was much better and they couldn’t see anything on the scan, so probably it’s some small things - I hope he’ll be ok."

The England coach also talks about Carlton Cole and the impressive win for Peter Taylor's Under-21s last night.

To watch the full interview with Tord, click on one of the links below.
04 September 2004  
Tord Grip Exclusive