As soon as the Three Lions walked off the pitch in Zagreb having lost 2-0 they knew the reaction would be harsh.

Of course at times the media take things too far, especially when the criticism becomes personal and vindictive.

But Neville believes the squad will deal with everything thrown and them and come back to prove everyone wrong.

He said: "Am I confident we will qualify? Of course, I am confident. We have still got to play Croatia at home and if we beat them it cancels out this bad result.

"We have got to do better against all the teams that we play against. But it is still in our hands and we are confident about the future.

"We have got a good defensive record. We know when we can defend well we can go unbeaten for long periods of time. But what was missing against Croatia was penetration going forward.

"Results govern what the fans and the players and everyone in the country thinks and right now everyone is disappointed.

"For the next few days, and rightly so and understandably, you come under criticism because the performance isn't right and I am sure people will come up for reasons for that. But ultimately it just wasn't to be.

"Sometimes over a course of a league campaign you do have disappointments and end up losing. We have to get over that now and put it right in future."

Much has been made of the reaction of fans as players left the stadium in Zagreb but Neville has seen it all before.

He said: "I don't think any fans or players are happy when we lose a game 2-0.

"We have to pick ourselves up and go again, starting with the friendly against Holland in November but obviously more importantly the qualifying games. We can't afford too many mistakes now.

"Over the next few days I suppose the manager will be criticised for playing a different system. But I think if we played 4-4-2 for the next three years he'd be criticised for not being flexible.

"You can't win. It is all dependent on results and performances from players and I've said that going back to the World Cup.

"You can talk about systems but the manager will come under criticism if he changes the system or if he keeps the same system. Ultimately the result is the most important thing and the players have to perform. That’s what we must do in future.

"We know we can fight back. We lost against Northern Ireland in the last qualifying group and then went unbeaten for a year. We've lost games before in qualifying. It is not something we like or enjoy or accept but it does happen."

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