The hugely talented Birmingham youngster made an instant impression when he came on against Belgium on Wednesday and was extremely unlucky not to get on the scoresheet when his scorching free-kick rapped the underside of the crossbar late in the second half.

Darren finished the season in excellent form for Birmingham, crowning his term with that vital penalty to send the Blues into the Premiership. Now pushing hard for a starting spot for his country, Darren told TheFA.com he's raring to go.

 

"All I want to do is play games at the moment so hopefully I might get my chance against Ireland," said the young man with a big future.

"They are going to want to prove something to us and we've obviously got to win. England - Ireland games always have that rivalry about them so it should be a tasty encounter.

"So far we've been a bit unfortunate in both games conceding late goals, particularly against Germany when we seemed to switch off for the last three of four minutes to let them back in the game.

"We haven't really had the luck. Against Belgium we hit the bar twice and if either of those had gone in we'd have killed the game off but unfortunately it didn't go for us."

The luck has to change some time and today is as good a day as any...

England take on Ireland this afternoon at 5pm English time, 6pm local time. If we win and results go our way elsewhere, England can still top the group and qualify for Sunday's Final.

Should we finish second in the group, we will play in the 3rd/4th play off which also takes place on Sunday.

A top three group finish will see the young lions qualify for the World Youth Championships next year.

Stay logged onto TheFA.com for all the latest news and views from inside the England camp.

From Daniel Freedman in Oslo