England

2-2

Spain

David Nugent 50, Leroy Lita 79

 

Roberto Soldado Rillo 35, Jose M Jurado Marin 45


Under-21 International Friendly
8pm, Tuesday 6 February 2007
Pride Park, Derby County FC

Stuart Pearce was pleased with the second-half response from his players as they came from two goals down to draw with Spain in Derby.

David Nugent and Leroy Lita, who between them have scored 12 club goals since the turn of the year, were both on target as England’s Under-21s extended their unbeaten run to seven matches.

The Manchester City manager was taking charge of his first Three Lions game as they build-up to this summer’s UEFA European Under-21 Championship in Holland. He was full of praise for the first half performance of Spain, who haven’t qualified for the Finals, but was delighted to see England’s fighting spirit come through after the interval.

“For 45 minutes the Spanish were outstanding, their interchange of play was very good and we were very tentative, they put us on the back foot,” he said.

“At half time I said to the players that possibly the bloody nose, in footballing terms, that we had in the first half will stand us in good stead come the tournament this summer.

“It’s how you respond to that and the lessons you pick up from that. In the second half they came out and said ‘we, as a group of players, are going to go out and do something about this’. And they took their chances and created more opportunities.

“One thing that we know is the tough times in football will help you more so than picking a nice little friendly this evening that you win three or four nil, we all then think that going into the Championship will be a cake walk,” he added.

“You’ve got to bear in mind that in our group is Italy who knocked this mob out.

“I’ve been around football so long to suggest that, if you are going to win anything, whatever level you’re playing at, you’ve got to work extremely hard to do so. You’ve got to have a touch of luck on the day, you’ve got to stay in matches when your backs are against the wall, like we did today.

“You’ve got to take your chances when they arise, like we did today, and you’ve got to learn the lessons from the bad times you have during 90 minutes and improve on it.”

Pearce was keen to retain the formation that had served Peter Taylor well in the qualifiers, without too many alterations. Despite Lita hitting the net twice for Reading against his City side on Saturday, he resisted the temptation to play him from the start, keeping Nugent in place as the target man.

He was also rewarded by the performance of Blackburn’s David Bentley, recalled to the squad for the first time since September.

“Credit to the players, they’ve gone out in the second half and they looked the more likely to win the game, but it was a very tough test for our team,” continued Pearce, who himself played once for the Under-21s before claiming 78 senior caps.

“I thought David Bentley was outstanding for 90 minutes and one or two of our other players certainly grew in stature as the game went on.

“I said to them all when we met up that they’d all have some involvement between now and the start of the Championship, for the ones who didn’t start tonight, they’ll be involved in one of the next two games.

“When they do get playing time, the players need to stake a claim, they need to push me in a direction of a starting position and I certainly think Leroy done himself an immense favour by what he did when he came on. I thought he was outstanding.”

He added: “I’ve taken over a squad that’s done extremely well, David Nugent’s done well over a period of time in the qualification campaign and I thought it was important, that rather than making wholesale changes, as they’ve got a lovely spirit, we just added to it.

“With Leroy coming on it just added to that and gave us a lift and getting his goal will stand him in good stead.”