Ben Gibson glad to have Euro destiny in England's hands

The Three Lions face Italy in their final group game on Wednesday evening, knowing that a win will be good enough for them to progress into the semi-final.

And after his man-of-the-match performance in the win over Sweden on Sunday, the Middlesbrough defender is glad that their destiny lies in their own hands whilst Italy must win in order to stand any chance of progress.

“Italy know they need to win the game, so whether that means they will come out to attack us straight from the kick-off, I’m not so sure,” said Gibson in his exclusive Vauxhall Euro diary. 

“Italian teams are normally really tough to play against, strong and resolute at the back and whilst it may be open as the game progresses because they need to win, I don’t think it will be that open from the kick-off.

“So it’s important that we’re patient from the start and bide our time to try and win the game.

“But we go into the game knowing that a win will be enough to take us through to the semi-final, so it’s in our own hands and that’s a position we’re glad to be in.”

Despite England’s territorial domination of the game against Sweden, they had to rely on a goal from Jesse Lingard in the last five minutes to secure their win.

But Gibson is not concerned by how or when the Three Lions make the breakthrough, as long as they get the desired result against Luigi di Biagio’s side. 

“You’re never going to win a game in the first minute, so whether you score early or in the 90th minute, it doesn’t really matter,” he added.

Gibson scored his first England goal against Belarus earlier this month

“To make sure we’re at our best, we have to step it up again from what we did against Sweden. We can’t rest on our laurels after winning one game, we have to improve ourselves.

“But it’s going to be a really tough game, as Italy have some great players like everyone else in this competition, so it will be another test for us to look forward to.

“We got ourselves in this position after bouncing back from the first game so it’s important that we build on it because if we don’t do that then we won’t get a result against this Italian team.”

Gibson and his squad-mates trained at the stadium in Olomouc on Tuesday

Wednesday’s game will be England’s third in six days, but there’s no complaints from the Three Lions camp over that after spending the best part of three weeks in preparation for the competition. 

“The games are coming thick and fast now and that’s a situation which suits the lads rather than long breaks between the matches,” he added.

“We’re looking forward to the games and we want to get on with it, especially after that first game, because we were so keen to put it behind us and get a win in the next game after that.

“We managed to do that and now we’ve got the result against Sweden, we want to go and build on that and try to get in the semi-finals, which is where we feel we deserve to be."

You can read all of Gibson's exclusive Vauxhall Euro diary pieces by clicking here.