Players’ action not ‘childish’, says Sven

SVEN-GORAN ERIKSSON has denied that the decision of the England players to boycott the media after Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Poland in a World Cup qualifier was “childish”.

Skipper David Beckham, the squad’s unofficial ‘shop steward’ Gary Neville and the remainder of the players ignored the written press, radio broadcasters and TV crews because of criticism leading up to the game.

It was understood that the personal nature of the attacks levelled at axed keeper David James, who was compared to a donkey in one tabloid newspaper after his poor performance against Austria, particularly angered the players.

But Beckham was also under the microscope after another uninspiring performance from the Real Madrid star in Vienna.

According to senior FA sources, Beckham and company took the decision to impose a media ban en bloc in the tunnel on the way back to the dressing room after the triumph in Katowice.

Victory was secured in part by a stunning Jermain Defoe strike, although the Tottenham striker could not talk about scoring on his first start because of the boycott.

Eriksson gave his total support to the blanket ban on interviews.

“Was the players’ reaction childish? Childish? Absolutely the opposite. I didn’t speak to them very much but they came to me and had the belief that the criticism had not been 100% fair during the last few days.

“They want to defend every single player in the squad. If they want to take that decision, they are right to do it. There are no limits at all over what you can call people in this country, I don’t understand it. Talk about myself, three and a half years here and sometimes...

“I try to do my job and that’s it. I understand the players, they try to defend all the individual players in the squad. I think there must be some limits even if you’re criticised.”

Eriksson conceded that criticism of James after his performance against Austria was valid but insisted: “It’s a question of how it’s done.

“Of course you’ll be criticised when he played as he did in the second-half and we lost a 2-0 lead. That’s okay, no problem with that.”

FA board member David Dein said: “I do understand both sides. The players feel very hurt at being personally criticised.

“On the other hand they put in a very good performance on Wednesday and they’ve got four points from two away games. I hope they’ve silenced some of their critics. They’ll never silence all of them, bring on Wales!”

When asked his views on criticism of himself, Eriksson said: “I’ve always told you I really don’t care, because if I did care about what the sportswriters and the others write about me I should bury myself down in a hole. I took the decision, ‘write what you want’ and I try to do my job.”

It is the first time that not a single player has spoken in the aftermath of a match since the World Cup qualifier against Germany at Wembley in September 2000 which led to Kevin Keegan’s resignation as coach.

But relationships between the team and the media have been frayed during Eriksson’s reign at times, most notably when the players were pilloried for threatening to strike over the decision to leave Rio Ferdinand out of the squad for last season’s game in Turkey after failing to attend a drugs test.