Eriksson confident England will be ready

Sven-Goran Eriksson insisted England would peak for the Euro 2004 finals despite being afflicted by tiredness in their penultimate warm-up game – 12 days before the opening group tie against France.

At the 2002 World Cup, England did not score once in the second-half of any of their five games and that failing was once again evident in their pre-tournament friendly against Japan last night.

Having initially played what Eriksson insisted was “fantastic football” and seizing the lead through Michael Owen’s 25th international goal, England were then over-run by their opponents.

Shinji Ono equalised seven minutes after the break and Japan came closest to a winner as England’s attack-minded midfield was outmanned despite the best efforts of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.

Eriksson has nevertheless reassured supporters that the second-half exhaustion was this time caused by hard training in the build-up to the fixture to ensure that the team peak at the right moment.

He declared: “The first 35 minutes we were excellent, brilliant, the best we have played for a long time.”