Terry welcomes Spain 'lessons'

Captain John Terry believes England have learnt lessons from their defeat against Euro 2008 winners Spain and are “going in the right direction” to again be a formidable force in world football.

England’s bubble was burst with the 2-0 defeat in Seville last month after an unblemished start to their World Cup qualifying campaign.

Now they face a testing friendly against Slovakia at Wembley this evening before the next qualifier against Ukraine at the same venue on Wednesday.

Terry said: “We had a little bit of a shock in the last game against Spain. It was a bit of an eye opener.

“We have looked again at that game. Spain are one of the best teams in the world at the moment.

“They play some great football and on that occasion it was difficult to get close and press them as we would have liked. We would have learnt from that.”