England boss Roy Hodgson has told fans that there is no need to panic, despite their back-to-back losses in their international friendlies.
A weakened side were outclassed by Chile on Friday night thanks to a brace from Alexis Sanchez and then a stronger side was beaten by Germany last night due to a Per Mertesacker goal.
These results meant The Three Lions suffered their first back-to-back Wembley defeat since 1977.
Even though Germany were only playing a B-team, Hodgson believes fans should not panic about their own performances.
“There’s certainly no question of panic,” said Hodgson.
“If anything I’m much wiser, with regard to the players I’ve got at my disposition and what we need to work on going into a tournament.”
“I’m not prepared to accept that two friendly defeats in which I have used a lot of players in two tough games is going to take the shine off what has been a very good year,” said Hodgson.
“It has been a great year for the Football Association on their 150th anniversary and it’s been a great year for me because we have qualified for the World Cup.
“We have achieved our goal and we have a lot to look forward to. I am looking forward very much to 2014.”
Hodgson added: “You are always disappointed to get boos but there are not many games when the home crowd don’t get the result they are hoping for and there are no boos.
“If we want to get acclaim, we are going to have to play better and win matches. We didn’t play well enough and we didn’t warrant that.”
“Of course they’re disappointed – they came to try and see us win the game and we weren’t able to do so. But in the two games we used 20-odd players and didn’t attempt to win them by putting our best 11 on the field on both occasions.
“We tried to test a lot of players out and use these games as a chance to learn more about squad.”
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt – @AlexsArticles
