Joe Hart says the spirit and confidence within the England camp is high as the squad prepare to fly to Brazil following their final warm-up game in Miami.
Hart was speaking after the Three Lions completed their World Cup preparation with a 0-0 draw against Honduras in a stormy encounter in Florida.
Although the England goalkeeper admitted the 40-minute delay due to an electrical storm midway through the first half was frustrating, he insisted there were plenty of positives to take from the afternoon’s events – including a hard-earned clean sheet.
England 0-0 Honduras
International friendly
Sun Life Stadium, Miami
Saturday 7 June 2014
“We feel good. We feel like we’re doing the right things,” said Hart.
“It’s great having Stevie [Gerrard] and Jordan [Henderson] and the various players screening us which is good – but I thought we looked dangerous going forward as well, which is a big positive.
“We feel like we’ve had a great three weeks together. We really feel like a team – a good strong English team going into a tournament with every chance to express ourselves and do well.”
In what proved to be a stormy encounter on and off the pitch – Hart also said that he felt the timing of the delay favoured the opposition, and disrupted England as they began to take a stranglehold on the game.
“I thought they pressed early – their game plan seemed to be to come at us for the first 15,” he added.
“We got that out the way and we were just about to start slicing through them, so it was a great relief for them that the break came.
“But there’s not a lot you can do. You’d rather be safe than sorry and nobody wants to rumbling with thunder or lightning. We had to do it, but we came out and we got on with it.”
Meanwhile, England captain Gerrard said that the preparation games have been useful in giving each member of the squad valuable playing time.
And while he felt England are in a better shape than they were four years ago in South Africa, he admitted there are improvements to be made over the next seven days.
England captain Steven Gerrard admitted it was a frustrating afternoon for the Three Lions
“Everyone is going to be important,” said Gerrard.
“The conditions we’re going to be facing in Brazil mean it’s not going to be a tournament where we’re going to be using eleven players.
“The manager has already said that and the difference to this tournament to the one four years on is that we’ve got better subs, better strength in depth and the squad is better equipped to cope.
“We could have played better tonight. It’s a relief because we’ve come out of the game with no injuries and we’ve got another 90 minutes under our belt in the heat but there’s things we could have been improving on for sure.
“I think a lot of the boys are frustrated in there, but we’ve got a clean sheet, we’ve got no injuries and there’s a week to go until the World Cup – and we’ll be ready once that comes around.”
England travel directly from the station to the airport to board an overnight flight to their base in Rio de Janeiro – before facing Italy in Manaus in their opening game on 14 June.
