Gary Cahill believes Saturday’s World Cup opening defeat against Italy was "cruel" on England.
The Three Lions slipped to a 2-1 reverse against the Azzurri in Manaus as Group D got underway, with goals from Claudio Marchisio and Mario Balotelli proving enough to cancel out Daniel Sturridge’s strike for England.
Cahill said Saturday's defeat was "cruel" on England
But Cahill was impressed with the manner of England’s performance in the difficult conditions of the Arena da Amazonia with a number of chances created and some eye-catching individual displays.
"We can take a lot of positives from that," said the Chelsea defender.
"I thought we played well. We started the way we wanted to start and we knew they had players who wanted to get on the ball.
"They have some very good players but we started the game really brightly, did well and there wasn't too much we did wrong.
"Unfortunately we were on the losing team, but two good teams went at it."
Despite Italy’s winner arriving in the early stages of the second half through the head of Balotelli, Cahill felt it was England who were the better of the teams after the break and always looked most likely to score the next goal.
And he wants to take that sort of performance into Thursday, with England's attentions already being focused on the vital next game against Uruguay in Sao Paulo.
"I thought we had more joy second half, we had more possession, we were well in the game and I thought they found it difficult in the second half,” added the former Aston Villa, Burnley and Bolton Wanderers man.
"We had a feeling out there that if we'd scored we could have gone on...
"We didn't and sometimes it's cruel."
