John Terry: fatigue not to blame for England's woeful draw with Switzerland in Euro 2012 qualifier

John Terry: fatigue not to blame for England's woeful draw with Switzerland in Euro 2012 qualifier

John Terry has contradicted Fabio Capello by insisting tiredness played no part in England's disappointing European Championship qualifying draw against Switzerland.

No excuses: John Terry has insisted England simply weren't good enough Photo: PA

By Telegraph staff and agencies

2:48PM BST 05 Jun 2011

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Manager Capello blamed Saturday's sloppy performance on fatigue, with many of his side having played more than 50 games this season.

But captain Terry, who last night completed a half-century of matches for club and country this term, completely rejected that theory, saying: "We're certainly not going to come out here and use an excuse like that.

"We've had 50, 60 games this year so another game's not going to make any difference at all."

Chelsea skipper Terry cited a first-half malaise as the key factor behind yesterday's result, with England falling 2-0 down to a pair of soft Tranquillo Barnetta free-kicks for Switzerland.

"They weren't particularly good free-kicks at all, either of them," said the defender. "We should deal with stuff like that.

"The first one, there's enough of us in the box to clear it, and it's gone straight in. So disappointed with that one.

"I haven't seen the second one. But it's not about digging out individuals.

"We work on that as a team and collectively we take that responsibility.

"We're out there together, we win together and we lose together. We were after a result, which we clearly didn't get, so we're going away very disappointed."

England immediately pulled a goal back through Frank Lampard's penalty and Ashley Young came off the bench to equalise early in the second half.

Darren Bent then wasted two glorious chances - the second a virtual open goal - to seal all three points.

Terry said: "Unlucky. I thought Youngy made a big difference when he came on as well, with his goal and with the chance for Benty. Some days they go in and other days they don't.

"I thought we showed an awful lot of character to come back in the game and give ourselves a few chances to go on and win it.

"First half, we didn't really get out of the blocks and the tempo was a little bit slow.

"I thought the way we played second half was quite encouraging and I thought we had enough chances to go on and win the game 3-2 or 4-2.

"We didn't get the luck we deserved but we've got three games left and hope to win all three."

Montenegro failed to make England pay last night by dropping two points themselves in a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria.

The two sides therefore remain level on points going into their final three qualifiers, one of which will see England travel to Podgorica.

"We're right in the race still," said Terry. "We still need to go there and that now becomes a must-win game, so we're looking forward to that."

The Montenegro match looks like deciding the group.

"Absolutely - it was always looking like that anyway," said Terry, after what was his final game of the season.

The 30-year-old is now "looking forward" to a holiday ahead of next season's exertions.

"We get three-four weeks off now, so go away, have a couple of weeks off and get going again," he said. "We need to get going again and pick up a win after this."

frank lampard, telegraph staff, euro 2012, open goal, free kicks, john terry, capello, tiredness, malaise, skipper, fatigue, bench, excuse, ashley, second half, switzerland, england, game, games, photo

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