We will dust ourselves down

13 April 2012

It's often the case that you learn more from your defeats than your victories and for that reason alone, I believe the match against Holland was completely worthwhile. If anyone was getting just a little carried away with our run of results, then last night will have demonstrated very clearly what we have to do if we want to progress as we know we can.

If people were also expecting a largely noncontact friendly international, then they would have perhaps been surprised at how competitive it was.

I wasn't surprised at all. There's no love lost between the two countries in football terms and both teams had combative players.

Holland are about as good as you can get technically but they also have one or two who are more than happy to put their foot in. That is the mark of a good team.

Of course there is always the risk of injury and unhappily both David James and Martin Keown picked up knee injuries. It's desperate for David as he was looking forward to his first Premiership game for his new club while Martin was eager to emphasise his worth to Arsenal following the arrival of Sol Campbell.

All I can do is keep my fingers crossed for both players although perhaps Martin might consider resting his knee for Arsenal's opening match against my new club Middlesbrough on Saturday.

People will say that we shouldn't have played that game so close to the start of the Premiership but I don't agree.

We definitely needed a match before the big one in Munich and I thought Holland provided the perfect challenge.

The Dutch have given us plenty of food for thought and the good thing is we meet up again soon with plenty on which to work and improve.

Mr Eriksson made his point well in the dressing-room afterwards. He said that we showed them too much respect, especially in the first half, but that we bounced back in a positive way after halftime.

He also emphasised that now was the time for cool heads, that we had to be prepared for some criticism of our performance but to stay very much together.

Some people will expect our confidence to be hit following a defeat but I don't think so. We will dust ourselves down and crack on.

Of course no-one likes to lose but it would be silly to be over-critical. The team was, after all, a bit of a mix and we were missing players.

I suppose there is a possibility we could meet the Dutch again in a play-off but we truly believe we can beat Germany on 1 September and put ourselves right back in there with a great chance of heading our Group.

I am surprised, though, that Holland have had such a struggle in their qualifying matches. The Republic of Ireland will find out that they are not easy to play against, particularly Patrick Kluivert who floats around in a position which makes him tricky to mark.

Mr Eriksson has had his honeymoon period now. He knew, as we did, that the unbeaten run had to end sometime but better this month in a friendly against Holland, then on the first day of September in Munich.

By then we will be almost another three weeks on with our fitness and sharpness, the personnel will be different and we will have learned the lessons from this defeat.

Personally I've found the last few days a great challenge.

Germany are a different cup of tea though and we will be ready for them. Despite this defeat I am confident we will still go to Munich and do the business.

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We will dust ourselves down

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