Lampard warns England to keep cool against Croatia

Frank Lampard has warned England to keep cool if Wednesday’s crucial World Cup qualifier against Croatia threatens to turn nasty.

Fabio Capello’s team can book their spot at the World Cup with a victory over the Croatians at Wembley, but the visitors are desperate for three points themselves as they fight for second place.

With England still sore over Croatia’s rough tactics during their 4-1 win in Zagreb last year and Croatian coach Slaven Bilic claiming that Capello’s outfit are a flawed team that lack “Englishness” it is certain to be a fiesty occasion on Wednesday.

But Chelsea midfielder Lampard doesn’t want his team to let any Croatian provocation distract them from the goal of reaching the finals in South Africa.

“We need to keep cool heads, keep calm, but also show passion and desire to win the game. There certainly won’t be tackles anyone is pulling out of,” Lampard said.

“I know Slaven from playing with him a few years back. I don’t take any real notice of that one way or the other. He is a top man, a real nice fellow, a very gifted manager.

“It is probably a few words to fire up his own team a bit, to get them going. It all adds to the spice of a big game.”

Lampard believes Croatia will still be formidable opponents despite missing midfielder Luka Modric through injury and defender Vedran Corluka through suspension.

“I think they’re two very good players,” he said. “Modric particularly is the playmaker of the team. I know what a good player he is from playing against him against Croatia and Tottenham.

“Croatia will miss them, but Slaven Bilic has said he has worked on the strength of the team.”

Lampard has no intention of underestimating the Croatians after their famous 3-2 victory at Wembley that denied England a place in Euro 2008.

But he believes Capello’s regime has transformed England into a far more resilient unit than the team that collapsed under Steve McClaren.

“You would have to be a fool not to see how much the team has gone on from that point two years ago,” Lampard said.

“That was a low point in all of our careers and in England’s recent history.

“It was a team of very good individuals who were very low on confidence, on that night and also in other parts of the competition at certain times.

“Now we have got a lot more confidence, we have moved on a great deal as a team, although not as far as we want to go yet.

“It was horrible to go out of a major tournament in front of your own fans. It scars you as a player.

“We all carried that around for many weeks and it hit us again when you watched it and we were not involved.”

Defensive errors in Saturday’s friendly win over Slovenia and last month’s draw in Holland have raised questions about England’s ability to win the World Cup.

But Lampard is convinced England’s back-four have proved themselves over the team’s seven successive qualifying victories.

“If you look at our qualification campaign, I think in general the defending has been excellent and we have conceded very few goals,” he said.

“Maybe in a couple of the friendlies there have been a couple of things we would not have wanted to happen, which were individual errors, but we take that on the chin as a group.

“We are not the finished article whether it is defensively or attack wise but hopefully we will get it right for when it really matters.”