Even though England have suffered from back-to-back defeats in recent matches, captain Steven Gerrard has said that the team should go to the Brazil 2014 World Cup with belief and confidence. England have not won a major trophy in 1966 World Cup triumph and they definitely do not go into the 2014 World Cup as one of the favourites.

They managed to scrape past the group stages and qualify automatically courtesy of a good run of form towards the end of the campaign. This developed a positive belief amongst the team and supporters, which has come to a crashing halt after the two defeats.

Despite this, Steven Gerrard has said that they can go to the World Cup with belief and confidence by taking a look at the achievements in the past few months. Hodgson has managed to introduce a number of young players into the squad, and they appear to be the future of the team. Gerrard is likely to play in his last World Cup and major tournament for England. England have slipped almost close to the top 20 in the FIFA rankings, but the Liverpool captain chose to not look at the rankings since they do not provide an accurate information of the quality.

“We are not one of the favourites, we know that. But at the same time you have got to go into the tournament with a bit of belief and confidence, and give it your best shot. Of course there are better teams out there than us – you only need to look at the rankings where we are, but we have got to go in there and give it our best shot. I think these results will bring people a little bit down from where they were after Poland and Montenegro, there will be a bit of realism and perspective out there,” said Gerrard.