SWEDEN REACTION

The goal I scored is certainly up there as one of the best in my career because I don't usually shoot from them kind of distances.

But I thought I'd have a pop and it went in. I was well happy and it was a good start for us.

We played well in the first half. They played a diamond but Frank and Owen worked hard and got me on the ball a lot, going at the full-back. That's what you want if you are a wide man.

It worked really well first half, they couldn't live with us. Again, we should have killed the game.

I don't know why we couldn't keep it up for ninety minutes. We are going to have to go and have a look at that and talk about it. But overall it was a good performance, I don't think they caused us any problems from open play - just set pieces which is unlike us.

I can't remember a team ever since Sven took over giving us that kind of trouble from set pieces. We have to get that out the way. We've got the players to deal with it, we've got some of the best players in the world at heading the ball so I'm sure it won't happen again.

We are going to have to cope without Michael Owen. Things like this get thrown at you and if we are going to be world champions we are going to have to rise to the occasion and goals are going to have to come from everywhere now. Which they will do, I'm sure.

Losing Michael is a blow because he's a major player for us but there's no point moaning about it or anything like that. It's happened now. We have to come together and be even better players, even stronger players. We have to make sure this isn't a reason for us to go out of the tournament. We need to push on now. It's a problem but it's a problem we need to solve.

I think in our heart of hearts we thought playing against Germany now wouldn't have been ideal - but we would have embraced it I'm sure. We would have gone there and played well. Ecuador is a different game.

Just because people probably think Ecuador aren't a good side, we know all about them and we know they are an excellent side. We know we can't be complacent on that day, just because they aren't a big name doesn't mean they won't be dangerous. I'm sure next week we'll put in a good performance and hopefully win the game.

I've had a good start to the tournament and I'm loving every moment of it. But the business starts now. Although we're happy because we've topped the group we still want to improve and we still want to make sure we're in the hat for the last eight.

I think it was a good night for England. If you are top of the group at a World Cup it's good. We will have an extra day's rest and we'll avoid Germany.

Losing Michael was a big blow. But our second half performance was better than our second half performance against Paraguay, we still made chances and scored a goal.

They didn't trouble us apart from set-pieces. It's going well. If we had won every game three or four nil the pressure on us would have been immense. So let's just get our heads down and work hard. If we keep on doing what we're doing plus a little bit more, a little bit more digging in during the second half then we'll be all right.

Owen Hargreaves did well. He's come in for a lot of stick from the fans, which you never like to hear as a player. He's a top class holding midfield player. Whoever plays in the midfield is going to do a good job.

You have Stevie to come back in who scored a goal again and is world class. Frank is world class, Becks as well. And Owen has proved it too - you don't play for Bayern Munich for that long without being a world class player.