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Wilshere: England have set the standards high

England midfielder Jack Wilshere is certain that his team's performance against Russia in their opening Group B game should fill them with confidence before they meet Wales in Lens.

Wilshere: England have set the standards high
Wilshere: England have set the standards high ©Getty Images

England may not have taken three points from their opening UEFA EURO 2016 fixture but they have set a standard with their performance against Russia that they must now maintain in the Group B derby with neighbours Wales on Thursday.

This is the view of midfielder Jack Wilshere, who says the England players have taken great heart from their display in the 1-1 draw in Marseille, despite the deflating setback of a late Russian equaliser.

"We're in a good place," Wilshere told EURO2016.com. "Naturally, if you dominate a game like that and don't win it, you're going to be disappointed, but after sleeping on it and looking back on the performance we're happy.

Wilshere speaks to EURO2016.com

"We played well, we moved the ball around and kept the ball. In the past England teams have been accused of not being technically good enough, of not keeping the ball, and we showed that we are good enough.

"We just need to maintain our standards that we're setting. Against Russia, of course, we need to look at the goal and analyse what went wrong there, but apart from that the performance was brilliant."

Wilshere, speaking on Sunday evening prior to a training session following the squad's return to Chantilly, added that Chris Coleman's Wales side will hold no surprises for England, given the close ties between these football nations. Wales are the early group leaders after a 2-1 victory over Slovakia but England will start as favourites and Wilshere said: "We know what we've got to do.

"A lot of their players play in the Premier League and we've played against them previously so we know them well and we know what their threat is. They want to hit us on the counterattack and we obviously know the threat of Gareth Bale, but we've got to concentrate on ourselves, we've got to replicate the performance from last night, and we're confident we can win the game."

Dier reflects on Russia draw

The background noise around this British derby in Lens has so far included manager Roy Hodgson replying in Monday's English newspapers to a Gareth Bale comment about England's footballers lacking the passion of their Welsh counterparts. It was not a lack of passion that cost them two points in Marseille but a failure to take their chances and a late lapse in concentration.

Whether Hodgson – who gave his players a day off on Monday – is moved to make changes on Thursday remains to be seen, though one player watching from the sidelines at the weekend, Daniel Sturridge, offered a reminder of his technical excellence with a goal in training on Sunday with echoes of his UEFA Europa League final strike for Liverpool against Sevilla. 

Wilshere himself had 12 minutes on the field at the Stade Vélodrome as a replacement for Wayne Rooney, whose impressive efforts in his new midfield role mean the Arsenal man is likely to begin on the bench again on Thursday.

Wilshere continued: "You saw in the performance that everyone wants to play, everyone wants to show the manager that he's ready to play, and it's the same in training – the standard is really high. It's a good problem for the manager to have.

"I feel good, I feel sharp. I've been back a while now and I've got a good number of games under my belt and feel sharp."