Gerrard laments loss

Steven Gerrard has lamented England's loss to Croatia and labelled the defeat as "his biggest disappointment in international football". The Liverpool midfielder admitted it would take a "long time to recover" after the England loss.

Gerrard said: "From the player's point of view, we've got to take the criticism, get on with it and try to bounce back but it's going to hurt for a long time.

"It will take a long time to recover from this. There's a lot more football to play in the future and we've got to try and bounce back and try to get it out of the system.

"But this is my biggest disappointment in international football and it would be wrong to make excuses for what has happened. That's the easy way out. As players we've got to take responsibility.

"When you are 2-0 down, you have got to take risks. There was a big improvement in the second half and we got back into the game.

"But we should then have shut up shop. When you get back into it, you've got to see it out and take a draw.

"But we took risks and got done on the counter-attack. We had a mountain to climb and climbed it. We got back into the game and their third goal was disappointing."