Lampard confident of World Cup success despite England’s patchy form

RUSTENBURG - England midfielder Frank Lampard reckons that his team’s patchy form ahead of the World Cup in South Africa will have no negative impact on how they perform during the tournament.

“The Japan match was another warm-up game. Yes, it was not a vintage performance, but the second half was much better than the first half, much livelier. We played with a lot more intensity and moved the ball quicker. We will take the positives out of it and then look at the negatives and try and put them right for the first game,” The Telegraph quoted Lampard, as saying.

“We have to play with our style, which is quick and with pressure, if we are going to do want we want to do in the World Cup and in the second half we got a bit more towards that, but these have been two warm-up games and we have been working on a lot of things and training hard,” he added.

Lampard further believes that the warm-up games help the manager to identify team’s negatives, and provide chances to address the issues before the tournament starts on June 11.

“We have not been playing settled teams, people have been tried out and you have got to put everything into the equation. These have not been the games that are going to win you the World Cup,” he said.

The 31-year-old, who saw his penalty being saved against Japan to follow his spot-kick miss against Portsmouth in the FA Cup final, said that he is happy to continue in the role if required by manager Fabio Capello.

“I hope I am still the penalty taker. I never declare myself as the penalty taker. It is always the manager who decides. If he asks me to take them, I am always confident of taking them,” Lampard added. (ANI)