Alli: It’s tough but we’re all still confident

DELE ALLI believes England are ready for their last-four clash with Croatia but knows their task is not a straightforward one.

Alli’s second-half header secured a comfortable quarter-final win over the Swedes and set up an encounter with Croatia, who beat hosts Russia in a penalty shootout.

Yesterday Alli said: “Obviously last night was a great night. We have to relax now, recover properly and prepare for the next game.

“As a team it was a solid performance by us. It was a difficult game, they’ve shown in their other results that they’re a hard team to play against so to win the game comfortably with a solid performance - and obviously some great saves by Jordan (Pickford) shows how far we’re coming and how much we’re improving as a team.

“It’s going to be difficult - the semi-final at a World Cup, it’s not going to be an easy game - but it’s a game we feel we’re ready for.

“We’re confident but we know it’s going to be very difficult.

“But the way the tournament’s been going so far, whoever we come up against we feel confident we’re going to win and we have to be like that if we’re going to get into the final.”

Alli’s teammate Eric Dier also believes England can still reach new heights after securing their first World Cup semi-final in a generation.

Victory was just reward for England’s tenacity and togetherness, not to mention Jordan Pickford’s excellence in goal, but sober reflection might uncover areas for improvement.

England, though, are not kidding themselves that they have peaked and will return to their Repino base focused on fine tuning their game.

“I think we’ve developed very well here, we’ve showed a good level and had the right attitude, commitment and fight from the beginning,” said Dier, a late substitute against Sweden.

“But a team’s quality can always improve and we’ll try to keep getting better. We believe we can still improve a lot, so we will try to do that.

“But we have had the right attitude, mentality and willingness to fight.”

Dier may have been restricted to a handful of minutes off the bench in Samara but he has already left his mark on the tournament, slotting home the winning penalty against Colombia to end a 22-year shootout jinx.

Just as he had minimal time to reflect on his history-making contribution, so too do the rest of his teammates as they ponder another impossibly high-stakes clash on Wednesday.

“I got over that (penalty) pretty quickly, just getting focused on the next game,” he said.

“We have no time really to dwell on the past. We’ve got to stay focused. We’ve done that up to now and I think we’ll continue to do that.”