Boothroyd salutes Solanke’s desire
England Under-21 boss Aidy Boothroyd revealed Dominic Solanke played through the pain barrier after his late heroics against Ukraine.
The Liverpool striker scoredan88th-minutewinner as the Young Lions clinched a gritty 2-1 Euro 2019 qualifying win at Bramall Lane last night.
It cancelled out Mykola Shaparenko’s 82nd-minute header, which almost earned the visitors a point after Sheffield-born Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s opener.
Victory kept England five points clear in Group Four and Boothroyd admitted that Solanke was nearly sidelined. He said: “Solanke had an infection in his toe. It was one of those injuries where you can’t get your boot on and we left it as late as possible.
“He was in a certain amount of pain, but he wants to play all the time.” Calvert-Lewin opened the scoring when he poked in James Maddison’s excellent deep ball just before the break. But England failed to find a second goal – and needed Jonjo Kenny’s superb clearance to deny Maksym Lunyov a goal – before Shaparenko levelled. Yet Solanke, who replaced Maddison with 13 minutes left, converted Ben Chilwell’s crossed with two minutes left.
England host secondplaced Holland in September, with four games left in the race to reach the finals next year.
Boothroyd added: “It was far from perfect performancewise. But to concede late on and have the character to keep going, we’re very pleased.”
Sunderland loanee Jake Clarke-Salter was an unused sub, while fellow Black Cats loan signing Ovie Ejaria sat out the game.