No one will be scared to face England in Euro knock-outs: Shearer

Former striker Alan Shearer on Wednesday said none of the teams will be scared to play England in the knockout stages of the ongoing Euro football championship.

"England manager Roy Hodgson says he does not fear anyone in the knockout stages, which is fair enough, but I do not see any teams being scared of playing us either," Shearer wrote in a column for BBC Sport.

"I do not want to be too negative but we have had three games at Euro 2016 so far and we were held by Russia, who are the worst team in the tournament, we beat Wales with a last-minute goal and we could not score against Slovakia."

The former England captain also chose to repeat that coach Roy Hodgson still does not know what his best XI is.

"I have not changed my mind about what I said on BBC One after the Slovakia game on Monday -- I don't think Roy knows his best XI, or his best system, and that is where we are struggling," he remarked.

"It is not a total disaster finishing second in Group B, because we can still get a favourable tie depending on who is runner-up in Group F out of Portugal, Austria, Iceland and Hungary."

Shearer also believes the team needs to improve on upfront so that they can score more goals or they might just crash out from the competition.

"But, whoever we are up against, we are going to have to improve. Roy says we are ready to give someone a hiding, and I hope we do, but we are going to have to click in front of goal pretty soon or the worst will happen," said the 1994-95 English Premier League winner.

--IANS

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