Gareth Southgate admitted that the past is the least of his worries as England gear up for their first home match in European Qualifying as Ukraine visit Wembley.
His side are looking to make it two wins from as many games after defeating Italy in Naples on Thursday, the Three Lions' first win against the Azzurri away since 1961.
Despite a dominant first half against the current European Championship holders, mistakes crept into England's game in the second period which allowed Mateo Retegui to pull one back for the hosts.
Southgate admitted that the reason his team faced problems in the latter 45 at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona was because "we kept giving the ball away, simple as that. If you don’t keep possession of the ball then you’re going to have to defend and we did that at the beginning of both halves… in the second half the errors gave them a bit of enthusiasm"
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Facing a "proud" Ukraine
What is going on in the war-torn country is well documented, and whilst Southgate stayed away from any political comments he did speak on the Ukrainian team and their resilience and pride to deliver for their people, but that didn't take away from his winning mentality.
He said "They’re very proud, we saw that at the start of the war when they went to Scotland and Wales for the play-offs. They’re a very proud group of players, totally committed to bringing enjoyment to their public and we of course have huge sympathy and support them in what’s going on but tomorrow’s a game of football and we’re fully focused on trying to win the game"
Sunday's visitors are yet to kick off their qualifying yet, but they did take to the pitch earlier in the week as they defeated Brentford B at Plough Lane, the home of AFC Wimbledon in an invite-only friendly.
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Luke Shaw suspended on Sunday
Following two yellow cards barely a minute apart on Thursday night, Luke Shaw will miss Sunday's fixture. However, that hasn't stopped the Manchester United left back in getting his hands dirty training with the Three Lions despite the option to leave camp.
Speaking about his first choice full back, the manager said "Luke loves being with us, I think he wants to contribute where he can - he was able to help us with training today as well so I think he epitomises the spirit of the group really. That togetherness and that commitment has been hugely important."
Kieran Trippier came on to fill in following the dismissal in the week with Kyle Walker staying on the right hand side. There have been shouts from fans for backup to be called into the squad with it on bare bones, but Southgate dismissed that.
"We’ve been training with this group all week, to call somebody from the outside would be potentially quite complicated. You’ve got no idea where they might be, what their training load has been over the last few days so if we were going to (call someone up) it would be from the under 21s but they’ve got a game today and we think we’ve got just enough to get through the game", he added.
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Ivan Toney set to make debut?
Brentford's Ivan Toney has been in pristine goalscoring form this season and was rewarded with a call up to Southgate's squad but has yet to make his debut.
Whilst the England manager liked what he saw from Toney, he explained how he isn't prepared to sacrifice the team's chances to hand out debuts, saying "he’s been very good, we really like him and he’s very much in our thoughts, the numbers we’ve got with us now. There’s always a dual objective, there’s a desire to see players but we’re in a qualifying group and the priority is to win the game first and foremost so whatever we decide is with a view to doing that".
