Venables: No excuses

Assistant manager happy with plastic pitch

By Peter Fraser   Last updated: 16th October 2007

terry venables england pensive

Venables: Focused

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Terry Venables insists England will not be affected by a plastic pitch in their Euro 2008 qualifier with Russia.

Venables believes the plastic pitch which will host Wednesday's crunch Group E meeting in Moscow, a game which can be seen live on Sky Sports 1 from 3.30pm, will 'not have any adverse effect' upon the outcome of the match.

A win for England would secure progression from the group with one game to play, against Croatia on 21st November, and Venables is adamant his side will be chasing the three points in Russia.

There has been debate that the artificial surface could cause problems, but Venables says it will not be an issue after watching England train on a similar pitch at a training base in Altrincham.

"We won't be distracted by talk of the plastic pitch," Venables told The Sun. "It will have no adverse effect.

Negative

"We believe we can play good football on any surface so we must not let negative thoughts into our heads.

"We've trained on a similar surface in Manchester to get a feel for it but we won't be worrying about it.

"We are only concerned with one thing - a win, no excuses.

"We would still have a chance if we lost, but we don't even think about that as we know we would be up against it if that happened.

"A draw is not the end of the world but a win is what we want so the Croatia game in November is immaterial."