Eric Dier disappointed by England's World Cup defeat to Belgium
Friday 29 June 2018 10:06, UK
Eric Dier says England will not allow the disappointment of their defeat to Belgium to detract from their progress to the last 16 of the World Cup.
After kicking off the campaign with back-to-back wins over Tunisia and Panama, the Three Lions stumbled to a 1-0 loss in Kaliningrad on Thursday night.
With qualification assured, both sides made sweeping changes to their previous starting teams. It was Belgium who maintained their perfect record, taking the points when former Manchester United winger Adnan Januzaj scored brilliantly in the second half.
The result leaves England facing Colombia in the first knockout round on Tuesday.
"No matter what, we're disappointed we've lost but the most important thing is that we're through to the next round," said Dier, who captained England in the absence of the rested Harry Kane.
"We want to win every game and we're disappointed we couldn't do that.
"We created some good chances. We needed to finish one of them, that was all that was missing really.
"Belgium have a lot of players with a lot of quality and the game was decided by a piece of great quality."
The pre-match talk had revolved around second place in the Group G offering a simpler route through the knockout stages but Colombia are no pushovers.
Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold, who made his competitive debut in place of Kieran Trippier, added: "Colombia will be very tough. We're fully focused.
"In a World Cup you're going to come up against the best teams in the world. Every team who has got to the round of 16 has deserved to, so there are no easy games that we can see ahead of us."
