Saturday 16th June

Monday 18th June 2012

Shay Given has hit back at suggestions made by Roy Keane that the Republic of Ireland’s attitude towards the tournament was all wrong and that the supporters were just seeing the Euros as a place to have a good old ‘sing, song’. The Aston Villa keeper felt that the Emerald Isle support deserved to enjoy themselves as they have waited a long time to be in a top international tournament, but the player’s attitude was right and they were totally focused in attempting to get as many points as possible to get out of the group and progress within the tournament.

Ukraine 0-2 France

France moved to within a point of qualifying for the last eight of Euro 2012 beating co-hosts Ukraine in Donetsk after an electrical storm threatened to abandon the game.

Dutch Bjorn Kuipers was forced to bring a halt to proceedings in the fourth minute as a torrential downpour and lightening pounded the Donbass Arena and the pitch soon became unplayable amid concerns over the safety of the players and fans. Play resumed an hour later but it took until the second half for France to make the breakthrough as Jeremy Menez scored from close range on 53 minutes before Yohan Cabaye sealed the win three minutes later with a neat finish. It was harsh on Ukraine who had chances of their own but paid the price for poor defending on both goals and must home England are held by Sweden to keep their hopes of progressing to the quarter finals ahead of their meeting with Roy Hodgson’s men on Tuesday.

Match Highlights Here

England 3-2 Sweden

Theo Walcott jumped off the bench to inspire England to victory over Sweden in Group D and move them a step closer to the Euro 2012 knock-out stage.

England had failed to beat Sweden in seven previous competitive meetings and that looked like being extended to an eighth in Kyiv after Olaf Mellberg second half double cancelled out Andy Carroll ‘s headed opener before the break. Roy Hodgson threw Walcott on in the aftermath of Sweden’s second and his impact was immediate as he  smashed an unstoppable strike past Andreas Isaksson before setting up Danny Welbeck for the winner to leave them just a point away from the last eight and send Erik Hamsen’s home.

Match Highlights Here

England Watch

Roy Hodgson was delighted with England’s comeback against Sweden; however revealed to the press that he is still learning about the strengths of individuals within his squad and finding areas of improvement:

“You've seen them play for England on so many occasions,” Hodgson told reporters.

“I've worked with them for one month and I'm still learning about what they're good at and finding areas for improvement.  I was very pleased with the performance of the two front players, and of course Theo's contribution was enormous.”

“To come on as a sub and score such a good goal and set up a winner, he's got to be very pleased with his contribution.”

Theo Walcott certainly was happy with his performance and hope there is more to come from him:

“I wouldn't say I was the game changer. We felt from the first game we wanted to pick it up a bit more offensively and to score three goals is the main thing - it's always nice to come off the bench and show what you can do.

“I've obviously been disappointed that I haven't played, but I've been training hard and it's not about the starting line-up, it's a whole squad thing, we're a family - I was sharp warming up and you need to be sharp on the pitch because at this level it's really, really tough.”

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