England U21 1 Greece U21 2: match report

By Rob Stewart at the Keepmoat Stadium Published: 6:02AM GMT 04 March 2010

First blood: Kyriakos Papadopoulos celebrates Greece"s opener opposite England U21s Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The England Under-21 coach, Stuart Pearce, last night certified his discreet strategy backfired as his hopes of heading his group in to the 2011 European Championship faded.

Pearce in use a advantageous arrangement that would have been some-more befitting for Athens rather than home domain in Doncaster opposite the Group Nine leaders and paid the cost for his cautiousness Greece took value of an overly disastrous arrangement to make firm their hold on the Group Nine care interjection to goals from Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Giannis Papadopoulos prior to debutant Nathan Delfouneso struck late on.

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It left England wanting to win their last dual games, together with a revisit to Portugal, to keep alive their hopes of competing in Denmark.

"We have been personification that approach for the most appropriate piece of 3 years right afar and it has been a successful regulation for us," Pearce said. "We feel as though surrender space in midfield in front of centre halves is a big complaint at general level.

"As it goes tonight we probably didn"t good by carrying the additional player in midfield. We attempted to go from behind to front as well much, we didn"t fool around it sufficient by the midfield and we have receive afar took. The dual executive defenders didn"t get parsimonious sufficient on the strikers." Despite his own tactical shortcomings, Pearce additionally indicted his players of under-performing.

"We didn"t fool around to a customary that is probably excusable to us," Pearce said. "We can and we will fool around a lot improved than that. We have to sense the lessons from that. It will be all or zero opposite Portugal.

"Too most of the players didn"t fool around to their full potential. The boys have frequency let me down but we weren"t at the races. We were poor.

We"re in a difficult incident but know what we have to do."

Match details:

England (4-1-4-1): Loach (Watford); Walker (Tottenham), Richards (Man City), Smalling (Fulham), Bertrand (Reading on loan from Chelsea); Muamba (Bolton); Wilshere (Bolton, loan from Arsenal), Cattermole (Sunderland), Rodwell (Everton), Cleverley (Watford loan from Man Utd); Carroll (Newcastle). Subs: Sturridge (Chelsea) for Muamba 54; Delfouneso (Villa) for Smalling 74, Gosling (Everton) for Cleverley (87). Subs not used: Fielding (Blackburn, g), Tomkins (West Ham), Mancienne (Wolves, loan from Chelsea), Delph (Aston Villa), Delfouneso (Villa).

Greece (4-5-1): Giakoumis; Argyriou, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Papastathopoulos, Skondras; Dimoutsos, Siovas, Giannis Papadopoulos, Giantsis, Koutsianikoulis; Mitroglou. Subs: Katsikogiannis for Koutsianikoulis 62, Athanassis Papazoglou for Mitroglou 72, Gentsoglou for Giantsis 78. Subs not used: Stratilatis (g), Tasos Papazoglou, Apostolopoulos, Soiledis. Booked: Argyriou.

Referee: M Strahonja (Croatia).