Aidy Boothroyd urges high-flying England U21s to temper their flamboyance and flair

Aidy Boothroyd has warned his high-flying England U21 side to temper their exuberance or risk comparison to the Harlem Globetrotters.

There are no paper aeroplanes around the England youngsters. Against the joyless immobility of the senior side, which was once again exposed over the weekend, this is a side that has proven its propensity for flamboyance and flair.

However, the U21s have a manager trying to clip the wings of his players when he talks of over-elaborating ahead of Tuesday’s European Championship qualifier with Andorra.

“My players are so skilful and comfortable on the ball one of my biggest concerns is that sometimes they can be too elaborate on it,” he said.

“I keep telling them that we are not the Harlem Globetrotters and we are not here to do tricks and fanny around. We can express ourselves by all means, but we are here to play as a team and we know when we come up against the big-hitters there will be no time for all that.

“We don’t just want to emulate the likes of Germany and Spain, we want to beat them. In order to do that, we not only have to have really good players but a really good team. Playing as individuals is not going to get us where we want to go.

“I want to win at tiddlywinks and I think my lads are like that as well. They are extremely competitive and that is added to by the fact this squad is so good no-one, and I mean no-one, picks themselves and is guaranteed a place.

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“It puts me in a really powerful position because it means I can keep them all champing at the bit and raring to go. The players know any complacency will see them out of the team.

But I have to say they are good lads like that and there are no big-time Charlies. If they were any they would not be here.”

Josh Onomah admitted there is competition inside the squad to see who can progress in their career quickly. Onomah (Aston Villa, on loan from Spurs), Tammy Abraham (Swansea, on loan from Chelsea) and Dominic Solanke (Liverpool), are all playing in either the Premier League or the Championship and all three scored against Scotland in the recent 3-1 victory.

“They are a delight to watch in training,” added Boothroyd. “We saw Demarai Gray against Scotland surrounded by three defenders and somehow wriggle his way past all of them, which was great to see.

“There will come a time when he needs to realise that if he is surrounded by three defenders then he needs to get himself away from them before receiving the ball, but we are getting there and the players are taking it on board. They do listen and they do want to get better.

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“We are in control of the group but we can't take our foot off the gas. We need to take confidence into every game and make sure we get the results we need. You have to approach games differently.

“We can't go into this game against Andorra thinking they are going to be an easy side because if you do that, you see teams lose games they are expected to win. We have got to stay focused. We want to go an enjoy ourselves but we will only do that if we play sensibly.

“We have seen them a couple of times remotely and they want to play football. It’s one of those games where it is a massive banana skin. If we don’t score lots of goals people will criticise us and if we do score lots of goals people will dismiss it and say ‘Well, it’s only Andorra.’ I know teams who have gone there and done really well and others who have gone there and struggled.

“But with the attacking players we’ve got our natural instinct is to attack. We have some deadly players up front. My biggest challenge is to turn them into a team and a squad that is bigger than the sum of its parts.”