Slovakia vs England: Sam Allardyce says his team are still fighting psychological battle after Euro 2016 slump

Sam Allardyce has claimed his England players are still learning to come to terms with the psychological demands of international football after admitting that nerves and fear gripped the team during Sunday’s victory against Slovakia.

Adam Lallana’s stoppage time winner ensured England began their World Cup qualification campaign with a victory that helped banish the memory of the humiliating Euro 2016 exit at the hands of Iceland.

England struggled to convince for lengthy periods against Slovakia, however, and Allardyce believes that the after-effects of the Iceland defeat were evident in Trnava.

“I think I have inherited a happy bunch of players, not a damaged bunch,” Allardyce said. “But I think they were a bit nervous coming here (to Slovakia).

“Not in the week building up to the game, but I saw a little nervous tension and it’s bound to be in the back of their mind.

“They had a holiday, a pre-season, then it comes to the first game after Iceland and maybe there was nervous tension.

“I think it was possession for possession sake for the opening 45 minutes rather than trying to break the opposition down.

“So that may be a bit of the sub-conscious, about not wanting to give the ball away.

“But we have to be brave and we have to get balls with quality forward and get players in good positions and hit them as quick as we can.”

Allardyce insists he sees no value in discussing the Iceland defeat and Euro 2016 failure with his players, believing instead that the road ahead should be the focus.

But he admits that the Football Association’s support team at St George’s Park are in place to ensure that England become strong psychologically.

“No, Iceland has not been discussed with me,” Allardyce said. “And I haven’t asked what their (players) biggest fear is.

“I didn’t want to talk about fear, I wanted to be positive and tell them what the future is.

“The only thing I mentioned about the past is to learn from it and not to feel like that again.

“We use a company (Lane 4) with many facets in the locker and we use them on a consistent basis to help them build more resilience and to cope with pressure better, even though they already deal with a lot of pressure.

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“But on an international stage, they have to learn how to deal with it.

“Plus they are very young, as a squad we are really young and when we get criticised we hurt - we really do.”

England now have a five-week before their next qualifier, against Malta at Wembley on October 8, and Allardyce admits he will not bombard his players with information and analysis from the Slovakia game until they next meet up.

“No, they have Champions League coming up and Premier League coming up,” he said. “We will download the stats on this game and when they come back we will have a quick look at it.

“But I won’t bother with emails or calling because they are too busy on their phones.”