Bertrand confident for Euros

Left-back Ryan Bertrand has talked up England’s chances of going all the way and winning the European Championships in France this summer.

The Three Lions, on offer at 9.00 to lift the trophy, have been drawn against Wales, Slovakia and Russia in Group B.

Roy Hodgson’s men breezed through their qualifying campaign but have failed to make any sort of impact in recent summer tournaments and were knocked out at the group stage at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

Their performances in qualifying and in the friendlies since have caused many to talk up their chances, but Hodgson has tried to play down expectation levels.

However, Bertrand, who is fighting for a place in the final 23-man squad, is adamant the current crop of young players could even go on and win the tournament.

“I think we know what’s expected of us and we hope we can live up to that expectation, but we’ve all been that fan once upon a time, applying that pressure to the team,” he told reporters following training after, the Southampton defender said.

“We know we’ve always got that expectation from our fans but that comes from having a proud country and we just hope we can justify that.

“The dream of everyone is to win it. Within the camp we haven’t really sat down and thought about that, we’re just taking it game by game and making sure we put in good performances.”

He added: “We’ve had some fantastic performers in the league all year round and hopefully we can continue that and things will look up for us. “We are capable of winning it but that goes for a lot of other teams in the competition.

It all comes down to who wants it more.” Bertrand is set to be invovled in England’s first pre-Euro 2016 friendly against Turkey on Sunday and will then also hope to feature in the upcoming games against Australia (May 27) and Portugal (June 2) before the tournament gets underway.