England's World Cup quarter-final opponents Sweden have started with the mind games ahead of Saturday's game with the suggestion that England's defenders are a bit ponderous and could be prey to mistakes under pressure.

"They are not so very skilled when it comes to moving the ball, compared to southern Europe," said Sweden scout Tom Prahl after a training session yesterday according to the Telegraph.



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"They have not been put under that much pressure so far; the opponents have stayed back and let them stand there and pass the ball. So they’ve been given the opportunity to move it nice and slow. The question is: will they get problems if we put some pressure on them? And what will happen with our game if we do? We will get the answers during the game."



The terror of seeing Marcus Berg bearing down on you with the raw pace of a fully laden milk float must be keeping Kyle Walker awake at night. Prahl did finish by saying some quite nice things about how England have been playing, so maybe he's not quite going full Mourinho on us.

"England isn't just long balls forward and kick and rush, but much more influenced by the rest of Europe," he said. "They keep a lot of players centrally and use a back three, but they also have much more method to their build up. They've also kept their more traditional attributes, with toughness and physicality. They've scored six out of their nine goals on set plays, so we're aware of that."

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