From Graham Thomas in Dinard
Aaron Ramsey says England hold no fear for Wales as the rivals gear up for the Euro 2016 battle of Britain.
The Wales midfielder – his country’s most high profile Premier League player – believes victory over Slovakia has infused the team with self-belief ahead of Thursday’s clash in Lens.
Ramsey and the rest of the Wales squad were keeping in touch with England’s match against Russia as Chris Coleman’s squad boarded their private jet in Bordeaux on Saturday night.
Just as the Wales players were about to take-off, they heard the Russians had equalised in the last seconds of their 1-1 draw.
Ramsey said: ‘We wanted to start off well and we’ve managed to do that. We work hard for each other, we have quality going forward and we are ready to take on anybody.
‘We are simply focused on trying to win the game against England now. They have a lot of good players, who are quite dangerous individually.
‘They had a faultless qualifying campaign. But we will focus on ourselves and what we need to do.’
Arsenal star Ramsey, 25, said the significance of the opening game against Slovakia in Bordeaux hit home as the national anthems sounded.
‘The fans were unbelievable,’ he said. ‘It was really spine-tingling hearing the anthem sung with so much passion. We had to pinch ourselves to stop the tears coming down.
‘In the first half we controlled it pretty well. Second half when they scored we were a bit edgy, but we overcame that in the end. We got into dangerous positions and we are good on the ball, we just need to trust ourselves throughout the game.’
Wales have injury concerns ahead of their second Group B match with skipper Ashley Williams and goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey the focus of manager Coleman’s worries.
Hennessey – who missed the Slovakia match with a back spasm and was replaced by Liverpool’s Danny Ward – will have a pain-killing injection and insists he can return to fitness.
“It is one of those things where you go from broke to mended in about 24 hours,” the Crystal Palace keeper said.
Williams limped through the late stages of the Slovakia match after taking a knock to his shin, but the Swansea centre back said: “We’ve started working on it already and we’ve got a few days before the next game so I’ll be fine.”
The Wales squad returned to their base in Dinard on Saturday night and enjoyed a day off from training on Sunday. They will train again on Monday morning for a match Coleman feels increasingly confident about – enough to disregard any need to shroud his plans in mystery.
He said: “If we bring our best for the next challenge, we will do what we have done for the last two years.
“I won’t play mind games, I won’t toy about with the formation – Roy Hodgson is too experienced to fall for that nonsense. We’ll do what we’ve been doing. There is no need for us to change. We know it’s going to be big challenge and a big test but it’s one we’ll be ready for.”
