Stuart Pearce admits he is still to decide England Under-21 team for crucial Czech Republic clash

Stuart Pearce, England U21(Getty Images)

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Stuart Pearce has admitted that he has decisions to make over his starting line-up ahead of England Under-21s’ crucial clash with the Czech Republic on Sunday.

Having drawn the opening two games of the Under-21 European Championship, against Spain and Ukraine, the team are in danger of an early exit and Pearce admits he is yet to finalise his line-up.

“I’ve got one position that I’m going to sleep on tonight,” Pearce told reporters.

“The players are aware of that now.”

The England manager did concede, however, that both Manchester United’s Chris Smalling and Arsenal’s Henri Lansbury would be fit for the game.

“Chris Smalling has got a little touch of tonsillitis – he’ll be no problem,” he said.

“Henri Lansbury just rolled his ankle – he’ll be fine again on Sunday as well. It’s just precautionary.”

Pearce also hinted at an attacking approach from his side and insisted they had been given confidence by the Czech Republic’s performance against Spain, a game they lost 2-0.

“We’ve looked at the Czechs, we feel as though we know there are certain positional situations that we can exploit, so we’ve worked on that on Saturday,” he added.

“We go into every game trying to win. We’re undefeated at this moment in time, so we hope to come out of Sunday’s match undefeated having won a game.

“They certainly got a bit of a runaround by the Spanish, I think, having watched the game.

“But they’ve got three points in the bag, so that puts them in a stronger position in the group than we are at the moment.”

The former Nottingham Forest man also insisted that he had not expected his team’s fate to be decided before the final game after being handed a tricky group.

“Listen, it’s a really tough group we’re in. We knew it’d go to the last game,” he added.

“All four teams are in the same situation. They’ve got to go into the last games and get results.

“There is not one team out of the four or us that can afford to get beaten. If you get beaten, you go home, as simple as that. That applies to the Spanish as much as us.”