PAUL FAIRCLOUGH says England C cannot afford to lose this afternoon’s International Challenge Trophy opener against Slovakia Under-23.
Group A rivals Turkey top the four-team table with four points from their first two games while Slovakia have a point on the board.
It means England must start well to give themselves the best chance of finishing in the top two and qualifying for the semi-finals – the stage they reached in the last tournament before being knocked out by Turkey.
Fairclough’s team must travel to Turkey in October before hosting Estonia, who lost their first game, on home soil in November.
And Fairclough said: “It’s looking like we’re going to have to win. We’re going to have to go away to Turkey which will be difficult.
“Hey, we’ve gone away to difficult places before and won and we can go to Turkey and win, but at the very least we’re going to need to get something out of this.
“Looking at how it will work out, Turkey will be looking at five points if they draw with us or eight if they beat us. Are Estonia going to be the whipping boys? We don’t know, they had a surprise victory against Norway last year.
“So it’s a really tight group, plus the fact we’ve been drawn with two games away from home. It’s going to be challenging to get through.”
Slovakia’s Under-23s will provide a tough test as it is. They opened their campaign with a 4-4 draw in Turkey.
“We know two things about them,” Fairclough said. “We know they score goals and we know they let them in. To go away and score four goals but not get the win, anyone would be disappointed in football. But it shows they are fallible at the back. From the footage I’ve seen of them, they are very attack-minded.”
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
| TURKEY | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 5 | +1 | 4 |
| SLOVAKIA | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| ENGLAND | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ESTONIA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 0 |
