JACK RODWELL remains confident England Under-21s can qualify for next summer’s European Championship despite the disappointment of Wednesday night’s defeat by Greece.

Victory in the clash at Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium would have lifted Stuart Pearce’s side above their opponents into top spot in Group Nine and needing to win only one of their remaining matches in Portugal and at home to Lithuania in September to ensure a spot in the play-offs for the finals in Denmark. But the 2-1 loss put Greece almost out of reach, meaning England – runners-up to Germany at the last finals eight months ago – must pick up maximum points and hope that is enough to secure one of the four best runner-up places.

Everton midfielder Rodwell said: “If we’d have got the result and not performed as well we’d still be happy because we’d be lying top of the group now with a great chance of going through, but we haven’t done that.

“We didn’t get going on the night, we know that. After the game the manager told us we didn’t play well enough. Now we play two back to back so hopefully we’ll come back stronger. We’d go to Portugal whether we’d won or lost hoping we’d win so it doesn’t really change things.”

Rodwell added: “It wasn’t my best game – far from it. There’s a lot more to come. The whole team didn’t do too well. It was just one of those nights where nothing could happen for us and we sensed that. We got the goal back at the end and we pushed a bit more but it wasn’t our night.”