In quotes reported by the Sun, Gerrard said: "The players and the manager realise that we are under pressure at the moment, which is normal after underperforming at the World Cup.

"It'll really help if we put in a good performance tomorrow and get the maximum points.

"Then we can obviously take the confidence from that into the Switzerland game on Tuesday.

"It's very important that we make a statement and show that we want to win the group and qualify comfortably.

"We qualified for the World Cup playing good, attacking football. If we can perform at that level I'm sure we'll get out of this group in similar fashion.

The 30-year-old Liverpool player admitted that there was more pressure on the Three Lions after their South African debacle, but believes that there is enough quality in the side to meet expectations this time around.

"The difficult thing is there's slightly more pressure on us this time around and we have to cope with that", Gerrard said.

"We've certainly got the exciting players in the squad to get off to a good start."