Everton keeper sorry for Green

Green made a horrible mistake against the Americans, when he gifted Clint Dempsey a goal.

“Of course I feel for him,” said Everton’s Howard.

“He has made a couple of really good saves and, as we have been saying all week, this ball is doing silly things.

“Unfortunately at this level, sometimes these things are going to happen. I feel terribly for him but when you are goalkeeping you have to have broad shoulders.”

“I thought it was a good result for us,” he continued. “Even though it was England we wanted to come out and at least get a draw to set us up for what is to come, so overall we did our job.

“They came out well and there were some nerves from us. But we responded well after they scored. We know we can do that and once we calmed down and got into the flow of the game I thought we did particularly well.

“It was not pretty, but defensively we did our job and I’m glad it’s over.

“We have talked about England for six months. There has been a lot of hype and pressure and we have got a result and put in a performance we can be proud of. Now we can concentrate on Slovenia. We have a week to prepare and we need to get ready.”