Redknapp: We'll go through

England know they let Portugal off the hook

Injury ruled midfielder Jamie Redknapp out of the England squad, but he is in the Low Countries to lend his expert eye to the BBC's Euro 2000 coverage - and he gave Sport Online his view of England's 3-2 defeat by Portugal.

It was obviously a very disappointing result, but Kevin Keegan and the team will take plenty of positives away with them too.

The hardest part to take will be giving up the two-goal lead - but credit must be given to Portugal. They played it brilliantly and I always thought this would be the toughest game in the group.

Before the game everyone was talking about Luis Figo, and even though he did drag them back into it with his great strike, I thought Rui Costa was Portugal's most impressive player - he was fantastic.

Redknapp: Everything still to play for

He controlled the game through the middle and had a say in two of their goals.

In fact the real problems for us came through the middle. At times it seemed as though they had an extra man in there, and it was hard for Paul Ince and Paul Scholes to cope with their movement.

Tactics

I wouldn't put this down to poor tactics, though. It is easy to be critical after the fact, and the press will probably focus on the tactics.

But whether it is 4-4-2 or 3-5-2 it is still down to the players to make it work.

The England squad practises both systems all the time, and Keegan is a very good coach. But we came up a very good Portugal side, it's as simple as that.

And although they created problems for us, we created problems for them too.

David Beckham and Paul Scholes were excellent, and right up to the end I was convinced England, particularly Scholes, were going to get an equaliser.

The most important thing for England now is to concentrate on the next two games. Win those and we can go through. Perhaps we will even get the chance to play against Portugal again.

Derby match

Having watched the Germany-Romania game, I did not see much there that should worry England.

The Germany game will be like a derby match in the Premiership, and I think our players are better than Germany's. There are not many German players that would get in our squad.

Romania depend on Gheorghi Hagi, everything goes through him. But we have a younger, faster team, and I think that will count in our favour.

So despite the disappointment of Eindhoven, I'm still confident that England can win their next two games and do well in this tournament.