Eriksson looks to finals

We showed we have a very good team and a very united group Sven Goran Eriksson Photos: England's road to Portugal

England coach Sven Goran Eriksson insisted he was now looking forward to preparing his team for Euro 2004 after gaining the point in Turkey needed to qualify.

Despite pre-match speculation linking him with an imminent move to Chelsea, Eriksson said: "The European Championships are almost as big a tournament as the World Cup and we're very proud we're there again.

"We now have time to prepare, play some friendlies and look at a few players."

The Swede added that he was "getting a little bit fed up" with constant questions about his future and preferred instead to salute a team effort of which he was "very, very proud".

He said: "To do the job we did after the week we had was very, very professional.

"Once again we showed we have a very good team and a very united group. They had a strange week but their answer today was exactly what we hoped for.

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"They played like a team with a lot of experience. They were very calm out there and you could see at once that it was going to be very difficult for Turkey to score goals.

"Defensively, we were very, very good today."

And he added: "I think we were unlucky because in the first half we could have scored a couple of goals. But 0-0 is a marvellous result."

Turkey coach Senol Gunes insisted his team would not dwell on their failure to gain automatic qualification for the finals.

"As far as I'm concerned, this game is history now," he said. "It may take a couple of days to recover but now we will look to the future.

"I believe we are going to do well in the play-offs. We have been there before and we can do it again.

"To be a great team, you have to be able to come back from results like this."