<
>

Demarai Gray believes England under-21s can win Euro 2017

Demarai Gray is confident England can go all the way after they booked a semifinal spot in Euro 2017 with a convincing 3-0 win against hosts Poland.

Goals from Gray, Jacob Murphy and a Lewis Baker penalty secured a victory which earned the Young Lions a place in the last four of the tournament for the first time since 2009.

They progress to the last four as group winners, and when asked if he felt Aidy Boothroyd's side could go on and win it, Gray told Sky Sports: "Why not?

"Everyone knows what depth we've got in the team and as a team we've shown what we are capable of tonight so if we can put that performance into the semifinals no matter who we get we will cause teams problems.

"We've got to go out there with confidence and do what we do best."

Gray has rarely featured in the tournament so far but landed a starting spot when Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham jarred his ankle in training.

The 20-year-old Leicester forward felt he did well and hopes he can hold on to his place for the semifinal.

He added: "Obviously that's what I want to do, score as much as I can and create goals. It meant a lot to me [his goal] but most importantly we got the points and can progress now.

"Like every player I want to play every game so my opportunity came today, I've had to be patient. Hopefully I've done enough to keep my place in the team."

Boothroyd was pleased with Gray's performance and said: "I thought he was terrific. I thought his response to coming off the bench, he worked his socks off.

"Needed a bit of encouragement when he started to run out of gas but I thought overall it was a really good performance from Demarai."

Nathaniel Chalobah and Nathan Redmond were both forced off with injury and Boothroyd is hoping they can recover quickly.

He said: "The pair of them have been massive players for us throughout the qualification and also in the earlier games, but Nathaniel felt a little bit stiff around his groin area and we felt it best to bring him off, we didn't want to make it any worse.

"Redmond was the same, we just felt that if he had kept going he might have done some real damage, so we'll assess them in the morning, see where they are, but overall everything came off for us tonight."