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Steven Gerrard has admitted he would probably boo England in Wednesday’s friendly with Hungary if he was a fan.

The England captain said he was expecting a “mixed reaction” at Wembley following the disappointing World Cup campaign in South Africa.

Gerrard was asked whether he would boo the team if he was an England fan and he conceded: “I probably would, yeah.”

He added: “We have to take it on the chin. We deserve it. We let them down in the summer.”

England suffered a humiliating 4-1 defeat by Germany at the second round stage of the World Cup and won only one of the four games they played in South Africa, scoring three goals in total.

Gerrard, speaking at an England news conference, said: “I’m sure there will be some boos at times [on Wednesday] but we have to deal with that. We have to be men.

“Hopefully we can show [the fans] we are a good team. I’m desperate to make them happy in the future. I’m hurting as a player and I’m sure the rest of the lads are as well.”

The Liverpool midfielder insisted all the England players had faith in manager Fabio Capello and would work with him to put their mistakes right.

Gerrard, 30, stated: “He’s a fantastic manager, you can’t shift all the blame on to him. You have to share the blame around the coaching staff and players and take it on the chin together.

“All the players are going to listen very carefully to what he has to say over the next few days and take it on board. We have to listen to the man who has got experience in these situations, and follow his lead.

“It was obvious to everyone that things never worked out for us at the World Cup. Hopefully we can regroup and move forward together and turn things around.”

Gerrard added: “There’s no excuses from me at all, but we have to show how sorry we are by doing it on the pitch.

“I’m not going lie and say it’s not difficult at the moment to be playing for England, because it is. But things in football can change – three or four games down the line hopefully we’ll have a lot of belief and confidence back…because at the moment it is tough.”
Meanwhile England striker Darren Bent has withdrawn from the game with Hungary because of a back injury, the Football Association has confirmed.

The Sunderland player, 26, was given an assessment of the problem at England’s Watford base on Tuesday morning.

He was sent back to his club and is a doubt for Sunderland’s Premier League opener with Birmingham on Saturday.

Fabio Capello’s squad is now down to 20 players, following the retirements of Paul Robinson and Wes Brown.

The England manager said: “I accept the decisions. Robinson called us and said he wanted to stay at home. I spoke with Brown here. I told him why I didn’t select him for the World Cup because he didn’t play for the last two months [of last season].

“This time I selected him because he played all the pre-season games but he said, ‘thank you, but I’ve decided I prefer to stay at home’.

“You have to accept what they want to do. I think it’s an honour to be with the national team and to play for England.”