Gerrard’s sympathy to fans angered by Ferdinand

ENGLAND fans will be perfectly entitled to vent their anger at absent Rio Ferdinand tomorrow night against Montenegro, according to captain Steven Gerrard.

Ferdinand pulled out of the squads for the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Montenegro in order to safeguard his fitness for Manchester United and his decision to fly to Qatar to work as a TV pundit instead did not go down well with England followers.

They sang anti-Ferdinand songs during Friday’s 8-0 win in San Marino and Gerrard had a certain amount of sympathy for them.

“They are entitled to their opinion. They’ve spent good money to come over here,” said Gerrard. “We all wanted Rio here because he’s a good player and he certainly would have helped us over these two games, but he’s made his decision and we need to respect that.”

England manager Roy Hodgson has been guarded about whether Ferdinand, 34, will add to his 81 caps, but suggested he was tired of talking about the experienced centre-back, whom he left out of Euro 2012 amid tensions with the now retired John Terry.

“I think it’s wrong to consistently ask for people to come back,” he said ahead of tomorrow’s crucial clash away to the Group H leaders, who are two points above England. “Where do we stop? Do we ask for Michael Owen to come out of retirement every time we can’t score a goal?”

With Ferdinand opting not to play and several other players injured, Hodgson may field the relatively untested partnership of Joleon Lescott and Chris Smalling in Podgorica. “I’m not exactly putting a couple of guys from non-league football out on the pitch on Tuesday night and I think we should show them a bit more respect – and not constantly compare them maybe,” he said. In what could be viewed as a dig at Ferdinand, he added: “The one thing the England fans can be really certain of is that if we fail it won’t be because they are players who don’t take it seriously or they are players who are more interested in themselves or their clubs.”

After a gentle stroll in San Marino, England move into far more hostile territory in Montenegro and Gerrard is wary of intimidation from their hosts.

England will be favourites to emerge with a victory that would put them in charge of their own destiny, but Gerrard knows calm heads will be needed to avoid a damaging setback. “It is going to be a pressure situation and we don’t need to give the referee any excuse to send any of us off or give any unnecessary yellow cards,” Gerrard said. “It is important everyone takes responsibility and stays on the pitch. They will be trying to claim every decision, every foul and will try to intimidate the ref to make rash decisions.

“I’m sure we will have a good ref in charge who will make sensible decisions, but it’s important we keep our cool and keep everyone on the pitch.”

While England strolled to victory in San Marino, Montenegro sneaked a 1-0 win in Moldova despite having Milorad Pekovic sent off, meaning he will be suspended for tomorrow’s match. The atmosphere in San Marino was about as harmless as it was possible to be for an away side, but Gerrard believes England will be able to cope when things hot up.

“I think their supporters will make it as hostile as they can,” said the Liverpool midfielder, who was rested for the match in San Marino along with other key players such as Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson “They are desperate to beat us and everything is against us, but I think we’ve got the players to handle the situation and get the three points.”

It will be a stern test, especially for England’s patched-up central defence against Montenegro’s Italy-based strikers Mirko Vucinic and Stevan Jovetic.

Juventus striker Vucinic, who scored the only goal in Moldova and was impressive against Celtic in the Champions League, said the victory had given his side the perfect boost ahead of England’s arrival. However, far from flying out of the traps on Tuesday, he said the hosts would play a waiting game.

“We have to park the bus in front of our goal and keep possession as long as we can when we have the ball,” he said. “We took a huge amount of weight off our shoulders by beating the Moldovans. The match against England is one of those you crave but we must quickly come down to earth and be ready to leave it all out there and stand our ground.”