Pearce pleased with GB victory (From Haringey Independent)

Tottenham Hotspur’s Steven Caulker plays 90 minutes in Team GB win against UAE

10:02am Monday 30th July 2012 in Sport

Team GB men’s football team manager Stuart Pearce stated that collecting a first victory was the most important thing for his side after they defeated UAE 3-1 at Wembley Stadium.

Pearce made several tactical changes to his side with Tottenham Hotspur’s Danny Rose replaced by Aaron Ramsey in midfield. Steven Caulker started in centre-defence alongside West Ham’s James Tomkins while Marvin Sordell led the attack.

A goal from Ryan Giggs had put Great Britain ahead but the match was levelled in the second period as Rashid Eisa cut through the host's defence to score.

However, second half substitutes Scott Sinclair and Daniel Sturridge both found the net in quick succession to secure Pearce’s men a vital three points.

“The result was the most important thing. We needed to win this game to give us a lift and enhance the belief in the group." Pearce told the BBC.

"Some good parts of our play I thought and some things that we've still got to work on; we won't go away from this thinking 'it was a bed of roses totally' but some real solid performances "Certainly (Craig) Bellamy and (Ryan) Giggs, Joe Allen, (Tom) Cleverley, some real solid performances within the group. We have to build once again for the last game."

He added: "We're going to try and win every game, we've set the team up to try and do that always. I think we can improve on the performance from tonight, we always expected we would improve on the performance game by game.

"It's going to be a tough one but we've got to recover and get ready for it."