England meekly bowed out of the group stages at the World Cup and centre-back Gary Cahill believes a change in approach is required. The Blues defender believes that England need to adopt a more physical approach while echoing the sentiments of his captain Wayne Rooney, who said England need to be nastier.

Cahill said that the team needs to be harder to play against and have a more physical presence. According to Express, he said, “It’s something we’ve certainly addressed. If you see now we are definitely a lot harder team to play against and I’m not just speaking about the back four – just in general. That is about being physical and wanting to win the ball back and being physical. The basics of defending and at the minute we are doing that really well.”

He also responded to questions on England no longer being naïve. The 28-year-old said, “That’s a good point, a really good point. We’ve been too nice. We’ve got a very young team, but that’s a big part of the game to know when to slow things down, to know not to always play from the back.”

“Everybody has this philosophy of playing from the back and from the keeper, but there are times to think: ‘Hold on, let’s not play from the back this time, let’s kick up the front for five or 10 minutes It’s just managing the game really, which maybe we are doing a lot better. It’s something that has been addressed. In terms of game management, there are times in the game to kill it off or slow things down when things aren’t going well. And we will learn that.”

So Gary Cahill really does seem to have matured not only in for his club but he is also starting to look like a leader for his country hence him being appointed Vice-Captain to Wayne Rooney.