MANCHESTER (England), Oct 5: Sven-Goran Eriksson is convinced his underperforming England will finish top of Group Six and avoid the “disaster” of failing to qualify for the World Cup finals.

England looked to be comfortably on their way to Germany until last month’s shock 1-0 defeat in Northern Ireland left them needing to beat Austria on Saturday and Poland next week to qualify as group winners.

Should they fail, Eriksson’s men could still book a ticket to the finals as one of the two best runners-up or via the playoffs.

“We’re playing for a ticket to the World Cup,” Eriksson told a news conference on Tuesday. “We know we can play in the playoffs as the situation is today, but we don’t want to do that. We want to try to win the group.

“We have to play better football and win two games — and I’m very positive that we can do that. For England, not reaching the World Cup would be a disaster.”

Despite his optimism, Eriksson also made it clear England need to move up a gear after starting their season with a 4-1 friendly defeat in Denmark and continuing with an unconvincing 1-0 qualifying win over Wales and the defeat in Belfast.

The Swede said: “We have two huge games to play...and we know we can play much, much better than we have so far this season — and we have to.”

Reluctant to once again analyse the defeat by Northern Ireland, using a controversial 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation, Eriksson said: “It was bad. It was sad. And that’s it.”

Speaking at Old Trafford, which will be hosting their next two qualifiers, Eriksson said he would “probably” revert to a 4-4-2 system and also gave his full backing to central defender Rio Ferdinand.

Criticised in the media and by some fans, the Manchester United defender has been below par in some games this term and is fighting to keep his place in a three-way race with John Terry and Sol Campbell.

“If you take this season, England as a team have not performed at the level we should do with Rio, without Rio,” Eriksson said. “I don’t think you can say it’s one player’s fault.

“I think he played well for England when England last performed well — and that was last season.”—Reuters