Football Interviews
Exclusive: Ireland Ready to Shock England at Wembley and End 36-Year Wait, says Josh Cullen
Josh Cullen is confident the Republic of Ireland can spring a major shock by upsetting England at Wembley on Sunday. Football bettors will be interested to discover the odds for Ireland to claim a memorable victory.
Josh Cullen//Getty Images
Experienced midfielder Cullen missed Ireland’s 2-0 home defeat to England in at the Aviva Stadium due to injury in early September.
But the 28-year-old Burnley ace returned to the international side for a fine 2-1 away win over Finland in the Nations League last month and the 1-0 win on Thursday night.
Cullen, capped 39 times by his country, knows a big win against this season’s Euro 2024 finalists would be a major confidence boost under new manager Heimir Hallgrimsson.
“Growing up as a young player you want to play at the best stadiums, against the best teams and the best players in the world,” Cullen told SportsBoom.com.
“And it’s also about wanting to play in the best occasions as well – and this match is definitely one of them.”
An Ireland versus England game creates a special atmosphere, it’s one of the games in the fixture list that you earmark the date.
Josh Cullen
“It’s definitely a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I would to be a part of it.”
“England at Wembley, hopefully we can go into that game with good confidence and good belief that we can pull off a good result.”
Ireland Aiming to End 36-Year Winless Streak Against England
Ireland last beat England in 1988, a Ray Houghton header secured a 1-0 win in Euro qualifying match.
But since then, England have had the upper hand, a record which Cullen is understandably hungry to play a key role in ending.
Hallgrimsson will also want to avenge defeat, the loss at the Aviva was his first game in charge of the international side.
“We’re in a phase with Ireland where we’re building with a new manager,” admitted Cullen.
We’re those early stages of progressing as a team. We’ve got a lot of young talent in the squad coming through, but it’s that tricky phase of wanting to keep developing as a team.
Josh Cullen
“However, at the same time we want to be successful and start winning games.”
“It’s down to us as a group to start doing that, but also while we’re on that journey of developing and improving, also finding a way of winning games and being successful as a team.”
“We’re looking forward to the challenge, hopefully we can continue to build.”
“We had a good result against Finland and I thought we performed well in the second half against Greece in the last international break.”
“I think there’s a lot of positives that can be taken from that, so we’ve got to be confident going into the England game.”
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Neil has been a journalist for longer than he'd care to remember, having written for national newspapers and respected publications for over 25 years. For the last three years he has worked freelance for BBC Sport, working on the production desk as a sub-editor and also as a writer, covering a whole range of sports.