England 1 Ukraine 0: Liverpool’s Gerrard was world class – Lescott

Joleon Lescott heaped praise on England captain Steven Gerrard after the midfielder created Wayne Rooney’s second-half winner against Ukraine on Tuesday.

Manchester United striker Rooney, who was returning from a two-game suspension after his sending off against the Montenegro last October, nodded Gerrard’s cross past goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov to give England the lead shortly after the break.

The England captain completed 48 passes out of 53 attempted, and the 32-year-old made five successful tackles, while also taking his assists tally to three for Euro 2012.

“We know Wayne’s an outstanding talent and one of the best in the world in his position, so we were always going to have a chance with him in the team, and I think that Steven Gerrard’s performance tonight again showed what a world-class player he is,” said Lescott.

“Stevie’s one of those players that you can look up to, and look at his performances and try and gain something from them, the way he goes about his business, so we know that at any given stage players like that can create something.

“It’s nice to get to the knockout stages, but we’re not thinking now we’ve done our bit and got out of the group stage, we want to continue to progress and get as far as we can in this.”

Rooney, 26, ended a miserable run of 653 minutes without a goal at a major tournament with his header just after half-time, and the Red Devils forward was pleased with England’s overall performance.

“I’m delighted with the win and to score. It’s great as I haven’t scored at a major tournament for a while and the whole team was fantastic and we defended really well in front of a difficult crowd, but we deserved to win,” Rooney said.

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