Goals drought doesn't faze Heskey

11:23am Monday 13th October 2008

Emile Heskey approaches his 50th England cap insisting a lack of international goals is not weighing on his mind.

The 30-year-old, who is likely to reach the half-century mark against Belarus on Wednesday in Minsk, has just five England goals but his team-mates and boss Fabio Capello have spoken in appreciation of the Wigan striker's overall contribution.

Against Kazakhstan on Saturday Heskey had two efforts saved and two bundled away and said: "Not scoring does not play on my mind. I was trying to get that goal at the end and I couldn't even get anything on it, even my hand. I'm going to carry on and hopefully that will come."

Heskey has been involved in England's finest modern victories - the wins against Germany in Munich and Croatia in Zagreb - and now appears to have a crucial role in getting the best out of Wayne Rooney.

The 5-1 at the weekend was nothing like the 5-1 against Germany in 2001 - but it did maintain England's 100% start to their qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup.

"We'll have to be a lot better against Belarus than we were against Kazakhstan, we have to get at them and I think we will," Heskey said.

"It's looking rosy if we get three points on Wednesday, very good. Hopefully we can do it."

Rio Ferdinand, who was the stand-in skipper at the weekend as John Terry was out injured, added: "There is a time until the next game after Belarus so if we can get four wins from four then we'll be very, very pleased and in a very good position."

England face Germany in a friendly next month but their next qualifier after Belarus is a home clash against Ukraine in April.

"It's what we wanted from three games, you want nine points," said midfielder David Beckham. "We got that. It's going to be a tough game during the week but we've got this result against Kazakhstan and now we move onto that."

Explore News Shopper