SHADES OF OPTIMISM ... boss Roy Hodgson looks calm with skipper Steven Gerrard yesterday

ROY HODGSON leads his England stars into battle against Italy tonight stressing: Don’t leave the pitch with any regrets.

The Three Lions are hoping to make the semi-finals of a major tournament for the first time since 1996.

And Hodgson said: “We don’t want anyone to think we could have done better or worked harder or been more together as a team.

“We must make certain when we go on the field, we don’t have any regrets at the end of the game.

“Our players know there is a lot of pressure on them and there is a lot of pressure on the Italians as well.

“This is a big game and unfortunately someone is going to lose it and whoever loses is going to be very, very sad.”

Hodgson is set to name an unchanged team for tonight’s quarter-final.

He added: “I am not only relishing this challenge but also relishing the work with the players and the chance to coach players of such great ability with such a high level of skill and experience.

“And the fact now we are going into a game that would give us a chance of putting one very unpleasant statistic away — that we haven’t beaten a major sort of team in the knockout part of a tournament finals.”