England captain Barry Middleton is brimming with confidence ahead of crunch matches with Belgium and Australia at hockey's World Cup.
Middleton's team remain unbeaten after a 2-0 win over Malaysia courtesy of goals from Mark Gleghorne and Ashley Jackson.
It ranks them second in group A behind Australia - who have won three straight games, after their 3-1 win over Belgium yesterday.
“We’ve played them [Australia and Belgium] enough over the past 18 months to know what is going to come at us, and they probably know what to expect from us as well," said Middleton.
"We’ve proved against them in the last 12 months we can hurt them if we play well and we’ll be looking to do that in our next two games.”
England coach Bobby Crutchley was delighted with the performance against Malaysia, with Gleghorne giving his team the perfect start - scoring his second goal in two games after just four minutes, with a fantastic reverse stick finish.
“I was really pleased with the performance," he said.
"I thought we were strong and defended as well as we have done so far. We controlled the game for large periods and although they had a lot of possession we created the better chances.”
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