Home comfort key for Mount
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Mason Mount has warned Denmark that they will need to raise their game and deal with the pressure of playing in front of a partisan crowd when they face England at Wembley in Wednesday’s Euro 2020 semi-final.
England booked their semi-final spot in style on Saturday, thrashing Ukraine 4-0 in Rome to set up a meeting with Denmark at Wembley.
Saturday’s victory, which was sealed courtesy of a Harry Kane brace and goals from Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson, was England’s first of the competition away from London.
Denmark will be making their third semi-final appearance at the Championships despite losing their opening two group stage engagements.
A 4-1 thrashing of Russia in their final group match saw them qualify for the knockout phase as the second-best team in Group B.
The Red and White dispatched Wales with ease in the last 16, winning 4-0, before defeating the Czech Republic 2-1 in the quarter-final in Baku on Saturday.
Denmark played each of their group fixtures in Copenhagen but will be stepping out in front of at least 60,000 – mainly English – fans at the national stadium.
All of the remaining games in the tournament, both semi-finals and the final will take place at Wembley, and playing on home soil could prove hugely beneficial for the Three Lions.
That’s certainly the opinion of Chelsea ace Mount, who returned to the starting XI after a period of self-isolation against Ukraine.
“It is unbelievable to play at Wembley and all our group games and the Germany game were special, special games to be involved in,” Mount said.
“It will be a special day and there will be a few more fans there as well to create the atmosphere.
“You are in the lion’s den and you have to come and perform. We are obviously going to try and give our best.”
Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate hasn’t been afraid to make changes to his starting XI and even switch things up tactically throughout the competition.
Jadon Sancho was the latest to be given a chance from the start against Ukraine and Southgate admits he has learned from his mistakes at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Southgate said: “The players have been fantastic. To play as well as they did in a game with so much resting on it was impressive.
“We’ve known we had players we needed to look after physically. We know across seven games, the squad is so important, trying to give people a breather at the right time.
“We learned a lot from Russia in that instance. We were trying to balance players with knocks and yellow cards.”
England have failed to pick up a win in their last two meetings with Denmark, losing 1-0 at Wembley when they clashed in the Nations League in October and playing out a goalless draw in the reverse fixture earlier in the campaign.
