Sven tinkers as Swedes win

Sven-Goran Eriksson turned the last friendly before naming his squad for Euro 2004 into another farce last night, making eight substitutions as England were beaten 1-0 by Sweden.

After a week that began with the Swede meeting Chelsea to discuss taking over from ' Tinkerman' Claudio Ranieri, he displayed his own tendency to tinker here, where Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored the winner.

Of the new caps, Jermain Defoe made the most dramatic impact, leading the England manager to declare that the Tottenham striker could yet break into the squad to be confirmed on May 17.

'I think that Defoe came on and did very well. I was looking for answers from this game and he is definitely one of them,' said Eriksson. 'He is a big talent. Technically very good, very quick, he knows where the goal is and in the future he will become physically stronger.

'Of course he has a chance to go to Portugal. I have told the players contract extension last weekend.

In an interview given to Radio Five Live yesterday, Palios revealed that Eriksson had informed him of his wish to return to club management, thus calling into question his ongoing commitment to the England job.

'It was up to us to persuade him that this wouldn't harm his prospects,' said Palios. 'If you look at it from Sven's perspective we could never ever match the money of someone like Roman Abramovich, so you have to go on a different tack.

'What we had to offer was the chance to achieve tremendous professional success and satisfaction with the England team coming to its peak and playing in the World Cup in Germany in 2006.'

Palios claimed he was always confident of tying Eriksson down to a decision before last night's friendly.

He said:'We were working towards the Sweden game as an internal deadline and because of the speculation caused by the photograph (of his meeting with Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon) everyone agreed it was better to bring it to a conclusion over the weekend.'