ENGLAND U21 goalie James Beadle believes he’ll be a European champion – despite admitting he DESERVED to be dropped at Sheffield Wednesday.
The highly-rated Brighton star, 20, is Slovakia preparing for the European Championship after returning from a season-long loan at Hillsborough.
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Beadle, who SunSport understands will join Birmingham City on a similar deal this summer, looks set to face Czechia in the Young Lions’ opening game on Thursday.
And he is adamant that his confidence has not been rocked by the fact that Owls boss Danny Rohl decided to axe him for the final eight games after his performances dipped.
Beadle said: “Overall it was a big learning experience to grow as a player and grow as a person. A lot of things happened, good games, bad games, but overall just a good time of improvement for me.
“Towards the end of my time at Wednesday I don’t think I really performed to my best for whatever reason. Now after taking a step back I understand why and in this tournament and looking ahead I know what I need to do to be at my best more consistently.”
The refreshingly honest stopper continued: “Just going through clips, going through games, and I just don’t think I performed to my capabilities,’ he added.
“I know how good I am, I know I can perform at that level, and in the future I know what I need to do to stay more at my level.
“Sometimes you’ve got to take a step back to properly look at it and that’s when I came out of the team. It was really hard to take at the time but when you take a step back and realise how I was actually performing, it is what it is.
“I don’t really go on social media or anything, I try to live in my own bubble, but at the time when results aren’t going well and you aren’t performing at the level you can you know you’re going to get criticised. I have no issue being criticised if I know I’m not performing to the level I can.”
Beadle is now focused firmly on the Euros – and he insists that Lee Carsley’s squad can match anybody at the tournament as the Young Lions look to secure back-to-back Euro success.
He added: “We’re at least on par if not better when you look at the talent in this squad. We can definitely compete and try to turn them over.
“It’s been a long build-up now to the tournament and the main goal for us is winning. As a country now we want to start winning things and it starts at youth ages like Under-21s so that’s what we want to do.”
England kick-off their Euro campaign against the Czech Republic on Thursday.
They then face Slovenia three days later and finish the group stage against Germany on Wednesday 18 June with all of the Young Lions’ matches being broadcast on Channel 4.
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