England Under-21 2 Finland Under-21 1

ENGLAND Under-21 coach Stuart Pearce admitted taking Theo Walcott off at halftime during the victory over Finland was a gamble which could have left him embarrassed.

Pearce’s youngsters got their European Championships campaign off to a winning start but it was a battling victory after Michael Mancienne had been sent off for a professional foul.

With the game poised at 1-1 going into the break at Halmstad’s Orjans vall, Pearce replaced Arsenal winger Walcott with Fraizer Campbell and was rewarded eight minutes later when Micah Richards headed the winner.

‘‘You have to go with your gut feeling as a manger,’’ Pearce said. ‘‘It’s bittersweet at half-time because it’s 1-1 and we’re down to 10 men.

‘‘If I put two strikers on and we lost people would have said ‘What are you doing?’ ‘‘They are a good set of players and know if we want to pick up the trophy then everyone at times has to fall on their sword and support the other players.

‘‘That is exactly what Theo does. That is the gentleman he is.’’ England had taken the lead against the run of play when Lee Cattermole opened the scoring with a deflected sidefoot finish from close range, but Tim Sparv levelled from the penalty spot after Mancienne’s dismissal.

Finland were on top, causing trouble with the ball over the top which led to Mancienne hauling down Berat Sadik on the half-hour mark, but Pearce still felt he could grab a victory in the opening match of Group B by taking off Walcott, the highest profile player of the tournament.

He said: ‘‘It was a bold call.

It may have been easier going 4-4-1 but I thought we could trouble them with Agbonlahor and Campbell, but I needed a solid three behind them.

‘‘For me to achieve the formation I wanted Theo had to come off the pitch.’’ Pearce admits his team need to improve significantly against Spain later this week and then Germany if they want to win the trophy.

‘‘We knew about Finland, the only surprise in the match was England playing like they did,’’ he added.

‘‘The way we played was not good enough to win this tournament.

The character we showed was commendable but we know as a group we have to play better than that.’’ Mark Noble was named man of the match but James Milner, filling in at full-back and centre-back at times after the sending off, could not have been far behind.

England: Hart, Cranie, Richards (Tomkins 86), Mancienne, Gibbs, Muamba, Cattermole, Noble, Milner, Agbonlahor, Walcott (Campbell 46)