For a man who dislikes being compared to Luiz Felipe Scolari, Sven-Goran Eriksson was doing a reasonable impersonation of the Portugal coach yesterday as he set about tackling the criticisms that have accompanied England's progress to the World Cup quarter-finals. It was Eriksson's most trenchant defence of his tactics to date, culminating in one put-down straight from the Scolari manual. "Don't tell me I don't know what to do," he said. "I know exactly what to do."

England's head coach had begun by declaring he "couldn't care less" if his methods were under intense scrutiny, but it quickly became clear he was exasperated by the disparagement that has fixed itself to England's campaign. Eriksson has revealed a sensitive edge in this tournament that has not always been apparent, and at one point he broke off to point out that Scolari would have "thrown everyone out" if faced by similar interrogation. He described himself as "tense" and, behind that fixed smile, there was a steely message for his detractors.

"Listen, we are going to try to play as well as we can," he said. "I'm sure, too, that we are going to be better against Portugal on Saturday. You always try to play good football, but what's absolutely the most important thing is to win the game. They don't give you a premium here for playing beautiful football.

"Ghana have played wonderful football. Ivory Coast have played wonderful football. Holland and Spain, the same. If I had to pick one team, on Tuesday afternoon it would have been Spain. But where are they? Tell me, where are these four teams now? At home, that's where. And we are here.

"I'm not frustrated. I'm actually rather satisfied. Okay, we can play better, but, to win the World Cup, I'm prepared to do whatever. And if that means playing bad football then (clenching a fist), come on, who cares?"

The question is whether England have an obligation to concoct something more illuminating or the players deserve greater credit for having reached this stage. Eriksson does not believe they have been dealt with fairly and made no effort to hide his irritation when it was put to him that game-by-game experimenting indicated a man with no clear plan.

"I don't agree with that at all," he replied. "Really, I don't know what I should answer to that. If we had only one system you would ask, 'Where is the Plan B?' If we have two systems you say, 'We don't know which way to play'. How do you expect me to answer that?

"We have a clear vision and we know exactly what we are doing. What do you think we do - tell the players to go out and just say, 'Good luck, do what you want to do?' If what we say is right or wrong, that's another thing. But, to us, it's clear. Every minute we are together it's absolutely clear."

Was it not strange, he was asked, to shift Owen Hargreaves to right-back against Ecuador after he had excelled as a holding midfielder in the Sweden game?

"But there's a reason why we do these things," he said. "He can play right-back and he did so very well. The reason why we put Michael Carrick into midfield was that they (Ecuador) had two central midfielders, not three. They didn't have a playmaker like Figo or Deco. We look at our opponents and all their games, we look at our own performances on video, we analyse everything. Of course there's a plan."

Gary Neville's return from injury meant Hargreaves returned to a five-man midfield in training yesterday. The players also took part in a mock penalty shoot-out and David Beckham and Frank Lampard were the only two to beat Paul Robinson on three successive occasions.

Robinson's vulnerability has been noted by Portugal, but Eriksson shrugged when told Pauleta had made provocative remarks. "That's mind games and I'm not interested in mind games. Paul has my full confidence."