Roy Hudgson encourages England not to fear #CarryGobySeanKellz #FutureGroupNG via @myentertain9jar

THERE are still a little more than six weeks before England's World Cup campaign begins with a step into the unknown in the Amazon against Italy. Yet a familiar theme is already weighing heavy on Roy Hodgson's mind.

Roy Hodgson is feeling the pressure as the build-up to Brazil begins[STUART ROBINSON]

Expectation was not supposed to haunt the nation in Brazil, with FA chairman Greg Dyke's cut-throat gesture at the draw for the tournament deemed to reflect the country's prospects.

But as the finals inch ever closer, ensuring his players do not freeze is suddenly uppermost in Hodgson's thoughts.

"What's the worst fear? The worst fear would be that the pressure gets on top of the players and that we aren't going to be able to get close to what I know this team could possibly produce," said the England coach. "If they can play with their minds free of what's going to be written about them the next day or what's going to happen if they don't get the result.

"As coaches we can do our level best to try and make certain players feel comfortable and well prepared, not under any great pressure from us because we believe in them and think they can do the job.

"But the football world is wider than just your team-mates and your coaches. There's a lot of peer pressure, there's pressure from family and friends and those type of things.

"My biggest fear is we will come away from the World Cup knowing that if we'd just been able to be a little bit more relaxed about it and freed our minds a bit more we could have done a bit better.

Hodgson met with cycling supremo Sir Dave Brailsford to discuss leadership [GETTY]

"That's why people like Steve Peters is coming with us, not because he is going to go round and sort all these things out in people's minds, that would be ludicrous.

"But at least him being there he might see some of the tensions we don't see because we are so close to it."

Club England managing director Adrian Bevington first raised the prospect of England tapping into the expertise of renowned psychiatrist Peters in the immediate aftermath of the country's Euro 2012 campaign.

The delay in bringing him on board, however, means it is unrealistic to expect Peters to wave a magic wand in Brazil because the success of his work with Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Liverpool, to name a few, has been achieved over years and months not days and weeks.

Still, England hope to benefit. "He might be able to point something out we might have missed because we've got our heads so far down in it and missing an obvious point," said Hodgson, who met cycling guru Sir David Brailsford yesterday to discuss strategy and leadership.

"He might even be able to help one or two players. He's not going to be asked to do it with the players. I'm not going to say, 'Steve, I want you to work with X, Y or Z'. He's got a watching brief.

Hodgson thinks Steven Gerrard is mentally strong enough to recover from his slip-up [GETTY]

"He is there if people need him and we know some of the Liverpool boys will go and speak to him because they do anyway. Whether the others will or not, I don't know, but at least he's there.

"If they do want to talk about something and they are choked up about something maybe he can help them out a little bit. It's an extra body and a very knowledgeable and expert body in a field where the rest of us can't ever say we are experts.

"When you do a lot of football coaching and management over the years, you do get a little bit of a feeling for elementary psychology but you are never going to be a psychologist."

 

Peters has worked extensively with Steven Gerrard at Liverpool and it is partly due to their relationship that Hodgson believes the midfielder will not dwell on the mistake he made in the defeat to Chelsea last weekend which saw the impetus swing towards Manchester City in the title race.

"No, I'm not worried because he's very strong mentally," added Hodgson. "I know, like the rest of you know, that he's a bit down because it was a big game and a very heavy defeat when they were being built up to an extent, and unfortunately his mistake cost them the match.

"But football matches are won and lost like that. I was reading a piece about the random chance in sport. We all want it to be so logical, to be able to say, 'It happened because of this; they got it wrong, they got it right'. But the truth is that sometimes games turn on such a simple thing.

"It was unusual for Steven to let the ball run past him in the first place but had he not slipped he'd have won it back anyway. He'd have won the tackle."