Kelvin Davis is backing England and a fellow 'keeper he knows well, to bounce back in the World Cup.

The Saints stopper admitted that he felt for Robert Green after his mistake in the nation's opening World Cup fixture, but is backing the man who he almost became teammates with last year, to recover.

"We've all made mistakes before, I know I have," he told Saints Player. "Whether you're playing in a group of mates on Sunday morning or in the World Cup finals, that feeling is the same. The problem is, it's there for everyone to see when it's England and people come to expect you not to make those sort of mistakes, but it shows that he's human.

"I know for a fact that Rob Green works very, very hard as a goalkeeper and he'll get over that and go on to have a fantastic tournament."

The much maligned Adidas Jabulani ball has taken some of the flak away from the West Ham 'keeper, but Davis says that on reflection it has to go down as a human error which hopefully doesn't come around too often.

"I've watched it a few times, and I don't think the ball did have too much to do with it, but I think possibly that all this talk about the ball may have affected it before it's even got into the six yard box.

"It's disappointing because he's had a lot of time to think about the shot as it's come in, but it's slipped through his grasp. It's happened to me before, hopefully it won't happen again, but it can happen to any goalkeeper.

"Afterwards he stood strong, accepted the error and talked about moving on. As I say there was no point trying to hide it, everyone saw it, unless they were watching in HD! But it's one of those mistakes that come along perhaps once, twice in your career and it's unfortunate that it was on that stage."

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