Ben Johnson has set himself the target of showing his reliability for both West Ham United and England.
The versatile full-back played for England U21s across the UEFA 2023 European U21s Championship qualifiers this month, helping the young Lions secure their place at next summer’s finals in Romania and Georgia.
Johnson and his international colleagues claimed three wins, against the Czech Republic, Albania and Kosovo, but fell to a 2-1 defeat at home to Slovenia on Monday evening in Huddersfield in the final match of the 2021/22 campaign.
The defender’s involvement in the England set-up this summer caps an incredible season for Johnson, who is now focusing on improving even further after his off-season break.
“We’ve had a good camp overall,” Johnson reflected. “We’ve won three and lost one. It’s been a condensed camp, having four games in two weeks, so it’s been tough, but we can build on this.
"We’re looking forward to the next camp already and hopefully we can build on it, improve, and make it a better camp ahead of next year’s Euros. It’s ended on a bit of a sour note with this result, but we’ve got a lot to celebrate. We’ve qualified for the Euros, which is of course a good thing.
“I think my main aim is to be consistent. No matter who I’m playing for, in whatever competition I’m playing in. I want to be confident in my own ability.
“I’d like to say I was reliable last season and I’m looking to maintain that in the new season. I’ve done it for Club and I’ve started doing it for country, and I want to continue doing that.”
England’s defeat to Slovenia was the side’s first European Under-21 Championship qualifier loss in over ten years, with an early own-goal from Djed Spence and Mark Zabukovnik's header putting the home side to the sword.
Cameron Archer netted in injury time to half the deficit, but Johnson acknowledged he and his teammates did not perform to their usual high standards in Monday's game.
The essential thing, according to the 2021/22 Mark Noble Young Hammer of the Year, is how they learn from and respond to defeat.
He added. “It was poor in this game. The only positive is that we can learn from that and we can learn from the way we played in this game. Credit to Slovenia, they played very well and they outplayed us.
“It’s difficult to take and we were chasing the game. For me, it’s similar to when we at West Ham United played Eintracht Frankfurt and we conceded in the first minute. We could never quite get the game back. It was always going to be an upwards challenge against Slovenia and all the boys thought we could relish that challenge.
“We went in 1-0 down at half-time and we had 45 minutes to make it better. The second half was slightly better and Lee [Carsley] wanted to see characters who are going to take the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half no matter what happens.
“All of us have played top flight football so we know we have quite a lot of experience. We need to stand up. There are going to be games, when we go back to our clubs, that we may be a goal down in. It’s something we really need to learn from.”
