Larsson: Walcott lucky to score

Sebastian Larsson lamented Sweden’s loss to England and believes goalscorer Theo Walcott was fortunate to find the back of the net.

The Arsenal winger bamboozled Andreas Isaksson in the Sweden goal as his long-range effort found the top of the net to bring England back into the match after Andy Carroll’s opener had been cancelled out by a Glen Johnson own goal and an Olof Mellberg header.

Walcott would go on to assist Danny Welbeck for the winner as England edged to a 3-2 victory in Kiev to end Sweden’s chances of reaching the last eight.

Sunderland midfielder Larsson believes Walcott would not be able to repeat his second-half strike if he tried it 1000 times.

“Walcott’s goal? Come on, it’s a thing that happens once. If he tries it 1000 times he won’t score again, that’s the truth,” he told Goal.com.

The result sees England increase their chances of reaching the quarter-finals at Euro 2012, while Sweden have been eliminated after also losing to Ukraine in their first outing.

Asked if he felt frustrated after the match, Larsson added: “That’s an understatement, we are extremely disappointed.

“I think by quite some margin we were the better team but that doesn’t matter, England got the points and we are out.

“I don’t want to think that we have been unlucky or not, we went out and that’s it.

“We were leading in both games after an hour and we haven’t come away with any points – that’s the biggest disappointing thing of them all.”