England captain John Terry refused to blame the double flare attack by Ukraine fans for his side losing their 100 per cent World Cup qualification record in Dnipropetrovsk. Home fans forced play to be stopped briefly after two minutes when they covered Robert Green's penalty box with a dozen or so flares. But Terry insists the ugly scenes had no bearing on England's poor first-half performance when a goal from Serhiy Nazarenko settled the issue. Terry said: "We did not feel at all in danger because of the flares. We were disappointed in the first half and we can't blame the flares on this and the other." He added: "There have been certain games in this group where we have had to tackle situations and we have got through them. "We can't look at the flares as an excuse. In the opening half, we were not at our best." Terry was more concerned with the bizarre situation in which referee Damir Skomina appeared to send off Rio Ferdinand then changed his mind and gave Green a red card for bringing down Artem Milevskyi. The Chelsea captain said: "I saw something different to the referee. He wanted to send Rio off which is bizarre and he was closer than me as well. "I think the fourth official intervened but after the game, the referee said he was going to send Robert Green off and not Rio which is even more bizarre. Hold your hands up if you have made a mistake." Terry feels England can take positives from the game despite the defeat. He said: "To go down to 10 men after so little time made it very difficult but in the second half we gave it a right go and there were some positives to come out of the second 45 minutes."
* PA Sport