Manchester City defender Micah Richards insists there's no concerns for England over Russia's plastic pitch.

"A lot of people have asked me how I am going to find playing on their artificial pitch but, to be honest, I don't know yet - although we will get to play on the same surface in Altrincham on Monday," Richards said in his column for BBC Online.

"It will make things trickier though. I have heard it is like Astroturf and when I used to play on that when I was younger it made a difference for things like slide tackles.

"But I am sure we will be all right. We may be used to playing on beautiful pitches week in, week out, but we have all played on a bad pitch before so we are just going to have to do it again."