AARON RAMSEY insists Wales will focus on themselves and not be too concerned about England when they meet in Euro 2016's Battle of Britain.
Wales claimed top spot in Group B with a 2-1 victory over Slovakia in Bordeaux on Saturday evening as they marked the end of their 58-year absence from a major finals in style.
A few hours later, England conceded an injury-time equaliser to draw 1-1 against Russia and leave Roy Hodgson's side playing catch-up ahead of Thursday's date with Wales in Lens.
"We wanted to start off well in this competition and we've managed to do that," said Ramsey. "We work hard for each other, we have quality going forward and we are ready to take on anybody.
"They have a lot of good players, who are quite dangerous individually. They had a faultless [qualifying] campaign. But we will focus on ourselves and what we need to do to try and get something out of the game."
Ramsey could come up against Arsenal team-mate Jack Wilshere at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis.
Wilshere came on for the final 12 minutes of England's draw with Russia, replacing skipper Wayne Rooney, and the Welshman says he might be in contact with his Gunners' team-mate before the game.
"There might be a couple of texts, but we are simply focussed on trying to win the game now," said Ramsey.
"We'll approach that game like we did this one, we will work on that in training this week.
"We've been waiting for this moment for a long time, to experience what we experienced against Slovakia was fantastic.
England manager Roy Hodgson, meanwhile, has told Wales talisman Gareth Bale not to question England's passion or patriotism ahead of the crunch clash.
Bale claimed last week that Welsh players had more desire than their neighbours and that England "big themselves up before they've done anything".
But Hodgson believes the Real Madrid superstar's jibes were ill-informed.
"Receiving disrespectful comments is part and parcel of being a footballer and a football coach," he said.
"I don't ever comment on other people. I've been in the game sufficiently long to know every opponent has got an opinion, the other day it was [Russia goalkeeper Igor] Akinfeev saying we were the worst seeded team and now it's Gareth Bale.
"They can have those opinions but I don't have any doubts personally about our patriotism or desire and that's the important thing. If he believes that that's the case he's welcome to that opinion.
"But we know who we are, we know what we are. We don't have any doubts about ourselves in that respect."
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