England coach Steve McClaren was given a cautious vote of confidence from English Football Assocation chief executive Brian Barwick in the aftermath of his side's defeat in Russia.

McClaren's side slumped to a 2-1 defeat in Moscow on Wednesday that leaves England on the verge of elimination from the race to qualify for UEFA EURO 2008 and the manager facing a fight to save his job.

With England's fate not definitely sealed Barwick, who was instrumental in McClaren's appointment, was inevitably keen to give his public support to his coach. But he stopped short of saying McClaren would remain in charge regardless of whether or not England make it to next year's finals.

"We know we are not in the position in this group that we would like to be. I think everybody accepts that," Barwick told Sky Sports News. "We need other people to do a job for us but Steve has to get on with his job and we are behind him of course.

"The real issue at the moment is just to gather our thoughts after the last five days of football and then push it on into the Croatia match. Yes, we need help from elsewhere but of course we are behind Steve.

"Steve has to concentrate on England against Croatia and I know he will. We will be there supporting him. We are still in the mix, although we have to be realistic. We would love to have done it off our own back, but there is a lot of football to be played."

Sol Campbell produced a battling display at centre-back in Moscow but was unable to stem the tide of Russian attacks. The Portsmouth defender admits England had only themselves to blame for the defeat.

"It was not a happy dressing room because we let ourselves down a little bit," he said. "But we have really got to look after ourselves and we have got to beat Croatia and hope everything else takes care of itself. It's not in our hands now.

"We needed to win, or not lose, and now we have got to look out for other results. Sometimes in the game our concentration slipped a little bit and they (Russia) have capitalised.

"We had some chances to finish it or get it back, but it just really didn't go our way."