Kenny Swain, the England U16 coach, has said the changes he will make to his starting line-up for Thursday night's Victory Shield game against Northern Ireland is not a reflection on the players dropped after the 4-0 loss to Wales.

The young Three Lions have had an iron grip on the annual competition in recent years, but their defence of the tournament this year opened with a heavy loss to the Welsh.

Swain has reacted by making sweeping changes to his side ahead of their second outing, but insisted they are changes he would have made anyway.

"The boys who haven't been re-called from that Wales game is no reflection on the score or the performances from last month. This is actually the most open group of U16s that I've had at my disposal in my time with The FA," he said

"In previous years we'd try and look at about 25-28 players over these three Victory Shield games, but with this year we could go well into the thirties. The change around in personnel has got absolutely nothing to do with the last result; there would have been eight or nine changes had we won 4-0."