"The stick we got for Austria will help us unite to do better," said Gerrard. "I don't think the stick is unfair. If we're 2-0 up against Austria with 70 minutes gone you'd expect us to win the game. So it is fair. We need to learn how to finish teams off. Poland is a massive game now.
"I don't think you can blame the manager. You've got to blame the players who get picked to do a job. If it was any other England manager in charge he would pick more or less the same players to do the same job. A manager can only do a certain job and then it's down to the players to take responsibility.
"We saw two different England sides in the same game. For 70 minutes we had the game under control, playing some nice stuff and looking dangerous. For 20 minutes it was a completely different side. We looked all over the place defensively.
"It's worrying. Against a better side than Austria we could've lost and that's something we have to work on and put right. Maybe there's a bit of nervousness when we go ahead because we know things like that can happen. There have been times when we've let games slip and mentally that can creep into your heads.
"I'm definitely confident we can win the group and get to the World Cup and have a good tournament. But we've still got a lot of improving to do to get to that next level. The way we lost to Brazil and Portugal proves why there are question marks over us.
"If we're to progress past quarter-finals we need to learn from the things we're doing wrong. When we're leading against these teams we should keep our shape and pass the ball better, to see the game out at least, if not score more goals to kill the game off.
"We have to stop giving teams opportunities around our box. We have to learn things psychologically and tactically in those circumstances. We have to keep our shape. If I knew the answer to that I'd be invincible, wouldn't I? We've got a lot of learning to do. We're not too worried about the situation because we know we can put it right. We've got the players."