[WORLD CUP 2014 QUALIFYING: Poland-England] A day after England's World Cup qualifier game against Poland was postponed because of a waterlogged field in Warsaw, the teams played to a 1-1 tie described by England coach Roy Hodgson as arguably the worst outing of his short tenure. The listless performance was blamed by the British media in part on sleeping pills some of the players had to take to get them to sleep after taking caffeine tablets in anticipation of the night game that never took place.

England captain Steven Gerrard wasn't trying to look for excuses, however, after the Poles pulled even on Kamil Glik's equalizer with 20 minutes to play.

"When you're fired up, pumped up, you've had your massages and you're ready to go, that's not ideal, but we're professionals," said Gerrard, who earned his 99th cap. "We're playing at the top level and we had to get ourselves up for this, but I didn't think we were totally at the races. I slept fine. I won't use the delay and conditions as an excuse. The reason we didn't win was because we didn't pass it when we went in front.

Gerrard didn't want to use the field conditions as an excuse, either.

"They were difficult conditions and a difficult pitch -- it was slippery, wet, cutting up -- so it wasn't ideal," he added, "but we can't use that as an excuse. I thought Poland dealt with the conditions and played to the conditions slightly better than us. We never passed the ball well enough, for whatever reason."

Goalie Joe Hart took the blame for not getting to Ludovic Obraniak's corner that was nodded in by Glik.

"It's my fault," he told ITV.

Unbeaten in 11 matches under Hodgson, England leads Group H with eight points, one more than Montenegro, which has played a game less.