The Manchester United centre-half has been one of the few pluses for England so far this tournament, and he shook off a groin strain to help his team secure a 1-0 win over Ecuador in the second round.

But although England's performance against the South Americans was one of their worst of the tournament, Ferdinand is adamant that from now on it is only results that matter.

"Everyone keeps talking about performances, performances, performances -- but it's results that win tournaments," Ferdinand said.

"The performance is a bonus. And that's how we look at it. If we get a good performance that's fantastic because that's what we aim for.

"But if it doesn't come and we get the right result, who's going to cry about that?"

Ferdinand said the fact that England's football had failed to set the tournament alight in the way that others teams have was not a concern.

"I think you'd rather be playing well towards the end of this tournament than be playing well at the beginning if you had a choice," Ferdinand said.

"Ideally you'd like to play well all the way through but I think you've seen in the past that a lot of teams start slow and then get a full head of steam at the end when they get to the final.

"We don't care how we get to the final, we'll take that."

Even so Ferdinand admitted that England were well aware that they were not firing on all cylinders.

"We put ourselves under pressure to perform and our biggest critics are ourselves. The media's criticism could never compete with that.

"We're professionals and we want to make sure we play well. We're more self-critical than you guys could ever be towards us.

"It does go in one ear and it does get listened to, but you can be sure our own criticism will be a lot worse."

Ferdinand's stance was echoed by England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who said that the history of the World Cup showed that teams which began the tournament well do not necessarily go on to win the title.

The best example of World Cup slow burners were Italy in 1982, who swept to victory in Spain after suddenly catching fire in the second round after a dismal start to the competition.

Eriksson believes that Italy's triumph paints a truer picture of what is needed to win.

"I don't remember any team who started the World Cup perfectly and played brilliantly in all seven games and won in big style every time," said Eriksson. "You always have to suffer in a big tournament like this. Look at Argentina -- they couldn't get past Mexico in 90 minutes.

"So I'm not concerned, I'm the opposite -- I'm very happy," Eriksson said.

"We haven't played our best football yet and we're in the quarter-final. So that's great. We haven't conceded any goals in open play. We conceded two really stupid goals against Sweden from set-pieces and that's all.

"If we can perform as we know that we can I think we have a really good chance."