Sven-Goran Eriksson declared that England would "fight" to reach the World Cup semi-finals after cruising into the last eight with a comprehensive 3-0 win over Denmark.

England are now just three games from glory and will face either Belgium or the Samba boys from Brazil in the quarter final on Friday.

Denmark, who had topped France's group, were stunned by three first half goals which sealed the contest for England and booked their place in the last eight of the tournament for the first time in 12 years.

England made three changes after the interval and crushed any thoughts of a Danish comeback with a solid defence display which has earned them the title of having the meanest defence in the tournament with Germany.

Eriksson is refusing to allow his players to rest on their laurels as they await the winners of Monday's game between Brazil and Belgium.

"The semi-final is what I want. It's very good to be among the eight best teams in the World Cup but to be among the four best would be even better," he said.

"It's better to take one game at a time now. We will see on Monday who we are going to meet. Either way, we are going to fight on Friday and try to win.

"We have thought about the World Cup final but we have never talked about it. So far that has worked very well so why should we talk about the final today? Let's talk about the quarter-final first."

England were effectively handed their opening goal in Niigata after just five minutes when Sunderland goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen put Rio Ferdinand's header into his own net.

Michael Owen then ended his four-game 'drought' in emphatic fashion as he swept the ball home on 22 minutes before Emile Heskey, who had gone 10 games without scoring for England, also struck on the stroke of half-time with a powerful shot which flew under Sorensen.

"Maybe they needed a goal but they have both been doing playing good football. I had said I was not worried about them," Eriksson said of his Anfield strikeforce.

"It's good when your attackers score though. They need that as they live for their goals."

Owen, Heskey and Paul Scholes were all taken off as precautionary moves after groin, foot and ankle problems respectively.

However, Eriksson predicted that all three should be fit for next Friday's quarter-final in Shizuoka as he insisted: "We don't think there are any serious problems."

He also hopes that Owen Hargreaves could start training again on Monday, with an outside possibility of being on the bench next Friday.

Eriksson allowed his mind to wander for a second towards a possible showpiece game against Brazil, commenting "ooh, the big one!"

However, he quickly insisted: "Maybe they are the favourites because they have played very good football so far but it's a knock-out game and you never know what will happen.

"They are two different styles of football. One is the Samba style and the other is more European. We shall look at their game very carefully."

Eriksson was delighted with the way that his team dominated the first half and put the match beyond Denmark's reach by the break.

"Scoring three goals in 45 minutes is very good. Maybe we were a little bit lucky with at least one of the goals but it was a very good result," he added.

"What killed the game was the third goal one minute from the end of the first half. To have that in your head when you go into the dressing room for Denmark is very difficult."