The Lionesses have promised that they will go back to basics and put on a proper English performance in their must-win game against the Netherlands on Wednesday night.
England’s 2-1 defeat against France has left them third in Group D and facing a serious threat of being knocked out at the group stage, after a performance riddled with individual errors and an uncharacteristic absence of attacking intent.
One of the players who particularly struggled was Georgia Stanway, 26, on a night which she said left her disappointed due to the fact that she ‘couldn’t do the things that I wanted to be able to do, in terms of in-possession especially’.
The England midfielder said: ‘We’ve spoken about wanting to be proper England. We want to go back to what we’re good at, a traditional style of football in terms of tough tackles, getting back down to our roots and remembering why we’re here. Remembering to play for the little girl that wanted to be here.
‘We believe in the plan. We want to play expansive football and if we tidy up on the ball then expansiveness won’t be a problem.’
The team rewatched their defeat the following day – in what Stanway described as a ‘difficult’ watch – and are determined to put things right on Wednesday night against Sarina Wiegman’s former side in Zurich.
Georgia Stanway has promised that England will will go back to basics and put on a proper English performance against the Netherlands
Sarina Wiegman’s side face an earlier elimination from the competition when they come up against her native Netherlands
‘We’ve had good conversations, good meetings,’ Stanway said. ‘And then the day after the game, as soon as you get on that grass, you forget about everything that’s happened.
‘I had a message from somebody who said, “It was just like a bad night out, you want to forget it as much as possible, just move on to the next one”.
‘I think what we want going forward is to stop talking, hence why I didn’t want to do the press conference today because I’m fed up with talking. We want to make sure that we put things right on the pitch.
‘We’re all just dying for the game to come around as fast as possible.’
