England are set to field one of the most inexperienced attacking line-ups in the history of the national team in this evening’s Euro 17 qualifier against Estonia at Notts County’s Meadow Lane writes TONY LEIGHTON…
Between them Danielle Carter, Nikita Parris and Rachel Daly have just four caps – but head coach Mark Sampson is confident that the trio will have enough firepower to shoot his team to victory in their penultimate group game.
Arsenal striker Carter, in her only international to date, hit a hat-trick in last year’s 8-0 trouncing of Estonia in Tallinn, while Manchester City’s Parris has two goals in two games and Houston Dash youngster Daly scored in her only outing.
“They might not have many caps between them, but,” noted Sampson, “that’s not a bad goal ratio! It will be a big challenge for them, but it will be important for them to put down a marker and show they’re ready to compete at this level.
“All the evidence I’ve seen tells me they will be able to compete and that they’ll be good additions to this group. I’ve seen that in their level of performance in games for club and country, and they’ve shown they are ambitious and hungry.”
Each of the young trio will be keen to increase their international goal tally as they face an Estonia team who sit a huge 80 places below England at 85th in the world rankings and who have lost all seven of their previous qualifiers.
“There might be an element of (Estonia) making sure they stay in the game as long as they can and frustrate us,” said Sampson, “but we’re used to that. We’ll focus on performance levels and result – and I’ll be looking to raise the bar a bit.”
England may not have to raise the bar too far to once more beat Estonia, whose English coach Keith Boanas will be quitting his role to return home later this year, but next week’s final qualifier against Belgium may be a different matter.
The Belgians held England to a 1-1 draw at Rotherham in April and, if they beat Serbia in their penultimate qualifier, then a win against Sampson’s team in Leuven on Tuesday evening will see them top the group.
A draw for England in Leuven, provided Estonia are beaten tonight, will be enough to finish top – but with qualification for next year’s finals in the Netherlands already clinched, Sampson insisted: “We want to win the group.
“We want to win both of these games to make sure we do that. We’re a top team and we don’t want to be going into the tournament as a runner-up. It’s important that we finish the campaign with quality and get two positive results.
“If we end this campaign with two victories it means that over the course of two years of qualifying this team has conceded hardly any goals, scored lots of them and we would have only dropped two points.”
England squad:
Goalkeepers: Bardsley (Manchester City), Chamberlain (Liverpool), Spencer (Chelsea).
Defenders: Bassett (Notts County), Bronze (Manchester City), Flaherty (Chelsea), Houghton (Manchester City), Rafferty (Chelsea), A. Scott (Arsenal), Stokes (Manchester City), Stoney (Arsenal).
Midfielders: Bright (Chelsea), Christiansen (Manchester City), Moore (Notts County), Nobbs (Arsenal), Potter (Notts County) J. Scott (Manchester City), Williams (Arsenal).
Forwards:Carney (Chelsea), Carter (Arsenal), Daly (Houston Dash), Davison (Chelsea), Parris (Manchester City).
MATCH DETAILS: ENGLAND v ESTONIA, 7.05pm KO, 15th Sept, Notts County FC
Don’t forget, Issue 37 is available in the Notts County FC Club Shop all this week…
