Part 2 of England head coach Mark Sampson’s chat with the media after China had been beaten 2-1 at the City Academy stadium in Manchester.
Here, he talks about England’s progress against the best in the world, his selection headaches and the problems China posed his side during their friendly. Oh, and 28-year-old Portland Thorns striker and England goalscorer against China, Jodie Taylor, also popped in to answer a few quick questions too.
England boss Mark Sampson
On not yet beating teams ranked above England:
Every time we get beaten we’re disappointed. We’d have liked to have gone into this tournament with the record of being undefeated. I think the important thing is we are still unbeaten among teams ranked beneath us which shows a huge amount of consistency. There is pressure when you are playing teams ranked beneath you and you are favourites to win and to handle that pressure takes a certain strength of character and this group have certainly shown that. Yeah, we’re not quite there yet to beat the likes of Germany, USA, France, but from my point of view we’re getting much closer to that. We were a long way off it against France in the Cyprus Cup, a long, long way off it against Germany, far closer against a very good American team and are confident that the next time we come up against those teams we’re going to be a very difficult opponent for them and we’ve got the ability to find a way to get the result we want, which is a win.
On being close to naming his final WWC squad:
It’s a tough one. The most pleasing thing for me is I’m going to be sat there on May 10th really ‘umming and ahhing’ over who are the best people to come on this trip with us. It’s important we not only get the right players but we get the right people as well and the players are really ticking a lot of boxes at the moment. There’s not a many players who haven’t put their hands up to say ‘Mark, I’m in a really good position to come to this tournament’ so we’ve got to make sure as a group of staff that we get the right blend and select the right players. There is still a great opportunity for players to force my hand. We’ve got a number of domestic games coming up and the players know they need to go back, maintain good form and then they’ll be in a position hopefully where we can pick the best squad come May 11.
(Image: tgsphoto.co.uk)
On how many more opportunities there are to shine:
This was a great last chance in a white jersey to really stake a claim in this team but we knew that a maximum 17 players would get a go [against China] so the other players need the opportunity to go back to their clubs and perform. Going into a tournament you need to be battle hardened and that means that week-in, week-out, these girls have got to go and push each other whether that be in training or against each other.
On the chances for newer faces to make the cut:
The doors are open. We’ve seen the likes of Gemma Davison come into the group this week, she’ll certainly feel she can go back and make a statement.
On his best formation:
It depends on the opposition. We are a team that is very adaptable, we’ve shown that. We’ve had games against good opponents where we’ve dominated the ball, we’ve had games where we’ve found it tough at times to hold on to possession but have shown our threat on the counter attack and that we’re organised. We want to make sure we’ve got a lot of strings to our bow and whichever opponent we come across we can pose them a different type of challenge and hopefully we can keep them guessing right up until that first minute.
On playing China behind closed doors earlier in the week and losing 3-1:
We had a good opportunity to play a behind closed doors training match and it was a great run out for some of the other players but [Thursday’s official game] was the big focus for us, in front of our own supporters, I thought the crowd were brilliant tonight, they turned out in numbers and got behind the team.
On China and what he has learned from playing them:
Looking at the group China are in, there’s a strong possibility that someone from that group at some point could play us in the tournament. From what I’ve seen China have got a great chance of qualifying from that group, it’s going to be very tight with a strong Canadian team who are going to be on home soil. We have great experience now against Canada and Holland so I’m sure the manager [Hao Wei] can pick up the phone and ask me a few questions if he wants but yes they are going to be a good team in the tournament. There is a group of 15 or 16 teams who will go into the tournament feeling they can get to that quarter-final and we all know when it gets to the quarter-final stage it’s who handles the pressure the most.
On the problems China posed from set pieces:
They did pose us some problems, they have some tall players in their team and we didn’t defend those situations very well at all which we are disappointed with. I thought we were also a threat when we had some set plays our end but we should have defended those set plays better. When you concede off an early corner it puts your mindset in a place where you are always negative when you are defending those set pieces and that’s something we can tidy up pretty quickly. We’ve got players who can head the ball but if you look at our team sheet tonight we had a very small team if you take Jill Scott out of it so we can manage that process moving forward and get ourselves in a better place to defend either free kicks or corners.
On playing France in England’s opening Women’s World Cup match:
I wish France were only going to cause us problems from set pieces. Unfortunately for us we’ve got to deal with a lot more weapons. We’ll pick the team that we think can not only stop France hurting us but that we feel can hurt France as well because we know we’ll have to defend for spells in that game but we need to throw a bit back as well and make sure when we’re in possession of the ball we maintain it a bit better than [against China] but we maintain the positive threat we had on the counter attack which we’ve shown in abundance.
Striker Jodie Taylor
On her blistering start to the match:
I wasn’t expecting to score in the first minute especially when my shooting in the warm up wasn’t as on point as it normally is so I was super pleased to score in the first minute. It was a great ball in from Fran [Kirby] and luckily I was there to finish it.
On whether competition for a Women’s World Cup place was on her mind:
Of course there’s a lot of competition, there was at the Cyprus Cup as well and I think as a group and as a unit we performed really well and we are just building on the confidence from that tournament and took that into the game.
On whether playing in America puts her under pressure to impress when at home:
Not really. There’s enough media coverage of games over there, all the games are streamed live so they can watch them just as much as they can here. I am just doing everything I can when I am here and at my club day-in, day-out.
By Catherine Etoe
SHE KICKS – the online community for women’s football
