With two assists and a goal in the #Lionesses’ ‘send off’ win, Izzy Christiansen could be more than pleased with a profitable night’s work, writes PAUL NICHOLSON.
England saw off Austria with a comfortable 3-0 victory at Stadium MK on Monday in their last game on home soil before July’s European Championships in Holland.
Goals from Ellen White, Lucy Bronze and Izzy Christiansen gave the Lionesses only their second win from seven games in 2017, and provided Mark Sampson’s side with a confidence boost ahead of their final warm-up preparations for the tournament.
Christiansen, who had an eventful game, scoring one – deflecting a Steph Houghton header into the net – and assisting in both of the other goals, believes that a performance like that has been coming for a while, and that the squad have a “fantastic togetherness” that will serve them well in the Euros.
She said: “I’m obviously very pleased with my performance. To be honest, I’m just happy we got the win – as boring as it sounds. It was really important that we put Austria to bed tonight when we were on top and I feel like it could have been more.
“I had chances myself, we created other chances and it’s great to score three and keep a clean sheet.
“We have a fantastic togetherness as a 23, and we are all getting to know each other better and better each camp.
“We’ve got players who missed this camp through injury that have been selected [in the squad for the Euros], so it will be great to have them back fit as soon as possible and joining up with us, so we’re in good shape, it’s just important we need to stay in this position.”
England, ranked fourth in the world by FIFA, have found goals hard to come by in recent games, having not scored more than one goal in a game since October prior to this victory.
Christiansen, whose pin-point accurate cross led to White’s opening goal, and whose shot rebounded off the bar for Bronze to slot home the second, always felt it was something they would put right sooner rather than later with the quality of players in the squad.
“Certainly it was coming and I think three-nil reflects a good, solid professional performance from us.
“[Ellen White] is fantastic in the box. She’s a real presence and she’s been scoring goals like that in training all week, so you could argue – as clichés go – [her goal] was straight off the training field.
“We’ve got heaps of players in our team who can score goals whether it be defenders coming up from the back, whether it be forwards creating, whether it’s midfielders chipping in.
“We’ve got goals in the team and it’s important that we create an environment where we are flourishing and we are putting our chances to bed.
It is certainly a big year for the Manchester City attacking midfielder with semi-finals against Liverpool and Lyon in the FA Cup and Champions League respectively, before the Euros in July.
But Christiansen insists that separating club and country in her head is something that “comes naturally” to her.
“You keep the two environments separate. Obviously we’ve got some huge games coming up at City, and it’s pretty easy to separate the two, but obviously the Euros is always lingering in the back of my head.
“It’s been in my head for the last two years since I was selected into the senior team, and this is my goal – to be at this tournament – so [I can] tick that off, and now it’s time to prepare and keep the club and country separate but making sure I’m ready come June and July.”
She also believes that having so many of her City teammates in the Lionesses squad helps, but insists that in Holland, it will not matter who plays, as long as they work hard between now and then, they will be focused and ready.
“It’s great, first and foremost, that we’ve got a third of the squad that are coming from the same club, and it shows that we’re obviously doing the right thing in terms of away from an England environment.
“Of course the relationship helps from club to country, but Mark [Sampson] picks his team that’s going to win the game and whether that be two of us, five of us, eight of us, [Manchester City players] or whatever, it doesn’t matter because whichever players that he selects to put into battle, I think we’ll do a job.
“We absolutely don’t stop here. We don’t settle for 3-0 against Austria, we know that that performance could have been better. We know that individually we can be better.
“I think it’s 50 days now until we meet up next, but that’s 50 days of gains we can make on and off the pitch and it’s important we remain healthy and fit.”
England’s next game is a friendly against Switzerland on 10 June at the Tissot Arena, Biel and is scheduled to be the final Euros warm-up game for Sampson to finalise his plans for their opening game of the tournament against Scotland on 19 July.
