Ian Wright had some criticism for England after they lost 2-1 to Brazil in a friendly at the City of Manchester Stadium.
At half-time, when Sarina Wiegman’s side went in two goals down, he reflected: “We’ve shown a real lack of athleticism and pace in our midfield.”
And at full-time, despite Georgia Stanway’s penalty putting the Lionesses on the scoresheet, the visitors celebrated their victory – despite having been reduced to ten players in the first half when captain Angelina was sent off for denying Ella Toone a goalscoring opportunity.
And Wright was unimpressed by England’s slow start – with debutante goalkeeper Khiara Keating conceding to Bia Zanaretto in the ninth minute and then to Dudinha nine minutes later.
“I think we’re too experienced now to be starting games playing poorly for 20 minutes and thinking that we’re going to continually come back like we’ve shown and done in tournaments,” he said on ITV after the match.
“I think it’s something that we have to address, it’s a problem. We have to do something about being man-to-man marked because we have to create more.
“I thought Lessi [Alessia Russo] was great today. We have to create more and support her more to get more chances at the other end of the field.”
Ian Wright: We play these games in the spirit of tournaments
He added: “It cost us at the start because we weren’t pressing them high. Once we dropped off, if you’re not going to press them in the midfield either and they’ve got pace, then you’re going to have a problem if they do break, and that’s what they’ve done on us. They won a lot of second balls in those first 20 minutes and they caused us a problem – they could have scored more goals.
“We’re very fortunate not to go in 3-0 down. My problem with us is that for some reason we play these games in the spirit of tournaments. We never start well and that’s something that we’re going to have to address.
“In the midfield, the energy, the athleticism and the pace is something that needs to be addressed.”
Fellow pundit and former Lioness Anita Asante agreed, saying that England were failing to live up to their own standards when they began the match so sluggishly.
“They need to raise their standards, live to their own standards,” she said. “They are playing at home today – they had to set the tone and the intensity early. They didn’t do that. They allowed Brazil to come on and dictate the pace of the game.”
