England coach Mark Sampson was hugely disappointed to lose out in the dying seconds but he admitted the failings were on the sidelines, not on the field…
Losing is hard to take any time but when you see your side lose with literally the last touch of the game, having led at half time; it’s understandably a crushing blow. So it was a deeply frustrated but refreshingly honest England Head Coach that came into the mixed zone to try and explain how a superb first half team performance had been superceded by a struggling second half showing, during which France not only clawed the game back but then snatched the three points with a last gasp winner.
MARK SAMPSON, on the performance:
“Yeah, obviously we’re incredibly disappointed. I think it’s one of those games where the first half was obviously our half and we weren’t ruthless off. We had enough chances to finish France off today but our final pass, that mentality to take them to the cleaners, wasn’t there in the first half and we came in at 1-0 up when we should have been 3-0 up. Second half, credit to France. They reacted. I thought our conditioning showed where we’re not where we need to be yet. A lot of work to do! And I hold my hands up! I made some poor decisions today, in terms of substitutions in the second half. Nothing to do with the guys that came on, they did exactly what they were asked but in terms of the structure of the team, I have to hold my hands up and say I made some mistakes in the second half and that has cost us.
On whether that imbalance resulted because England did not counter the personnel changes that France made in the second half:
“It was a bit of everything, I think. Until I watch the game back, I don’t know. We obviously struggled in the second half, particularly down our left hand side defensively and we tried to make a change to address that but it wasn’t the right change. The players that came on put in a great shift but their role was not what it should have been to make sure we saw out the game or kicked on. We didn’t want to come out in the second half and sit back. We wanted to continue to build on that performance but we didn’t but I put my hands up for some of the poor mistakes in the second half.
On what they will take away from the game:
[Long pause] “Disappointment. Frustration. They are the biggest of the emotions at the moment. We’re still on a journey. We want to find a way to win these games. I think we showed big improvements in the first half, really pleased with the players in the first half. We’ve created more chances – we get hammered all the time about creating chances and scoring goals against these big teams but we created chances, so many moments when we could have more scored goals but we didn’t take them. At the end of the day, it’s a disappointment because of that result.
In the first half the team had that balance between attack and defence. KB wasn’t even troubled in the first half. The conditions were hard as well, with the wind and the rain but the players stuck to the plan and executed but again we just lacked that real ruthless edge. We got into in-between their defence and midfield line over and over again in the first half. The weight of our pass, the choice of our pass, the timing of our run, we could have scored 2-4 in the first half but a team like France are always going to come back at you. But it’s deeply frustrating because we made some bad calls from the sideline, like I said and that’s affected the result in the end.
On the players’ fitness:
This is the choice that the players have to make now. We’ve got to get fitter. We’ve got a huge conditioning block between this camp and the Euros. We going to need to see players work harder than they’ve ever worked, if we want to play our type of game. Otherwise, we’ll have to just come here and park the bus and hope for a result and we don’t want to do that. So one big lesson for the team will be that if we want to play to that level and with that intensity in football then we’ve got to get our conditioning right.
(Images: Robyn McNeil/SHE KICKS)
Below are details of the two remaining England fixtures that FATV will be streaming on their channel, including date and time of kick-off. (The links will go live an hour before kick-off.)
England v USA: Saturday 4 March (10pm GMT KO)
England v Germany: Tuesday 7 March (9pm GMT KO)
(All games are only viewable in the UK)
Then next month, you can watch the Lionesses play in person against Italy at Port Vale FC on Friday 7 April and Austria at MK Dons FC on Monday 10 April.
Tickets for both games are on sale now priced £7a.50 adults and £3.50 children for each game. A family ticket (two adults and two children) is available at £15 and group booking and Charter Standard discounts apply.
Tickets for both games can be bought via www.TheFA.com/Tickets.
Tickets for England v Italy are also available via 01782 655821, for England v Austria by calling 0333 200 5343 and in person at each club’s box office.
