New Women's football thread (inc World Cup) 2023-26

[Durhamfootman]

Blimey, England played well tonight, but China were awful.... awful! I don't imagine this was quite what England expected when they booked a friendly against a top 20 side.

England were too quick and too strong, so when China played a high defensive line with 5 at the back, England just played the ball over the top, or fired the ball through, beating the defenders to most balls and muscling them off the others. Add into the mix a keeper who was utterly chaotic and 8-0 summed the game up pretty well. England started fast, which will have been the aim, but they were helped enormously by a China side that were far too passive in the first half. 5-0 the HT score. China brought on a sub who livened things up for them a bit in the second half, but not enough to change the course of the game. This is a side that only lost 3-0 to USA earlier this year. They can't have played this poorly in that game

Hat trick for Stanway, 2 in 2 mins for Mead and goals for Hemp, Russo and Toone from a shocking lapse by the goalie. Russo played well, ran into spaces behind and cut the ball into the box numerous times and not once did an England player get on the end of it. Something to work on, because she put the ball into the same dangerous area time after time. There could have been another 3 goals there for the team had the others worked it out

Ghana next on Tuesday. It wouldn't surprise me if they put on a much better show than this China side despite being 40 or 50 places behind them in the rankings

[Durhamfootman]

Ghana asked a few more questions of England than China did, despite being ranked 67 in the world. I thought they did pretty well, considering the gulf in quality. England made 7 changes to their starting line up. Wubben Moy got a full game tonight and looked assured and competent. Hinds looks really good at LB, Kendall did well and scored the opener. Park looked a bit lost at times, Moorhouse had a second game in goal with not much to do, but what she did, she did pretty well. Kelly came off with a knock early on. AB-J squandered a couple of gilt edged chances and Kearns did okay without doing anything startling.

Ghana worked their socks off and hassled and harried England all over the pitch barring the final third. They defended in numbers and gave England no time on the ball, but England made it easier for them by not being particularly clinical in front of goal. England hit the bar 3 times, the keeper made some really decent saves and defenders got their bodies in the way regularly. The two England goals came from Ghana mistakes.... a poor touch in the box that rolled out to Kendall to poke home and a late inadvertent handball that deflected a Russo header onto the post, but which did stop an otherwise certain goal, with Russo converting the penalty

Plenty of the squad have had opportunities over the last 2 sets of friendlies and in general most have done well, so I imagine Sarina will be pretty pleased at the end of a very good year for England football