nearly 78,000 were at Wembley today for the women's friendly between England and Germany. A world record seemingly.
on the pitch England lost..... again.... this time to a late goal on 90 mins
The good news is that Ellen White is back... making a nuisance of herself in front of goal and putting away a sharp chance in her first England game since the WC.
The bad news was that when she was subbed after 70 mins England were utterly hopeless without her. England missed their 4th consecutive penalty when Nikita Parris missed her 3rd consecutive penalty, which just isn't good enough and is becoming a real problem for the team. Germany took an early lead and probably should have had a player sent off for a studs up tackle that hit Beth Mead just below the knee and then raked down her shin to her ankle, but this is women's football and players have to pull out a knuckle duster and punch someone in the face with it to get a straight red card. Instead she was one of several Germany players to pick up a yellow card for decidedly agricultural tackling.... much of which was on Lucy Bronze
I didn't see the whole game, because I missed the first 20 minutes or so (which by all accounts was pretty dire from England) and I missed the last 10 minutes, but from what I did see, Germany were scared stiff of White; scared stiff of leaving her even an inch of space to run into. Consequently they didn't have enough players forward to really press when England had the ball, and without being put under much pressure England looked better than they have done recently. The minute White was taken off and Taylor put on, the whole German formation moved 10 or 15 yards up field, presumably because they didn't fear being caught out at the back any more, and suddenly England were put under pressure and so started to make all the same old mistakes that they've been making since the WC. When I checked the final score later, It didn't surprise me in the least to find that England had lost.
Thank goodness England have the bestest, bravest manager in the whole world in charge of the team, or they would be in trouble
It was quite remarkable to see the difference that Ellen White made to the performance, because teams have to be so much more defensively minded when she is on the pitch