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

[Durhamfootman]

Newcastle dumped out of the FA cup by WSL side Palace. 2-0, but they left it late to score the 2 goals. Newcastle only had 1 shot on target in the match, which is always going to make it hard to win

Sunderland, meanwhile, march on with a 2-0 victory over Portsmouth. They are now the only non-WSL side left in the comp

[Durhamfootman]

decent first half from England. Portugal have threatened with their pace and they are trying to expose England's lack of pace at the back, but haven't had enough quality to make it work, thus far

I've been critical of Russo in the past, but she was very good in this first half. She's learned how to roll defenders, she's held the ball up well and she took her goal well. The cross from Bronze put it on a plate for her and she cushioned the ball neatly into the net. England haven't been as pedestrian as they have been in the last 12 months or so. They've moved the ball quickly and they've been largely attack minded, so it's disappointing they are only the one goal up. Clinton was tugged back in the box, trying to get on the end of a James cross for what should have been a stonewall penalty, but somehow the ref managed to miss it. Hey ho.... good start for the lionesses

[Durhamfootman]

Carter replaces Bronze at half time.... not sure why

[Durhamfootman]

well, well, well

that was quite the startling turnaround from Portugal. Forget England's first half dominance... Portugal changed shape, brought on more attack minded players and absolutely battered England in the second half. The equaliser, when it came, had been coming for quite some time and the only real surprise was that they didn't go on and complete their victory.

England were awful in the second half and just couldn't cope with the pressure that Portugal put them under. Players got isolated and got swarmed over. Portugal totally dominated the midfield, pushed England deeper and deeper and by the end England couldn't string two passes together. Yet despite all this and despite Earps going down for treatment with the sole aim of taking the sting out of the game and allowing Wiegman and the players to try and re-organise, England didn't make any other changes until the 80th minute and by then it was too late to do anything other than try to salvage a point

The difference between the two halves was stark. England got away with one there and far from being a new start for them, I found that second half really concerning. They were as bad as they've been in the last couple of years and this was Portugal, not Spain, or Germany or Holland or the USA... Portugal! Spain will crucify England if they are as easily dominated as that on Wednesday

[Durhamfootman]

I've just watched highlights of the Spain Belgium game. Obviously England will lose to Spain in midweek, but both the Belgium goals came from long balls played behind the centre backs with a whippet racing from inside their own half way line to score. With England's defence always running through treacle in retreat, I reckon they could easily lose to Belgium as well. It took Spain 80 mins to break the Belgium defence down and beat the excellent keeper, despite dozens of attempts on goal, so England have no hope

[Durhamfootman]

The lionesses beat the mighty Spain 1-0

I saw very little of the game, but the tiny little bits that I did see suggested they were going to get a hammering. 20 shots for Spain but only 5 on target, whereas England had 6 from 9

[Durhamfootman]

it sounds as though Hampton had a decent game. When I saw she'd been preferred to Earps I was a bit worried, because she sometimes gets caught out with ball to feet (and it happened very early in the game, but her blushes were spared by the ref blowing up for a foul on her even though it was a bit of a soft call), but it would appear that she did pretty well...... as did the 2 CBs who it's reported blocked a host of Spain shots

[Durhamfootman]

I've seen some extended highlights and England did play well enough to look threatening on the counter whilst remaining pretty solid defensively. Spain had loads of possession, but were reduced in the second half to speculative shots from outside the box. England had little periods in both halves where they controlled the game, they scored in the first half period and were very close to scoring in the second. Spain were pretty profligate with the scoring chances they had putting many just wide or just over and Hampton also made 4 or 5 really good saves.

A good result for England and probably their best performance for a year at least. Positive signs!

[Durhamfootman]

Meanwhile Japan beat the US 2-1 to win the shebelieves cup.

I looked at the US lineup and didn't recognise any of the names either starting or on the bench. Either there was something else going on that occupied many of the usual players or the US are going through a transitional phase atm

[Durhamfootman]

A good day for Newcastle and Sunderland women

Sunderland beating Durham, Charlton and London City drawing and Newcastle beating Bristol City tightens the table up a bit

that now sees Durham in 3rd, Sunderland in 6th and Newcastle in 7th with only 3 points separating them. Newcastle have at least one game in hand over the teams above them and in some cases two. Only Birmingham and London City are clear of the congestion

[Durhamfootman]

on a day when every Newcastle Utd supporter had both eyes on Wembley, Durham turned Newcastle women over 3-1. Meanwhile Sunderland went down 2-1 to Portsmouth, who after accumulating 2 points from their first 14 matches, suddenly have back to back wins and are no longer rooted to the bottom

[Durhamfootman]

Durham women and their cricket counterparts have announced that they will be combining to build a new stadium and training facilities in Chester le Street. There is a large patch of grassy land close to the Riverside stadium, where once upon a time (in Shearer's day) NUFC used to train. It's also next to a sports centre and running track, so I reckon that'll be the site they have in mind. Durham WFC were recently taken over, so that may have something to do with it. They were previously owned by the university, which is presumably why they play at the university ground of Maiden Castle. Once upon a time they did play at a football stadium in Durham. I always thought that it was odd moving from there, but I didn't know about the university link

I saw something recently about those two teams and NUFC women combining for something, but I can't find what it was

[Durhamfootman]

Over 15,000 attended the Tyne Wear derby yesterday, breaking the Championship attendance record by 4,000

If, as I assume they will, they play the reverse fixture at SJP, then that record will surely be broken again. When they played at SJP in the lower tiers, they got crowds of over 20,000. At one point they were hoping for 30,000, but didn't manage it.

well they've managed it now. 38,500 the crowd today for the 1-0 win over Sunderland at SJP. Easily the biggest championship attendance ever. Probably helped by the success at Wembley a week ago. I reckon lots of supporters wanted to meet up and it's entirely possible that the League Cup trophy might have put in an appearance, although I'm not sure about that

Durham women had a week off

[Durhamfootman]

Newcastle lost at home to London City 2-1. I saw some of the game. LC scored 2 goals pretty much from nothing, whilst Newcastle worked the goalie hard. Got to score the goals and make your dominance count

Durham thumped Portsmouth 6-0

Sunderland lost by the odd goal in a 7 goal affair v Charlton

[Durhamfootman]

The Lionesses were all over Belgium in that first half. 2-0 up, Russo has hit the post twice and the keeper had to make a really smart save to deny what looked like a certain goal for Mead. James was really on it for the first half hour, but it's been diagonal passes from Walsh to Mead that have undone Belgium. Over and over again their defence has been carved open by that ball. It was a good first half for England. They played really well.

More of that in the second half please