SYDNEY — Lucy Bronze played down fears over goal-shy England’s style as they prepare to face Denmark in their second Group D World Cup match on Friday.
It is now 337 minutes since the Lionesses scored from open play and they have not scored more than once in a match this calendar year, relying on a Georgia Stanway penalty in the 1-0 win over Haiti.
The message from the England camp is clear. Nobody is worried about the lack of goals, largely because they are converting chances in training and, more pertinently, creating plenty of openings in games: 21 against Haiti and 23 in the Portugal warm-up.
Yet despite criticism of the performance against Haiti, Bronze insisted it was vital to get off to a winning start.
“Every game, it’s important, you could go to the World Cup and win it by winning 1-0 all the time or drawing and winning on penalties,” she said.
“Performances mean a lot to us but results are important too. It’s not always about scoring seven goals. If you have enough to win the game, that’s important. The performances are there in games, from individuals and collectively.
“It’s just being more ruthless, more clinical in front of goal and I don’t think people would talk as much about performances and results then.”
“Ruthlessness” has become something of a buzzword in the England camp, with Sarina Wiegman demanding more of it in front of goal after the opener in Brisbane.
That does not necessarily mean ruthlessness in her team selection, however, and the England head coach was coy on whether she would make changes against Denmark.
At last summer’s European Championship, Wiegman did not change her starting XI once and during her time with the Netherlands, she made two changes at the 2019 World Cup and three at the 2017 Euros, some of them due to injury and illness.
It would be breaking a habit of her reign to rejig England too heavily but Lauren James in for Lauren Hemp out wide is the most likely swap, though Ella Toone’s place could also be under threat.
Meanwhile Bronze also gave her backing to Mary Earps, who launched a stinging attack on Nike last week for not making the England goalkeeper’s replica kit available for fans to buy. Earps said the move, which is understood to be for commercial reasons, was “hugely disappointing and very hurtful”, pointing out her kit had sold out on the Manchester United website last season.
“In terms of the goalkeeper shirts – it’s something that as a group we, Mary and the group in general have spoken about,” Bronze added.
“Everybody’s fully in support of Mary and what she’s had to say. We’re all kind of disappointed as a team that there has not been a goalkeeper kit not just for our team and for Mary, [back-up goalkeepers] Hannah [Hampton] and for Ellie [Roebuck] but all the little girls and boys around the world who want to grow up and want to kind of idolise and have these role models.
“Every single England player supports Mary and the things that she’s had to say. Hopefully there’ll be changes in the future so things like this don’t happen again.”
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