Stanway wants 'proper England' to step up to avoid early Euros exit

Georgia Stanway has urged England to put their money where their mouths are and deliver against the Netherlands to avoid an early exit from the European Championships. 

Stanway played 77 minutes in England's 2-1 defeat to France in their opening match of the tournament, with Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Sandy Baltimore's quickfire strikes in the first half proving decisive. 

The result saw England become the first team ever to lose their opening match at a UEFA Women's EURO tournament as the reigning champions.

It was also the Lionesses' first defeat in the group stages of a major tournament (World Cup / EURO) since losing the opening game of the 2015 World Cup, also to France, ending a run of 14 consecutive such victories. 

England have also now lost three of their last four competitive matches across all competitions (W1), after only losing four of their first 39 competitive fixtures under manager Sarina Wiegman (W30 D5).

They face the Netherlands next, knowing a positive result is a must if they are to avoid an early exit from the tournament, and losing successive group games at the competition's group stages for the first time since a three-match losing streak between June 2005 and August 2009. 

And Stanway was in a defiant mood ahead of the clash at Stadion Letzigrund, saying: "What we want going forward is to make actions and stop talking. 

"I didn't want to do the press conference today because I'm fed up of talking now.

"It's time that we focus, and we want to put things right on the pitch in order for us to be able to talk.

"We want to create action from what happened on Saturday and the only way to do that is the game."

During their defeat to France, England failed to register a single shot on target in the first half of a competitive match for only the third time under Wiegman, also failing to do so against Sweden in July 2024 and Spain in the quarter-final of EURO 2022.

Les Bleues dominated the match, registering an expected goals (xG) total of 2.34 from their 14 shots to England's 0.87 from their 12 attempts. 

Stanway acknowledged that their display was below par, and insisted that the focus was set on putting things right and going back to their roots. 

"We want the game to come around as quickly as possible," she says. "We want to make change.

"We've spoken about wanting to be 'proper England' and going back to what we're good at and our traditional style of football - tough tackles and remembering why we're here.

"Sometimes it's about blocking out the noise and getting on the pitch and getting stuck in."

England are aware of the permutations in Group D. Should they lose to the Netherlands, and France beat Wales, then they will be out of the tournament. 

The Opta supercomputer hands England a 50% chance of finishing in the top two and advancing to the knockout stages, compared to the Netherlands' 58% and France's 90%. 

Stanway, however, was blunt and honest when considering the scenario of an early exit. 

"If we're not good enough on Wednesday then we don't deserve to continue in the tournament," Stanway said. "We have to be brave, we have to be ruthless."