England boss says Lionesses missing ‘ruthlessness’ in first Women’s World Cup fixture
England boss Sarina Wiegman felt her European champions lacked “ruthlessness” after they eked out a 1-0 victory over debutants Haiti to open their World Cup campaign at Brisbane Stadium.Georgia Stanway’s retaken first-half penalty was ultimately enough to win her side all three points, but did little to ease concerns about the Lionesses’ attacking form after they failed to find the back of the net in their previous three encounters.Were it not for a late second-half save from FIFA women’s goalkeeper of the year Mary Earps to deny substitute Roseline Eloissaint, the fourth-ranked Lionesses could well have ended their evening with a draw against their underdog Group D opponents, who sit 49 places below them in the FIFA rankings.Wiegman said: “I would say (we were missing) ruthlessness. It’s easy to say, so what does that mean, ruthlessness?
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00:00 Yeah, I would say ruthlessness.
00:09 Well, it's easy to say.
00:11 So what does that mean, ruthlessness?
00:12 I think, yeah, sometimes the connections with the cross, the timing of the cross, where
00:19 the cross actually ends in the penalty box, then the connection in front of the goal,
00:25 little things like that, that at the end you hope it goes in.
00:27 I think we were very close a couple of times to scoring a goal and then, of course, their
00:32 defence was tough too.
00:35 So we just keep trying, keep working on it and starting tomorrow again.
00:40 The most important thing to come out of it is the free points.
00:43 It's so important to win your first game going into a tournament.
00:46 Yeah, it's been a long build-up to today and I think we're kind of happy to just get over
00:50 the line.
00:51 I think it just takes a little bit to find your feet.
00:53 I think coming into a major tournament, the pressure's high, the build-up's so long and
00:59 you kind of, you do need them few minutes just to get yourself in the game, just settle.
01:04 And yeah, it took us a little bit of time to get into the game, but once we're in it,
01:07 you can see the quality that we have.