England captain Leah Williamson criticised her team’s ‘cheap’ and ’emotional’ defending in their opening group stage defeat by France.
The Lionesses’ European Championship title defence got off on the wrong foot as the ‘group of death’ inflicted its first blow on their summer hopes.
Lauren James came close in the opening moments and Alessia Russo had a goal struck off by VAR for an offside by Beth Mead in the build-up.
Then England were left to rue their early chances as France put them to the sword, scoring twice in quick succession through Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Sandy Baltimore.
A late goal from Keira Walsh – England’s first and only shot on target on the night – sparked a late revival, but it proved too little too late for the Lionesses to overturn the deficit.
Williamson said: ‘I’m disappointed there were some cheap sort of emotional defending in the first half. When you take waves of attack like that you leave yourself open to those sorts of things.
Leah Williamson was upset with England’s performance in the 2-1 defeat by France
France were too strong for Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses as their title defence got off to a losing start in Switzerland
‘I’m just frustrated because I think the football that we played near the end, and the game plan, could’ve worked. We just didn’t execute it exceptionally well.
‘I recognise that the middle of the game is when we did go a little bit flat and I think there were some decisions that if they’d have gone our way would’ve really changed the momentum of the game.
‘Sarina kept [the team talk] short but we knew what we needed to do better.
‘It doesn’t look great from the table point of view but it was two heavyweights going up against each other and today we came up short. There’s still every chance. The goal doesn’t change.’
Williamson insisted that the Lionesses will have a ‘new gameplan’ when they go up against 2017 winners Netherlands on Wednesday night.
‘We lost the game (through) poor defending one-v-one,’ the centre-back added. ‘We learnt from those mistakes in fairness. Not good enough with the ball, we weren’t good enough. We got better and took advantage of that but not enough in the end.
‘When you lose it and you’re that expansive, it is tough. We hold ourselves to higher standards in our individual battles.
‘Everyone takes responsibly for themselves, and we’ll have a look. Tomorrow, we have a new gameplan. Different places available and different opposition.’
Sarina Wiegman, whose flawless Euros record was ended with the defeat, said her team ‘created our own problems’.
‘I think we started well, we could have created a chance in the first minute, then we scored a goal,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately it got disallowed. We created our own problems by playing short passes all the time.
‘We were a bit sloppy, too. So we lost those balls in those moments too. It was hard for us to get out of that situation.
‘Of course we are frustrated. We had three very good weeks and we trained very well but that’s never a guarantee to win the game. We just didn’t get it right in those moments.’
