Lauren Smith makes 'honest reflections'

England women’s under-19s head coach Lauren Smith expressed her disappointment at last night’s 4-1 defeat to Portugal at the UEFA Women’s U19 EURO Finals.

A win against Spain on Saturday 21 June (6pm BST kick-off) will book England’s place in the knockout stages with the Young Lionesses’ fate still in their own hands heading into their final group tie.

“We’ll have to learn from it and I hope we do very quickly,” said Smith. “We have to put this to bed and move on and get after that win.

“We have to look forward to the next game and that’s all about making sure it’s in our hands and we win the next game.”

Smith made some ‘honest reflections’ after the game, highlighting the quality of the teams in this year’s tournament.

“It didn’t look like an England team,” continued Smith. “The second half, we’ve given them too much respect, we’ve given the ball away too many times and caused our own problems.

“We get what we deserve in that second half. Portugal really threw everything at us as soon as they noticed us making mistakes like that. They punished us. We know that we’re better than that. We just haven’t turned up well enough for the whole 90 minutes.”

And goalkeeper Katie Cox is keen for England to put the result behind them and look ahead to the weekend.

“All we can do now, rather than focusing on what’s just happened, is focusing on the Saturday,” added Cox. “It’s still in our hands, we’ve still got one more game to go and anything can happen in football. We’re going to do our best to make that our way.

“The tournament we’re in, every team is in it to win it – nobody’s here just to participate. As well as England developing over the years, all the other countries are catching up too, so we’ve got to continue developing.

“We can’t just sit back and watch it happen. You’ve got to always think what’s next and be proactive.”