Defeat to England exposes Matildas’ race against time ahead of Asian Cup | Joey Lynch | OneFootball

There were plenty of themes to the Matildas’ 3-0 defeat to England, a reverse in which the margin perhaps flattered the control the hosts demonstrated at Pride Park, and few of the narratives on the night were positive for Australia. The Lionesses hardly got out of third gear but still looked like they were largely toying with their opponents, who struggled to get the ball out of their own half even before Alanna Kennedy received a straight red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity in just the 19th minute.

Kennedy’s lapse in judgement and resulting sacrifice was punished when Lucy Bronze redirected the rebound of Aggie Beever-Jones’s resulting free kick back to the Chelsea forward, who lasered an effort into the top corner. A deserved two-goal margin (three or potentially even more would not have been all that unreasonable) was delivered just before half-time when Bronze used the one-player advantage to ghost into a mile of space and comfortably dispatch a through ball beyond Mackenzie Arnold, ending a move in which England ripped through their Australian backline with a casual ease. Adding some salt to wounds, late VAR intervention awarded England a 98th-minute penalty for a Katrina Gorry foul, one easily dispatched by Georgia Stanway.

The stats made for grim reading for anyone of an Australian bent. At half-time, they had seen just 27% of the ball, having been outshot 18 to two. By the end of the game, they had been outshot 29 to three, with England lashing nine shots on target to the Matildas’ one. The last, and only other time since Opta began keeping track, Australia had shipped 18 shots in a half came against eventual gold medallists and reigning European champions Germany at the 2016 Olympics. No side, per Opta, had ever sent in more shots against the Matildas in a game. The stats service’s use of “pummel” in its trademark pithy one-word description of the game, felt apt.

Looking like she had shaken off some level of rust and getting through 70 minutes, Sam Kerr had what was the Australian’s best chance, almost by default, in the 27th minute. Her Chelsea teammate Ellie Carpenter did well to duck and dive on the right and find Kerr at the near post. The striker showed signs of what makes her so lethal at her best when she dived to the ball, shielding it from her marker, and sent in a snapshot that forced another Chelsea representative, Hannah Hampton, to save at the near post.

But it was two moments that followed, one from the resulting corner, that gave a window into where this Matildas team is right now.

Seeking to find an unlikely avenue into the game via a set piece, where their numerical disadvantage is theoretically at its weakest, the Matildas attempted to fashion an attempt on goal via a corner straight from the training ground. England, however, promptly stepped up and caught their opponents in an offside trap, snuffing out the set piece without even needing to defend a ball into the box.

Just under 10 minutes later, Gorry pounced on the ball in the midfield and looked to break. In the past, this is where the Matildas have feasted; they have been one of the best, if not the best, sides in the world when it came to running at their opponents and ripping them apart in transition. On this occasion, however, Gorry slowed as she entered the final third, with England getting numbers back as a result and seeing off any potential threat.

In these two exchanges, the past 15 months of this side, since Tony Gustavsson departed and the Matildas spent a year under the interim guidance of Tom Sermanni, came into focus. Against one of the best sides in the world, a team that they had battled in a World Cup semi-final just two years ago, the Matildas looked like a team that has spent more than a year treading water. Perhaps even worse, they have effectively gone backwards, when you account for their international rivals using that period to accelerate into the future. As Football Australia searched for a new coach, the Matildas’ strengths were dulled and efforts to add new facets to their game are still a work in progress.

The appointment of former Arsenal boss Joe Montemurro was the right one. But after facing one of the best teams in the world in just his second window in charge, while still trying to implement his messaging and make his mark on the dressing room, the scale of the challenge facing him is clear. The experiment with Kennedy in the midfield, inserted there ostensibly to allow her to drop between the centre-backs and provide extra defensive cover, can now probably be considered an unprofitable experiment. But because of the late arrival of his appointment, the coach has very little time until the Asian Cup to have many more of those.

Header image: [Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters]