England boss has Georgia on his mind

14 September 2016 18:23

England Women boss Mark Sampson has hinted his open-door selection policy could see 17-year-old Georgia Stanway handed a chance to grab a Euro 2017 place.

The Manchester City youngster has starred for the Women's Super League leaders this season and is primed for a key role with England at the Under-17s World Cup, which begins in Jordan on September 30.

Stanway misses England's senior internationals against Estonia, at Notts County's Meadow Lane ground on Thursday, and away to Belgium next Tuesday.

Those games wrap up Euro 2017 qualifying and with England already assured of their place at the finals in Holland next summer, Sampson is inevitably looking at his options for the tournament.

That may partly explain why seasoned England strikers Eni Aluko and Toni Duggan are out of the picture at the moment, with Sampson assessing the quality elsewhere.

And it also means Stanway, uncapped at the top level, is in his thoughts. The teenage forward has six goals in 14 starts for City this term.

"The door is always open. We will always pick the best team that I believe can help England win," Sampson said.

"The pool is increasing with the likes of Stanway, who's going to get a massive experience at the Under-17s World Cup.

"I'm really excited to see her playing for Manchester City's first team regularly, scoring goals, and now with another World Cup under her belt you look at the end of that tournament in Jordan and Stanway suddenly has some really good experience to then compete for a senior spot, potentially."

Right-back Alex Scott is a veteran of three European Championships and predicts England will find the tournament even more challenging than the World Cup, where they surpassed expectations and finished third last year.

Scott told Press Association Sport: "From my experience European Championships can be harder than World Cups.

"It's going to be ever harder now because all eyes are on this England team as well, and teams will want to be the people that beat England, so it's going to be a lot harder than it was in the World Cup.

"So it's about making sure we don't go in complacent, we're all in the right mindset and we don't have any regrets."

Source: PA