Ex-Magpie Jade Moore wants momentum after England romp

A first-half brace from Arsenal forward Jodie Taylor, and a goal from Ellen White, gave the Lionesses an unassailable 3-0 lead at half-time.

Early in the second-half Taylor then completed her hat-trick, latching on to a smart header from White to lob the keeper, before Jordan Nobbs and Toni Duggan rounded off the resounding victory with opportunist goals in the final three minutes.

After another impressive result for England, Worksop-born Moore underlined the importance of the win. She said: “For us we’ll use this as momentum, but this was definitely one of the things we came here to do. We’ve won our first game, now we need to build momentum and hopefully that we’ll carry us through.

“Momentum is a massive thing in tournament football, I’ve just heard that’s the first time we’ve won our opening game in 12 years, which is an unbelievable stat. Steph (Houghton) summed it up very well in the dressing room a minute ago, that’s one down and five more to go.”

Moore played the full 90 minutes, and after the win she paid testament to their performance. She said: “I think our game plan was to have two holding midfielders, myself and Jill Scott and we executed the game plan well.

“We made sure we stayed behind the ball, and anything that went in behind we tidied. Second balls were a massive thing for us today, making sure we picked up all the knock downs was key.”

Having beat Scotland, England next face Spain who are level on points with them at the top of group D. Many believe that this game will decide who comes out as group winner, and Moore highlighted the need to win the group.

She said: “I think it’s hugely important. One of our main aims was to come here and top our group and leave the group in first place. Looking at our fixtures we knew the Spain game was highlighted as our main game and probably one our hardest one too.”

Spain defeated Portugal 2-0 in the early kick off, setting up a crucial top of the table clash between them and England on Sunday. With finishing top of the group crucial to England’s hopes of progressing further in the competition, it’s now a game that they dare not lose.

Moore recently signed for Women’ Super League side Reading, following the liquidation of her former club, Notts County. With the club folding just days before the start of the new season, Moore was amongst four England internationals left without a club.

Before flying out for the summer tournament, Moore explained the range of emotions she went through a she was left unemployed.

She said: “You go through every sort of emotion possible, anger, resentment, and just general sadness. Training was cancelled and then we were told there would be meeting in the morning. A couple of us were briefed before-hand, and I just had to watch whilst he told the rest of the group. It’s a huge reality check, although the game is growing year on year, we’re definitely not as secure as we thought.”

Many people within the footballing community have called on The Football Association(FA) to try to do more to help clubs in situations similar to Notts. Moore however feels that there isn’t much more the authorities can do to try and help.

“It’s difficult to say what the authorities can do. Football is now a business, and when someone makes a financial decision like that it’s a hard to then plug that gap,” said Moore.