England Womens Team Close To World Cup Qualification

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The England women’s national football team need just one point in order to qualify for the 2015 World Cup after getting a 2-1 win over Ukraine. The former manager of Bristol Academy team, Sampson, said that this team clearly has the potential to create history. England will be taking on Wales in the next match. Sampson expects much better test from the opposition in the next match, as it is felt that Wales have more talent. England’s former captain’s Tony opened the scoring after just 11 minutes.

Chelsea star Aluko increased advantage for the English by scoring the ninth goal of the season. However, England were held back to a nervous finish after Ukraine got the equaliser through Olha Ovdiychuk. England go into the next match knowing that only Wales can finish above them in the group. Both teams have two matches remaining before the World Cup. Even though England need only one to confirm their place in the competition, they would ideally like to win the group. As England registered a win over Ukraine, Wales also did the same with the 3-0 victory over Belarus.

Wales are five points behind England, and it would take something monumental in order to see England slip to second place. “Wales have got the talent and ability to cause us problems. We will have to be at our best to get the result we want. The game will be as difficult as this one against Ukraine. In the first half we played really well, created chances and might have got more than two goals. In the second half they put us on the back foot at times,” said Sampson.

The goal conceded against Ukraine also meant that England’s record of keeping a clean sheet for the last 693 minutes came to an end.

SUNDERLAND NEED MIRACLE

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Sunderland are in the rock bottom position of the Premier league with just four matches remaining for a majority of the clubs. Due to this position, it is widely anticipated that they would return to the Championship after several years in the top flight. This would see the club undergone several changes in terms of players and management. They would be unlikely to offer players the same amount of wages in the championship even with significant amount of parachute payment.

As a result, Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone, who is on a loan deal till the end of the season, will have to wait until summer in order to make the move permanent according to manager Gus Poyet. Mannone has impressed a lot during his loan spell at the club and Sunderland revealed earlier in the campaign that they would like to make the move permanent. However, the club have been unable to get out of relegation trouble even after the appointment of Poyet. They also have eight players out of contract in the summer.

The manager has confirmed that the club are not conducting talks with any players right now since they want to be clear about their position in the next few months. If Sunderland stay up, then they may extended the contract of most players.

“I think Vito knows that we’ve got eight who are out of contract and loan players, so he’ll have to wait until September. That’s natural. We had our intentions (with out-of-contract players) and they didn’t work out. We’ve stopped now and there’s no more talks with anyone,” said the manager, whose arrival at the start of the season has failed to turn things around. The club are already seven points adrift of safety, but they do have two matches in hand over their nearest rivals.