England winger Lauren Hemp staples her side as one to fear as the Lionesses thrashed Norway 8-0 on Monday night at The Amex Stadium.
The Manchester City forward was amongst the five different goal scorers in Brighton as England secured their spot in the quarter-finals of the Women’s Euro 2022.
After a timely wait for VAR, Hemp’s close-range finish from Beth Mead’s cross doubled the home nation’s lead after just 15 minutes following Georgia Stanway’s opening penalty.
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No side had ever scored eight goals in a single women’s or men’s Euro match and after the game Hemp put out a warning for the rest of the tournament competitors. She said: “It’s important that we make a mark and show teams that they need to fear us.
“Obviously we respect every single opponent and Norway are a great team but we showed our ruthlessness and hopefully we can continue on.”
England face Northern Ireland in their final group stage match on Friday at St. Mary’s Stadium. Kenny Shiels’ side can’t qualify for the next round of the competition but that won’t stop Hemp and the rest of the Lionesses from continuing to deliver Sarina Wiegman’s blueprint to entertain and her philosophy.
“In the first half it felt like any cross that anyone put in, it was a goal and it’s a great place to build on especially going into the Northern Ireland game where we want to be ruthless again and be clinical,” she said.
“It doesn’t stop here because we want to keep on getting better and hopefully, that can carry on throughout the rest of the tournament.”
Despite a record-breaking performance and plenty for the fans to cheer for, Hemp was quick to remind everyone in the press room that there is still a lot this team can improve on before their next match.
“We’re now focusing on the next game but there’s a lot of positives we can take from this game and there’s still so many more things we can improve on and that’s the beauty of it. We still know there’s a long way to go and hopefully, we’ll put those things right but we’re buzzing with the result.”
She continued: “It was a very positive result especially after coming off the back of the result the other day where we didn’t necessarily perform how we wanted to but I think we showed the England we want to carry on showing throughout the tournament and obviously with a massive score line like that.
“Hopefully we can show the world we are capable of beating teams like that.”
