A tale of two halves, England managed to slog out a 2-1 win against Scotland in their World Cup opener on Sunday in Nice.
England’s tempo lowered in the second-half and they were lackadaisical in possession. As their leader, Lionesses skipper Steph Houghton knows the team could have performed better.
But the Manchester City centre-back believes it was a positive start, saying it's "scary" how much the team can improve.
"Keeping the ball, maybe, we could have been a little bit better. I thought our shape was okay at times, but we don’t need to be playing the best football we can be playing. As players we want to keep improving and we’ll do that.
"It’s quite scary that we know that we can play better."
The skipper acknowledges a poor pass in the dying stages of the second half, which allowed Claire Emslie to secure a goal and give England a nervy final 10 minutes for Phil Neville’s side.
"It was my mistake for the goal”, Houghton said.
"But ultimately we're a team and for us it was all about getting the first three points on the board. Now we're fully focused on Argentina.
"I’ve got good teammates around me.
"Part of my job is to be brave and to play out from the back. I do that every single week whether that's for England or for my club, so it’s not going to stop me doing that."
In the end, England held on to a 2-1 win and opened their World Cup campaign with an all-important victory.
Nikita Parris opened her own World Cup account with a goal from the penalty spot, while Ellen White later doubled the Lionesses’ lead before Scotland’s Emslie narrowed the deficit late on.
But Houghton had always believed that her side would win on the day.
"We have so much quality in defence and attack, I always believed that we would win.
"As a team we want more, and we've got the players to go and do that, especially with the likes of Lucy (Bronze) and Nikita bombing down the right hand side.
"Ellen’s always in the box trying to get goals and maybe on another day we would’ve scored a few more."
And on that VAR ruling which led to Parris' penalty, Houghton adds: "Ultimately, we want the rules to make it fair.
"We’ve all had meetings with the referees and we know how VAR works.
"I’m sure if that was us giving that handball away to Scotland that they’d be saying the exact same."
