Lionesses issue plea to fans and pledge to fight for 'little girl' inside them

The Lionesses have promised they'll come back fighting for their loyal fans, and for the 'little girl' inside them that dreamed of playing for England.

They suffered a disappointing 2-1 loss in their opening match against France but Georgia Stanway said England were 'done talking' about it and were ready to get 'stuck in' against the Dutch on Wednesday. The 26-year-old said: "We just want action, we want to stop talking… I’m fed up of talking now, it’s time to focus and put things right on the pitch.

"I think we're all just dying for the game to come round as fast as possible." The girls will take on the Netherlands at 5pm BST tomorrow night in Zurich, in a do-or-die match that will decide their fate in the Swiss tournament.

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And Georgia, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, said the players are determined to pull it back for their younger selves. She added: "We've spoken about wanting to be 'proper England'. We want to go back to what we're good at… go back to traditional style football... remembering why we are here and playing for that little girl that wanted to be here. Sometimes its about blocking out the noise, getting out on the pitch and just getting stuck in."

A 30,000-strong barmy army has bought tickets to see the Lionesses over the course of the four-week tournament, and Georgia pleaded with fans to stick with them.

She said: "We want the fans to stay with us, they know what we are capable of as well and we want them to support us through and through. We knew it would be a tough group but true fans stick with us thick or thin."

And while the defending champions know it's a grim 'reality' that another loss would see them crash out of the tournament, they know they have the roar of their fans and family behind them.

Georgia, who spent some downtime with her dad Paul, mum Joanne and brother JP after the France match, said: "It's a reality, if we're not good enough on Wednesday, then we don’t deserve to continue in the tournament."

She added: "I had a message from somebody that I knew and they said 'it's just like a bad night out, you want to forget it as much as possible and just move on to the next one'. And that's exactly what we do.

"You know your support network and who you can lean on, and it's just having them say c'mon you can do it.

"If one of the team gets a message from their grandma, they are straight up to say my grandma has wished us good luck.

"Everybody is watching and rooting for us and everybody cares, it's our job to make it happen... We have to be brave, we have to be ruthless."