Our Euro Qualifiers began against Czech Republic and Montenegro back in March, which seems a long time ago and in football terms, it is a long time ago.
Both of those performances were of a high level and very enjoyable, so we need to make sure we hit that level every day when we train and carry that level into every match we play.
We’ve got to have that attitude and expectation in the team to ensure there’s consistency in how we perform.
We believe that we’re now a group who are ready to push ourselves on. We’ve gone from a team that had certain expectations and needed encouragement, but we’re now firmly established in the top ten of the world rankings after our results over a two-year period and there’s still lots of room for us to grow as more young players are coming through.
We now have qualification in mind and we’ve got to make sure that we’re taking care of that to ensure we’re in the Finals of what will be a very exciting tournament across Europe next summer.
The September international week always come around really quickly after the start of the season, so it’s been a busy time as a staff getting around to see as many games and clubs as possible.
I really enjoy going to watch all the different tactical set ups, as well as checking on the form of all our players.
It does mean that there may be some players who are left out of the squad, purely because they’ve just not had the opportunity to play for their club yet.
That means there will be others who come into the squad and have a chance to force their way in.
That competition for places is great and we want to see it like that, making it difficult to pick a squad, before we even get to picking the team.
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