Beth Mead aware England face a tough qualifying group

Beth Mead admits England’s Euro qualifying group is “not the nicest” but hopes they can achieve “consistency” in their upcoming fixtures.

The Lionesses begin their European Championship title defence with qualifying games for next year’s tournament, starting with Sweden at Wembley on April 5 before facing the Republic of Ireland in Dublin four days later. Group A3 also includes France, who England will play in May.

April’s fixtures will be the first set of competitive games since their Nations League disappointment in December, where England’s hopes of securing a spot for Team GB in the Paris Olympics were ended and Mead believes they are in a “tough group” for the upcoming qualifiers.

Speaking about her reaction to the draw, the England forward told PA news agency: “We came in from training, saw the draw- it’s not the nicest group in the world!

“I think me and (Arsenal team-mate) Katie McCabe had a little joke about having to play against each other and winding each other up with her playing for Republic of Ireland.

“There’s no easy game in women’s football these days and I think we’ve ultimately got a very tough group and we’re going to have to be on top of our game to do very well in this group.

“I think the biggest thing for us as an England squad is consistency, we let ourselves down in some Nations League games and now we’ve just got to be consistent in the way we play, the way we’re building.

“Hopefully we can get two wins on the board this international break which puts us in really good stead for the rest of the games in the group.”

Mead is an ambassador for McDonald’s Fun Football and was celebrating the return of sessions, which will see 500,000 children across the UK provided with free football coaching this spring.

She is in action on Sunday as Arsenal hunt for silverware in the Continental Tyres League Cup Final against Chelsea at Molineux, but after the international break only five Women’s Super League games remain.

The title race is out of Arsenal’s control with the team sat six points away from joint-leaders Chelsea and Manchester City, and Mead admits the Champions League is the target now.

“I think looking forward to the rest of the season as a team we’ve got to, as cliche as it sounds, game by game, three points on the board,” Mead added.

“Our ultimate goal now is to get Champions League football and you never know what happens in football, but it’s out of our hands title-wise now and we’re very aware of that.

“Throughout the season itself I think consistency has been our biggest problem, we’ve been a little bit up and down with some games, lost some games that arguably we probably shouldn’t have.

“That’s something we need to rectify going to the end of the season, then we reset and start again fresh next year.”

Mead also has an eye on former club Sunderland, who are top of a tightly-contested Women’s Championship with three games to go.

Four other teams remain in the running to secure promotion to the WSL and Mead, who joined Arsenal from the Black Cats in 2017, highlighted the importance of keeping all the women’s leagues competitive.

“I’ve been to a few games in the Championship this season, I obviously follow Sunderland still and they’re top at the moment so hopefully they can keep themselves there,” she said.

“It’s amazing to see how much talent is coming through and the backing these clubs in the lower leagues are getting from the men’s side of things.

“That’s what we want to keep doing, we want to keep every league as competitive as possible and make England still one of the best leagues in the world.”

Beth Mead was celebrating the launch of this year’s McDonald’s Fun Football programme, available to all children aged 5-11 across the UK. Sign up now for your nearest FREE session at mcdonalds.co.uk/football.