Express & Star

Dan McNamara: Tammi George is key to Wolves Women

Wolves Women boss Dan McNamara has hailed 'key' Tammi George for her dominant display in the Black Country derby victory.

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The midfielder scored a sensational 40-yard lob to help her team to a 3-0 win over West Brom Women on Wednesday night.

But what was more impressive was her battling display in the middle of the park, as the 21-year-old ran the show against their local rivals.

And boss McNamara says George has big plans for her blossoming career.

"We know how key she is to the way we play, she is a big part of our style of football," he said.

"Credit to her for everything that she is doing to make herself better and improve.

"You know what you're going to get out of her. She's a Wolves girl and loves the club.

"She's been away, experienced other environments and she's now settled back here.

"The scary thing is she is still 21. She has so much ability and potential.

"She has set her ambitions high and told the coaches where she wants to be and we want to try and help her get to those high levels of the game, and hopefully it will be with Wolves."

A quick start put Wolves on the front foot against Albion and they took a comfortable 2-0 lead into half-time.

A tight second half then followed as Wolves saw the game out before grabbing a late third.

"I'm delighted, it was about winning and that was it," McNamara added.

"I don't think it was our finest performance, we lacked a bit of quality in certain moments, but after a lengthy lay-off in the league and respond like they have done, is a credit to them.

"First half I thought we were excellent and probably could have nicked another another one and the second half was just about managing the game.

"It was tough and it took it out of them on Sunday, mentally and physically.

"We managed to come up with that killer third goal in the end which I thought showed real quality.

"The girls all pulled together today. The togetherness in the group is what is getting us through at the minute in these tough fixtures."

Wolves were tactically astute, too, and caused Albion plenty of problems through wing-backs Beth Merrick and Ali Miller.

But McNamara is refusing to take full credit for his side's tactical nous, insisting it was a team effort.

He said: "It isn't me, it's bigger than me. All of the staff are pulling together every game and looking at various ways to hurt teams – and you're seeing the results on the pitch.

"Tactically I thought we got it spot on. We knew Albion would match us in that formation but we felt we could really hurt them in the wide areas because we felt we had more quality there. I think that showed.

"I thought Beth Merrick was tremendous again today. She brings real quality where Ali brings real directness with some quality as well.

"They're two really different wingers and are quite hard to deal with. Then when you do learn to deal with them, we swap them over."