Steph Houghton sent a warning to England’s World Cup rivals following their 2-1 defeat of Scotland on Sunday, saying it was “scary” that the Lionesses came out on top despite not playing at their best. After Claire Emslie had pulled one back for Scotland in Nice, England could have sat back. Instead they remained on the front foot and Houghton emphasised a desire and fight within the team as crucial to that strategy.

“This is a team that wants more and we’ve got the players to go and do that,” said the England captain. “Especially with the likes of Lucy [Bronze]and Nikita [Parris] bombing down the right hand side, Ellen’s [White] always in the box trying to get goals and for us. Maybe on another day we’d have scored a few more, but look we’re creating chances, which is a good thing. It’s quite scary that we know we can play quite a bit better.”

Scotland set up with five in the middle, forcing Arsenal’s Kim Little too deep and leaving Erin Cuthbert isolated up top. That handed England control. “For us that first half performance is what this England team is about,” said Houghton. “We were full of energy, we were pressing, we were passing the ball well, we got the two goals and it could have been more. We dropped off a little in the second half, which we’re a bit disappointed with.”

That dropping off let the Scots back in the game, a stray pass from Houghton leading to Emslie’s goal. “There’s been a lot of build up to this game, I’m not making excuses, we can be better and we can pass the ball better,” Houghton added. “It was my mistake for the goal but ultimately we’re a team and it was about getting the first three points on the board.”

“I’ve got good team-mates around me, my job is to be brave and play out from the back and I do that every single week whether that’s for England or for club so it’s not going to stop me from doing that. There’s going to be wrong decision making sometimes but ultimately it was all about the win today.”

The conditions also tested the players. “It was humid out there, it was hot and sweaty, it takes your breath away in the first 10 minutes and we played at a tempo where we knew that Scotland wouldn’t be able to cope with us,” said Houghton. “But we’re capable of doing that for 90 minutes.”

England’s victory was marred slightly by an injury to Houghton’s defensive partner Millie Bright, who landed awkwardly on her shoulder. “It’s obviously not good to see Millie go off but then Abbie [McManus]has come in and made her World Cup debut. She’s got a lot of experience. So, for us, keeping the ball maybe could have been a bit better but at the same time we don’t need to be peaking in this first game, we don’t need to be playing the best football we can be playing and as players we want to keep improving.”

Houghton also said she will not be wary of the position of her arms despite the tougher handball rules and the deployment of VAR at the tournament, after Scotland’s Nicola Docherty was penalised when the ball hit her arm in the box - leading to Parris scoring from the penalty spot and giving England a 14th-minute lead at the Stade de Nice.

“Obviously consciously you might think about it a little bit more but at the same time you’ve got to be natural,” said Houghton. “You’ve got to try and get up to the ball and stay close to your player, so we know there’s things that might have to change but ultimately we’ve got to this point, we’re playing for England and we’re going to keep doing the same things.

“We’ve all had meetings with the referees, we’re all clear with how VAR works and ultimately you want the rules to be fair. I’m sure if that was us giving that handball away then Scotland would be saying exactly the same as us and taking the penalty. I’ve not seen it back but ultimately the referee makes the decision.”