Chinese footballer Zhang Linyan hopes that a spell playing in England will help improve her performances for the national team after making a big move to one of the world's top leagues. 

The 22-year-old signed for Women's Super League side Tottenham Hotspur in September on a season-long loan from Wuhan Jianghan University, the three-time Chinese Women's Super League champions. She scored on her full debut in a 6-0 win against Reading in the Continental League Cup last month. 

Zhang has been restricted to a single cameo appearance off the bench in the league for fourth-placed Spurs but says she is motivated by her bid to cement a place in China's national team, which reached this year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand 

"Certainly, I came for the training abroad, not just to improve myself; I hope to have a better performance in the national team," said Linyan, who played in all three of China's group matches at the World Cup. "If asked about my main goal in the training, for me, it's for better performance in the national team. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have thought about coming all this way far from home."

Linyan, who also won gold with her country at the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup and helped her country to the quarter-finals of the recent Asian Games, admits that her time in London has not come as a complete culture shock to her, having already enjoyed a spell in Europe last season playing for Grasshoppers of Zurich on loan. 

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She added: "I'm not very homesick, maybe sometimes. I've already used to being away from home for a long time. Sometimes I do get a bit lonely. If I'm at home, there are always team-mates around me but here after work, everyone goes home. I might feel lonely at that time. And their families usually come to watch them playing as well." 

The player's mother admitted she felt Zhang was playing too far from home during her stint in Switzerland, so what does she make of this move to the UK? 

"She always respects my choice. Personally, she doesn't want me to play abroad," continued the former Guangzhou FC attacker. "Every time I travel abroad, she would always say 'when could you play back home?' This year I was home for only a few days. Most of the time she comes to visit me wherever I'm playing. I only went back home a few times every year."

Interview by Wang Meng

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