.png)
4 hours ago
1
Deja vu? Heavy England wins have been few and far between in recent years. A 7-0 defeat of a heavily depleted and underfunded Jamaica in their final warm-up game before the Euros was the biggest since a 10-0 defeat of Luxembourg in 2022.
Against China at a moon-topped Wembley, the margin was eight, a Georgia Stanway hat-trick and Beth Mead double was added to by goals from Lauren Hemp, Ella Toone and Alessia Russo to complete the rout.
There was some nostalgia in the comprehensiveness of this victory. When Sarina Wiegman’s tenure began in 2021 there was no Nations League and World Cup and Euros qualifying looked a little different. England went unbeaten under Wiegman all the way to their first European Championship title in 2022, sweeping teams aside by large margins.
Those games were a mixture of friendlies and straightforward World Cup qualifiers against teams such as North Macedonia, Luxembourg and Latvia.
Since then, the impression has been that England have failed to regain that all-conquering form of Wiegman’s early tenure, but that would be a naive and unfair assumption to make. The reality is that work has been done by Fifa and Uefa to improve the competitiveness of qualifiers and improve the challenge for teams up and down the rankings list.
The 8-0 win on Saturday evening harked back to a simpler time, a time where physical, technical and tactical competitive tests were rare in between major tournaments and, while it was a lot of fun at a sold-out Wembley, it was not something we should long for month-in month-out.
The crowd was a little patchy in the upper tier for a sold-out event at the national stadium, but there is always a drop off for England women games, 74,611 the actual attendance. The fact that the FA was able to sell out the stadium for a friendly visit of the team ranked 16th in the world was, in reality, hugely impressive when previous sell-outs had come against top-10 teams.
They were treated to a show. Despite the many absences through injury or to manage return from injury or loading – Leah Williamson, Hannah Hampton, Lauren James, Khiara Keating, Alex Greenwood, Michelle Agyemang and Jess Carter all out – there was a familiarity to the starting XI.
Anna Moorhouse was handed a first start in place of injured Keating and Hampton, and Maya Le Tissier partnered Esme Morgan with centre-back options reduced, but the rest of the starting lineup was surprisingly strong.
That England were five goals up by the break was no surprise as a result. The work rate of Mead and Hemp on the wings was critical to stretching China’s back line and Lucy Bronze’s flick on for the former opened the goal rush 12 minutes in. The Arsenal forward brought the ball down with one touch before she fired past Hongyan Pan.
after newsletter promotion
Her second came two minutes later and after a further two minutes England were three up, Stanway’s ball from the right met by Hemp this time.
It was clinical and fast and the visiting team could not contain Wiegman’s charges. Stanway joined the party a lengthy seven minutes later, when Hemp’s effort was punched away by Pan but turned in by the Bayern Munich midfielder on the half-volley. Her second came before the break, the ball came back off Li Mengwen’s high hand and the referee Alina Pesu pointed to the spot which Stanway duly converted from. Stanway secured her hat-trick after a neat one-two with Ella Toone after half-time.
Then Toone turned in, firing in Pan’s errant pass after the keeper came under pressure from Russo, and Russo finally got on the scoresheet herself to add England’s eighth.
There is little to glean from this fixture in terms of where England are at, their strength in depth and ability to untangle the low block the highlights of an entertaining and inconsequential evening.
