England growing into World Cup says Wiegman after victory over China | OneFootball

England head coach Sarina Wiegman says that her side are growing into this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup after their 6-1 victory over China in Adelaide.

The Lionesses have slowly grown throughout the group stage. They kept their best performance for their final group game as they demolished a poor Chinese outfit. Lauren James netted twice for England while Alessia Russo, Lauren Hemp, Chloe Kelly and Rachel Daly were also on target for the Lionesses.

England have qualified from their group as winners with a maximum points return and they will now face Nigeria in the last-16.

When speaking to the media after the match, England boss Wiegman said that her side are growing into the tournament and she was pleased with how they restricted China’s attacking play.

“I think we are growing into this tournament,” Wiegman said. “Tonight, we had a great performance but I think the first part of the Denmark game, we played really well too. In the second half of that game, we struggled a little bit, especially keeping the ball in possession.

“We try to prevent opponents from creating chances and scoring goals but we also try to prevent counter attacks. Today, we hardly had moments like that (under pressure) because we played well and China didn’t press all of the time; they sometimes jumped a little bit, kept a low block and couldn’t press us as they kept in their shape.”

England switched formation as they operated in a 3-4-1-2 system. Wiegman said that her players were excited by the change and she was pleased that the gamble paid huge dividends.

She said “You make the choice and go for it. First, you need the belief of the team and they were really excited about it.

“When you make a choice, you get the belief in it but you are never sure if it is going to work. We were convinced that it would work and it’s nice to see that it did work. We saw lots of players tonight that played at a really high level.”

England’s last-16 tie against Nigeria is scheduled to take place in Brisbane on Monday morning.