Sarina Wiegman and England still have work to do to blow away clouds of doubt | Suzanne Wrack | OneFootball

Music thumping, quick transitions, a host of celebrities and inspirational words. There’s nothing like an England squad announcement video to get you in the mood for a major tournament. “I hope you can feel it from the streets to the stands, the summer is in the safest hands,” the poet Sophia Thakur tells us, exactly one month out from England’s first game of Euro 2025 against France.

The slogan is “It’s time to go again” and the squad is announced by a host of big names, from Maisie Adam, Daisy May Cooper and Keely Hodgkinson, to David Beckham, Alex Scott, Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane.

Is the Lionesses’ title defence in the safest hands, though, how strong are those hands and how much damage has the last week of turmoil done?

Sarina Wiegman’s 23-player squad is pretty much what many expected; Lauren James is winning her battle to be fit and ready, according to the manager, Lotte Wubben-Moy and Esme Morgan have received the nod in defence and the young Arsenal forward Michelle Agyemang is the wildcard pick.

There are gaps, though. Looking down the list there is a lack of experience in goal without Mary Earps and there are only five named midfielders for the month-long tournament in Switzerland and one of those is Georgia Stanway, who has played only an hour of football since December (45 minutes against Spain on Tuesday evening and 15 minutes against Portugal on Friday night).

“We have to announce it as strikers, midfielders and defenders, but you can move players around, into different positions,” said Wiegman. “So it looks like there’s not much depth on paper, but in the team we have enough depth in midfield.”

That is true. James can operate at No 10, the captain Leah Williamson and Manchester United defender Maya Le Tissier can operate in the deeper midfield role that Phil Neville also tried Lucy Bronze in, and Lauren Hemp can play more centrally if needed. However, it is hard to look at those possible shifts as anything more than emergency moves given the weakening that would take place in the positions those players would be vacating.

These types of positional changes are not something that Wiegman has experimented with to any great extent. That said, the loss of Keira Walsh to injury and unexpected switch to a back five for England’s final World Cup group game in Australia in 2023 was hugely successful and brought an air of unpredictability to an increasingly predictable team.

The retirement of Fran Kirby and Earps and withdrawal from selection of Millie Bright, all for their different reasons, has taken a hefty chunk of experience out of the squad and rocked the narrative around the Lionesses in the past week.

In 2022, the air of unity around the home Euros was strong. Players, staff, the public, the media all sang from the same hymn sheet. In 2023 the vibe at the World Cup wasn’t quite as harmonious, the players’ dispute with the FA over bonuses taken public, such was their frustration at a lack of progress.

This time the bonuses issue has been resolved, but the abrupt departures of Earps, Kirby and Bright just over a month before the tournament, despite the big differences in their nature, has left question marks over squad harmony.

After the announcement of the 23-player squad, Wiegman was dismissive of any suggestion of friction in the camp, laughing off any mention of a possible crisis.

“That is not the case,” she said. “We know what’s going on in the team. There’s competition going on in the group, and I hope there’s competition going on. We’re going with this 23 to the Euros now and I feel very comfortable with this team, very happy with this team and I’m very excited. For me, it doesn’t feel like a crisis at all.”

Crisis may be way too strong a word, but the sky is definitely a little less blue and a little more overcast over England. Why did Earps not want to stay and fight, or at least usher the next generation through a major tournament? How did we reach a point where Bright’s mental and physical health have been so eroded that she has had to step back? There is work to be done here. A holistic approach to player welfare must be a priority.

Wiegman was praised by players for her straight-talking approach and for providing clarity on positions and strategy when she first came into the head coach role in the run-in to the Euros in 2022. It is inevitable, though, that that approach will be potentially fractious when the news is less good.

“For me, it’s really important that I am honest and that I treat people in the right way,” said Wiegman. “Sometimes you have very good news, sometimes you don’t have good news, I don’t go around the bush about that. I just give the message, I can’t control how people respond to that. I just hope they have clarity and we can move on.”

The nature of the conversations between Earps and Wiegman, or Kirby and the manager after she was told she would not be going to Switzerland, or how aware Wiegman was that Bright was struggling will remain, of course, unknown. Now, though, it is time to move on. The impact on the defending champions of the last week will only show come the end of July.