Lionesses on big Dutch win: 'Proper England'

ZURICH -- Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman and players hailed a "proper England" show aft they hammered the Netherlands 4-0 successful Zurich connected Wednesday.

England bounced backmost from their opening circular decision to France, to support live their hopes of reaching the knockouts of Euro 2025 with a commanding win.

A brace of goals from Lauren James and strikes from Georgia Stanway and Ella Toone helped them to their triumph arsenic they responded to the disappointment of the show against France successful cleanable style.

Toone, who scored England's fourth, told the BBC: "There are ever doubters. We don't perceive to it. We person that content successful the squad. We cognize we person the talent, but it is conscionable astir getting it retired connected the pitch. It was a due English display."

She added: "I deliberation we enactment the unit connected them close from the disconnected and we didn't instrumentality our ft disconnected the state close until the precise end. It's decidedly a show we tin beryllium arrogant of and hopefully we tin instrumentality that into the Wales game."

Bronze echoed her, with Alessia Russo saying: "I deliberation 'proper English' to america means we'll enactment hard, we'll enactment until we can't tally anymore. We'll instrumentality together. And we cognize we're precise ascendant connected the shot arsenic well. So I think, benignant of returning to that, that's our standard, and that's our DNA arsenic a team, and we decidedly saw that today, from the archetypal infinitesimal close until the end. Everyone was moving truthful hard.

"We were truly ascendant connected archetypal and 2nd balls, picking up the balls successful the close areas and objective with our chances that we had. We astir apt could person scored adjacent much arsenic well. It was decidedly thing that we wanted, to instrumentality to our roots, and we cognize we're susceptible of performances similar that."

Wiegman said that "proper England" operation is thing the players person introduced to sum up the mentality successful the group.

"Yes, the players usage that [phrase] a batch now. I deliberation we started utilizing that erstwhile we played against Portugal we tied and past we played against Spain, and erstwhile we played Spain successful that infinitesimal it was truly similar togetherness and the fight.

"There are moments successful the crippled erstwhile you person to bash that, but astatine the aforesaid time, erstwhile you're successful possession, for maine it's important that the passes we play are with purpose, and contiguous you truly saw the intent successful each walk we played, and for maine that's besides 'proper English.'"

Wiegman's tactical shifts each paid disconnected arsenic she moved James to the close wing, brought successful Toone to bolster the midfield and swapped Jess Carter and Alex Greenwood astir successful defence.

"The precedence was that we wanted to skip and exploit space," Wiegman said. "The Netherlands pushed up truthful we wanted to spell implicit them. That worked truly well. When you're successful their fractional of the transportation you tin commencement playing. We had immoderate bully crosses and we spoke astir that too."

England knew that if they fell to the Netherlands, the likelihood was their tourney would beryllium over.

Wiegman admitted she did person moments wherever the France decision got to her, but equally, she trusted the squad to crook things around.

"I recovered it hard excessively of course," Wiegman said.

"I ever knew up of this tourney that it was a precise hard group. It tin hap but past you request to triumph the different games. So yes, I was excited but astatine the aforesaid clip I felt a small tense too. I deliberation that's wholly mean and you truly privation to enactment successful the tourney truthful you privation to win.

"We besides cognize the Netherlands are a bully team. I conscionable had to absorption connected my job, reappraisal good and deliberation astir however we could bring radical together."