England head coach Sarina Wiegman said that she was pleased with her side’s dominant performance in their 5-0 victory over Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in Belfast last night.
Lauren Hemp and Georgia Stanway both netted braces while Ella Toone was also on target as the Lionesses controlled the game from the first minute to the very last.
On paper, Northern Ireland looked set to be tricky opponents for England but in reality, The Green and White Army were beaten with real ease in-front of a record crowd of 15,348 at Windsor Park.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time after the match, England boss Wiegman said that she was pleased with how dominant her side were over the 90 minutes.
“The result is great – 5-0, we are really happy with it,” she said. “I think it was a very mature performance from us, we managed to keep the ball moving, we created a lot of chances and we dominated the game throughout the 90 minutes.
“We hoped to score more goals in the first half and we could have been a little bit more clinical but it was very pleasing to see us score four goals in the second half.”
The two nations met in the reverse fixture back in October. On that occasion, England won 4-0 with all four goals scored in the second half. Wiegman went on to say that last night’s performance was a step up on the previous contest.
She said “If you look at this game and compare it to October, I think we have improved in our style of play and we dominated even more than we did back then. The game in October was 0-0 at half-time and this time it was 1-0 but we created so many big chances and we really should have scored more.
“We have Austria and Luxembourg after the EUROs but the position that we are in now is very good going into that tournament.”
England are next scheduled to be in action in June when they face two international friendlies against Belgium and The Netherlands.