Wiegman vows tactical overhaul as England chase automatic World Cup spot against Ukraine

Sarina Wiegman has confirmed she will make tactical changes as England face Ukraine at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium on Tuesday, with the Lionesses needing to beat Ukraine and better Spain’s result against Iceland to secure automatic qualification for next year’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

England’s path to the top of Group A3 was severely complicated by a 4-0 defeat to Spain last week — a result Wiegman described as “a hit on the chin”. With world champions Spain heavily favoured to beat Iceland, the Lionesses are widely expected to face the play-off route to the finals regardless of their own result, but Wiegman was clear that Tuesday’s changes are driven by tactics rather than rotation.

“It is a qualifier still, we want to win the game, but there are some tactical decisions to make because we expect different challenges,” Wiegman said. “Yes, I will make some changes. There are some players knocking on the door and I want to see them.”

Despite the difficult week, Wiegman pointed to a positive response in training as evidence of the squad’s resilience. “We said straight after the game on the pitch, ‘OK, this one’s really hard to take’. It felt like a hit on the chin,” she said. “Then it’s so important to stick together. It’s really easy when things go well that everyone sticks together but, when you have a setback like this, that’s when we show ourselves. I think that was what the team did. We have trained again, there was good energy in the team.”

England face a Ukraine side that has lost all five of their group matches, and Wiegman identified an early goal as key to settling any nerves and allowing her side to keep one eye on events in Reykjavik. “What we can control is our game and it would be really nice for us to get an early goal,” she said. “We want to play well, we want to execute, we want to be on the ball a lot. We want to create chances, score goals and not concede any.”

Wiegman confirmed she will have a representative monitoring the Spain vs Iceland match in real time but said she has no plans to relay those updates to her players during the game. “We have someone there. We want to be updated live with what’s going on but we’re not planning on sharing that with players. We have to win this game and that’s what we’re going after.”

The England manager also reported no new injury concerns ahead of the fixture.