The Lionesses look to extend their unbeaten run as they take on Northern Ireland

England will look to extend their unbeaten run under new manager Sarina Wiegman on Tuesday night when they face Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in the Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

After comfortably beating North Macedonia 10-0 on Friday, England go into the game in excellent goal scoring form and will look to extend their unbeaten run during the qualifying stages. However, Northern Ireland will be looking to win themselves in order to reignite their chances of qualifying for the tournament in 2023.

The Lionesses have made an excellent start to their World Cup qualifying campaign, they have played seven games and have won all seven giving them 21 points. Wiegman’s side head into the game top of Group D, the team have scored 63 goals so far during the qualifiers while conceding none.

Ahead of the game Wiegman said:

“It’s going to be a tough game and a great crowd. It’s a big occasion so I’m really looking forward to that, and the team too. It’s the last chance they have to win to have any chance of qualifying… For us, we want to win and get as close as possible to qualifying.

“We have a job to do. We want to be a mature team, we want to play our game and how we want to play football and that won’t change.

“Hopefully the crowd will make lots of noise so it’s a little harder for us to talk to each other so we have communicate in passing and body language a little more to execute the actions we want to take. So I’m actually really looking forward to it.”

Northern Ireland currently sit third in Group D with 13 points. They themselves have only conceded nine goals in seven games making the game tomorrow night an interesting challenge for England. A win for the Green and White Army would not only see them cause an upset but they would move onto 16 points therefore, piling the pressure on Austria who are currently sit in second place and set their qualification campaign back on track.

However manager Kenny Shiels, has somewhat conceded the defeat to England before kick-off, he said:

“This is not a must-win game because qualification is out of the equation,

“If we won by five goals, that would be different. But we’re being realistic and we’re not expecting that to happen.

“If we were to beat England, it would be an unbelievable achievement in itself, in isolation to the group.”

 

Team News

Newly appointed Euro’s captain Leah Williamson is set to return to the England side after missing Friday’s game due to concussion protocol, but The Lionesses will be without Alex Greenwood (knee injury) and Lotte Wubben-Moy (thigh injury).

Wiegman also said that Jill Scott has had to withdraw from the squad and will not be making an appearance on Tuesday.

Head to head

The teams met twice last year.

Firstly, in a friendly fixture where England comfortably won 6-0. Secondly in the reverse qualifying fixture where again The Lionesses comfortably won 4-0.

 

So it’s a big ask for Northern Ireland to beat this superb England team.

 

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