Spain 4-0 England: World champions expose Lionesses’ flaws

With a year to go until the World Cup kicks off in Brazil, it was an alarming scoreline that gave Wiegman plenty to think about.

Although facing world champion Spain away was the toughest test in football, it was not an easy process to lose so easily.

Former England midfielder Fran Kirby said Wiegman’s players looked “pale” throughout the match and it “hurt him watching that”.

“They will learn from this and they need to step up and put in a good performance against Ukraine,” Kirby told BBC Radio 5 Live. he said.

Only the top team in their group automatically qualifies for the World Cup, and even if England beat Ukraine on Tuesday they are likely to miss out; This defeat for Spain is the only blemish on their otherwise solid campaign.

So what damage did the 4-0 defeat to England do?

“Of course it’s not a great score. It’s difficult, it’s disappointing and I think there was a gap between us and Spain, a big gap,” Wiegman said. Wiegman added.

“We’ll review it, regroup, stick together, play a good game and then move forward.

“We know if we qualify or not [automatically] There is a different preparation than if we didn’t qualify. Let’s see what happens on Tuesday first.”

England midfielder Keira Walsh, who captained the team in the absence of injured defender Leah Williamson, admitted that “they were not good enough”.

“Spain played incredibly well but I think there were a lot of things we could have done better. I felt like they had bodies everywhere,” said Walsh.

“It was very difficult to step out of our own box. I don’t have a solution right now. Obviously we’ll look back but emotions are very high right now.”

“It was a disappointing match. We still have a small chance of qualifying automatically. It’s out of our hands. We can only hope Iceland does us a favour.”