Match in Focus: England 0-0 Portugal

The Lionesses drew another blank in their final warm-up game for the World Cup, which left head coach Sarina Wiegman with few answers to the questions she'd posed her squad

Rachel Daly got the nod in attack against Portugal. Image: Paul Terry / Sportimage

Rachel Daly got the nod

When the starting eleven was published it was easy to think Sarina Wiegman was offering clues as to the team she will play against Haiti in a couple of weeks time.

Perhaps she was, but there were also definite experiments in this match, but Daly getting the nod over Alessia Russo and Beth England in the team's final warm-up match felt significant.

Daly is coming off the back of the best season of her career where she won the golden boot for an Aston Villa side not part of the established 'big four' and scored more than double the goals of Russo at Manchester United.

The striker didn't find the net but was in all the right positions and crucially constantly read where crosses from wide would go, which is a key part of the Lionesses' game right now.

Nothing can be confirmed just yet, but that looked like a big tick in the box in the 'who will start up top?' quiz for Daly.

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Centre-back auditions

There was two interesting elements to note of Wiegman's defensive selections. The first was pairing both Esme Morgan and Jess Carter together at centre-back, rather than the more experienced Alex Greenwood, who who was the second interesting element, remaining at left-back and who we will come on to.

One of the big remaining question marks coming into the World Cup is who would replace Leah Williamson alongside Millie Bright? With Greenwood an obvious candidate, but leaving a hole at left-back.

Wiegman seemed to offer an audition to several players, with Morgan and Carter playing 90, while Niamh Charles got a chance to show herself at left-back in the second half. On the one hand, it made it look like a straight shootout between Morgan and Carter for the remaining spot, but Wiegman testing out Charles at left-back may also hint at a consideration for Greenwood to go back into the centre to form a more experienced partnership with Bright.

Wiegman probably didn't get the answers she was looking for in this game, but the back four remains an intriguing and potentially unanswered piece of the jigsaw.