Analysis: England 4-0 South Korea

The score line may look comfortable, but the Lionesses found it frustrating to find a breakthrough before extra fitness and being in-season went in their favour, and there were some intriguing tweaks

Image: David Klein / Sportimage

Sarina Wiegman admitted she was generally pleased with her England team’s performance as the Lionesses got both the Arnold Clark Cup defence and 2023 under way with a comfortable 4-0 win over Korea Republic.

Many may have expected a closer encounter given the opposition were ranked 15^th in the world, but Colin Bell’s side being out of season generally showed as the game wore on, but they remained more than competitive for the most part despite missing several key players to injury, but the lack of fitness in comparison showed later in the match.

The big question mark ahead of the game was what would Wiegman do in the likely absence of Keira Walsh who had a stomach bug, and the answer wasn’t entirely unpredictable. Rather than switch the personnel around more than she would usually like, Wiegman pushed Leah Williamson forward into Walsh’s role, one she’s been more than familiar with under the former Netherlands head coach, and brought Jess Carter in at centre-back.

The latter was somewhat of a surprise given Carter was temporarily out of Wiegman’s plans post-European Championships, with many expecting Alex Greenwood to go in alongside Bright. That’s what we saw so often pre-Euros, and would have allowed Rachel Daly to go in her usual left-back role that she’s held down for her country.

But Wiegman admitted post-match she won’t stick with a consistent starting eleven that she has become so well-known for in England and will be using the remaining games against Italy and Belgium to continue to test different aspects of her squad.

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“I want to try out things,” she said. “I think this tournament is really a big step in our preparation for the World Cup. It's not the 22nd July just yet, we really need to see a couple of things to see where are we as a team and where are some individuals.

“We still have a couple of months, so yes we will figure out a couple more things, we will do some changes. Keira is doing well, we expect her to be on the pitch tomorrow and she will be assessed, but it looks good."

Whatever happened first half, something didn’t quite gel for England, although potentially understandable as this is generally the longest gap between international breaks, so some fluidity is lost, plus the changes made to the usual starting line-up.

Then when you take into account Korea Republic’s extreme defensive methods, not necessarily by design, it was a tough first half for England who were well held at arm’s length by some solid defending and a couple of good saves from Kim Jungmi.

Their English head coach Colin Bell admitted afterwards his team hadn’t wanted to be as defensive as they looked, but a combination of factors, all mentioned above, contributed to how his side ended up largely sat around their own penalty box as England looked to break them down, which they did when Lauren James, who will come onto, was tripped inside the box just over the half hour mark.