England Women’s captain Williamson wary of threat from Northern Ireland

The England captain, Leah Williamson, has described Northern Ireland as a “serious contender” ahead of the Lionesses’ World Cup qualifier at Windsor Park on Tuesday evening.

Williamson is the only confirmed change to England’s starting lineup having sat out the 10-0 victory against North Macedonia in Skopje on Friday as a result of precautionary concussion protocol.

“I thought the girls were great, very professional, we had a job to do, we wanted to create lots of chances and prove to be a clinical team and the girls did that,” Williamson said. “It’s never nice to sit out a football match but when the girls play like that it’s fairly easy.”

Should England beat Northern Ireland and Austria drop points against Latvia, also on Tuesday evening, then the Lionesses’ qualification for the 2023 World Cup would be confirmed with two games left to play. For Northern Ireland, who meet England in Group A at the European Championship this summer, a win would keep alive their hopes of a playoff spot – they sit third in the group, three points behind Austria.

In October, in front of 23,225 fans at Wembley, England beat Northern Ireland 4-0 with a second-half hat-trick from the Arsenal forward Beth Mead and a 72nd-minute strike from Chelsea’s Beth England. On paper, beating a team ranked 38 places below them in the world rankings should prove a straightforward task for England but Northern Ireland, managed by Kenny Shiels, are a rapidly evolving team and Williamson is refusing to take them lightly.

“It was a competitive and difficult game last time, especially in the first half,” she said. “Yes, we’ve had some games we’ve won comfortably [in this qualifying campaign] but I don’t expect it to be comfortable on Tuesday – Northern Ireland