England ‘won’t sit on pink cloud’ after orange walk against Netherlands

Sarina Wiegman’s England will spend the majority of next month’s Euro 2022 based at the Lensbury, a luxury resort hotel in south-west London where the Dutch suite is the finest room type on offer. It sounds thoroughly appropriate accommodation for Wiegman, a native of The Hague who, having led the Netherlands to Euro 2017 glory, is now making a very decent job of dressing the Lionesses for success.

On Friday, her team even wore a Dutch-style orange kit as, having weathered a sometimes less than convincing first half littered with cheap concessions of possession, they ultimately thrashed Mark Parsons’s Oranje class of 2022, running out 5-1 winners in a friendly at Elland Road.

Wiegman’s England record reads: played 13, won 11, drawn two, 80 goals scored, three conceded. Not that she is the type to get carried away. “We’re not going to sit on a pink cloud [the Dutch term for cloud nine],” she said afterwards. “We’re going to stay grounded. There are many favourites for the tournament and we’re just one. We’re in a good place but there are a couple of things we need to improve.”

Beth Mead, a second-half substitute and scorer of two goals, impressed along with the excellent Lauren Hemp, Fran Kirby, Rachel Daly, Keira Walsh, Ella Toone and Alessia Russo. Home truths were told at half-time, though.

“We were told it wasn’t good enough,” Mead said. “We were panicking and doing things out of character. Sarina told us to trust in our ability and we did that in the second half.”

Wiegman’s substitutions, perhaps most notably the introductions of Toone and Russo, altered the complexion of a match in which Lieke Martens headed the Netherlands into an early lead, Lucy Bronze scored a fluke equaliser and the visitors missed a penalty