Man United star Ella Toone makes bold England claim after France defeat puts dent in Euros dream

Ella Toone believes England were the better team in Friday night's 2-1 defeat to France and says the Lionesses can learn from the performance ahead of next week's clash in Saint-Etienne.

Beth Mead gave Sarina Wiegman's side the lead at St James' Park before a stunning volley from Elisa De Almeida and a fantastic first-time finish from Marie-Antoinette Katoto saw the French come from behind to further strengthen their position at the top of their EURO 2025 qualifying group.

"It's disappointing more than anything because I thought we were the better team," the Manchester United star Toone told the Manchester Evening News and other reporters after the game. "I felt like we played really well.

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"It was just a lapse in concentration on two set pieces which we knew they were good at. We know they've got some big players who are really good in the air and we had to make sure we concentrated so we're really disappointed to concede two goals like that. It's not the best feeling right now but I know we can learn a lot from it.

"As England we want to win every game we step into. We know that we've got a great team, a great manager and we want to go to the Euros. We won the last one and we want to go (to next summer's Euros) and do the same thing.

"Right now it hurts a little bit but we've got a few more days before we can go again which is always nice because we can rectify what we did tonight. We've got to make sure that we recover well and learn from the game but also take a lot of positives from it as well."

The result means England are now five points behind France and currently sit