Sarina Wiegman hails ‘more mature’ England performance despite draw with Spain

Sarina Wiegman believes England exhibited a “more mature” performance during their goalless draw against Spain in the second round of fixtures in the Arnold Clark Cup.

England went into the game looking to make a mark against a Spain side built around a core of players from Champions League winners Barcelona, after a 1-1 draw against Canada in the opening round.

Wiegman made eight changes from the Canada clash and the Lionesses managed to keep Spain quiet for the most part, which pleased the England manager.

“What I liked most today was that we had a plan on how we wanted to play and how we wanted to play against Spain because Spain has a different style again than Canada had and I think how we did that as a team,” the Lionesses manager said.

“Because we substituted a lot and we had other players on the pitch than we had on Thursday and I think that’s what made me the most happy about this was that we really stuck to the plan.

“I hope that what we are going to do is we are going to reward ourselves, because we created chances.”

England only had 34 percent of the ball, but Spain struggled to convert their possession into chances, managing just four on target during the 90 minutes.

“I think the difference between Canada and today was against Canada it was really different second half and we lost so many possessions and unnecessary and I think now, although we had near the end of the game we had some struggles, but we kept up the good and we created some chances and we could have scored.

“So yes I think this was more mature than against Canada and that’s development, that’s nice.”

Spain coach Jorge Vilda admitted he was not worried despite his side having 11 shots but being unable to score.

“I would be worried if we weren’t