Sarina Wiegman said she wanted to see a bit more from her side after their fairly underwhelming performance against a hugely unfancied Greek side, despite securing a valuable first-leg victory in their Women’s World Cup playoff tie.

Georgia Stanway’s neat finish, Maya Le Tissier’s first England goal and Alessia Russo’s low strike were enough to give England control but a Kallisti Brouksair goal for Greece means that the tie is not definitively over, going into Tuesday’s second leg, and Wiegman acknowledged that England had been “a bit sloppy” at times.

“I think we made it a bit harder [for ourselves],” Wiegman said, while also giving credit to Greece for being “very well-prepared, very well-organised and very disciplined”, before adding: “Of course, I’m happy with the 3-1. I’m not happy with the 1.

“We were – in moments – really good on the ball, and we were, in moments, not so good on the ball and we could have made better decisions, too.

“We want to play really well. Of course, we go out to win, but we want to show more than winning, we want to play really well too.”

Facing a Greek side ranked 59th in the world, who have never qualified for a major tournament, England began as overwhelming favourites and dominated the ball but often appeared to be going through the motions, making hard work of breaking down Greece’s deep defensive shape. It would be too much of a stretch to describe it as a bad performance but, at the same time, England did lack their usual zip, charisma and urgency and their body language suggested they were focused on the job at hand, rather than enjoying themselves.

Perhaps the flat atmosphere was to blame for that. The Hellenic Football Federation had made the tickets free for this fixture but – despite that – only a few thousand turned up and there was scarcely any cheers from the home supporters. Instead, around 500 travelling England fans were generating the majority of the noise.

It meant that the first 45 minutes were largely forgettable and lacking in real quality, aside from a few isolated moments such as a delicious chip from 25 yards out from Lauren James, which drew a gasp of appreciation from the away fans as it hit the net and they thought England had taken the lead. A VAR check showed that James was offside.

Georgia Stanway finishes off an England team move to open the scoring in Greece. Photograph: Miloš Bičanski/Getty Images

England were playing with a back three when in possession, pushing Le Tissier very high up the pitch as a right wing-back, and with a back four when out of possession. They were untroubled defensively except for a huge let-off at 0-0 when the Greece striker Ionna Papatheodorou hit the woodwork. She eased past Esme Morgan and Leah Williamson with alarming ease and her shot from range looked to have beaten Hannah Hampton, but struck the bar.

England, who had gone close when Laura Blindkilde Brown shot straight at the goalkeeper, James curled a free-kick wide and Lauren Hemp drilled a low shot narrowly wide across the face of goal, eventually found their breakthrough when Blindkilde Brown played a quick ball to Russo, whose good touch to lay the ball off for Stanway allowed the midfielder to slot in low.

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After the break, Le Tissier powered in a strong finish after clever work from Keira Walsh to open up space, and when Russo tucked a low finish into the bottom corner to make it 3-0 four minutes later, England might have been hoping the floodgates were open. However, some limp defending allowed Rangers’ Brouksair to pull a goal back, firing in a low finish after a hopeful, bouncing, high long ball was not initially dealt with by Morgan.

Quick GuideWomen’s World Cup qualifying roundupShow

The Republic of Ireland cruised to an 8-0 victory in the first leg of their Women’s World Cup qualifying play-off against Kazakhstan in Astana. Kyra Carusa scored twice while further goals from Chloe Mustaki, Emily Murphy, Abbie Larkin, Jamie Finn, Shanade Hopcroft and Jessie Stapleton made Tuesday’s second leg in Cork a formality. Carusa had already grabbed her brace – and Mustaki also hit the target – before the Kazakhstan captain, Yulia Myasnikova, was sent off just beyond the half-hour mark for a foul on Larkin. The decision allowed the visitors to shrug off the absence of Katie McCabe due to injury and stroll to victory, with the outstanding Mustaki providing the assists for both Carusa’s goals as well as the fifth for Larkin shortly before half-time. Scotland defeated Czechia 2-0 in Pardubice, with Caroline Weir and Claire Emslie on target in the second half. Tereza Krejciríkova was sent off for the hosts three minutes from time. A 21st-minute Ezmiralda Franja own goal secured Wales a 1-0 win in Albania. Northern Ireland’s World Cup hopes are all but over, however, after a 4-0 first leg home loss by Portugal. Telma Encarnação, Jéssica Silva, a Rebecca Holloway own goal and Fátima Pinto the scorers. 

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England went close to adding to their tally, as James curled narrowly wide and the substitute Jess Park’s effort hit the bar, on a night when Erica Meg Parkinson and Grace Fisk were handed senior international debuts, late on.

Assuming they finish the job off on Tuesday in the second leg in Leicester, England would face Slovakia or Ukraine in the second round of the playoffs in the November-December international window. That tie would also be staged over two legs and England would need to win that to secure their spot at next summer’s tournament in Brazil. To be competitive there, though, they know they will need to markedly improve on their cohesion and fluidity with the ball.

Wiegman said: “I have seen some fluid moments too. You just want more. And you want the final balls and the positions in front of the goal [to be] better, and of course we’re working on that, with the amount of time we have. Some things, we’d really want to do better and we’re working really hard to do so. We have an opportunity now to fix that, for Tuesday.”