With just one country guaranteed automatic qualification, England knew anything less than victory against Ukraine would be a major setback for them in a group containing world champions Spain.<\/p>\n
The hosts, who had to take a 15-hour coach journey to the stadium in Turkey, set up to defend and were successful in a frustrating first half for the Lionesses.<\/p>\n
Manchester City midfielder Laura Blindkilde Brown saw plenty of action on a rare England start, hitting the underside of the crossbar with the best chance of the half.<\/p>\n
But on the whole, it was a wasteful 45 minutes from England, who struggled to break down Ukraine’s stubborn defence and lacked quality in the final third, despite having 40 touches in the opposition box and 85% of the possession.<\/p>\n
They immediately improved after the break with Russo delivering two goals in four minutes \u2013 chopping inside from Keira Walsh’s pass to slot the ball past goalkeeper Samson, before poking home Hemp’s cross.<\/p>\n
That was reward for a dominant display and although Ukraine rocked them with a goal against the run of play, it did little to disrupt the Lionesses’ rhythm.<\/p>\n
It was a warning sign and England responded to regain control through Stanway’s double \u2013 the first from the penalty spot and the second a thumping strike in the box \u2013 before Park got in on the action.<\/p>\n
Goal difference could become a crucial factor with many expecting England to wrestle with Spain for top spot in the group, so their second-half display was a welcome one for Wiegman.<\/p>\n
The England manager was able to rotate players who are still returning to full fitness, while in-form players Park, Stanway and Russo showed their quality on a positive evening.<\/p>\n
They will go into Saturday’s match against Iceland hoping to build momentum and a lead at the top of the table before a crucial meeting with Spain in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just one country guaranteed automatic qualification, England knew anything less than victory against Ukraine would be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-327561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}