There was a celebratory feel around Wembley before kick-off with it being the final match of the year at the national stadium – and the Euro 2025 trophy was once again showcased.<\/p>\n
Fran Kirby, who recently retired from international football, was awarded a framed shirt to celebrate her brilliant England career, which included 77 appearances and a European title in 2022.<\/p>\n
But rather than it being a look forward to 2026, there were plenty of familiar faces in Wiegman’s starting XI and England did not waste any time in stamping their authority.<\/p>\n
Mead, who has continued to reward Wiegman’s trust, scored twice in as many minutes, linking up with Lucy Bronze before being teed up by Toone at the back post.<\/p>\n
It was Hemp’s turn next and she couldn’t miss when Stanway curled the ball perfectly into her path inside the six-yard area.<\/p>\n
England were 4-0 up before half an hour was played, having enjoyed 78% possession and five shots on target to China’s zero, and it got worse for the opposition when Stanway completed her hat-trick early in the second half.<\/p>\n
Wiegman introduced fresh blood from the bench, including second caps for midfielder Lucia Kendall and defender Taylor Hinds, before Toone and Russo completed the goalscoring.<\/p>\n
All in all, it was a positive evening for Wiegman and 30-year-old goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse, making her debut in the absence of injured duo Hannah Hampton and Khiara Keating.<\/p>\n
Wiegman was forced into changes at the back due to injuries but Maya Le Tissier started her third successive match, looking comfortable at centre-back, while Niamh Charles returned on the left.<\/p>\n
But it was perhaps a missed opportunity to rotate in midfield and up front, and when England went into the half-time break 5-0 up, it was hard to see just what Wiegman had learned that was new about her side.<\/p>\n
China, Asian Cup winners, were hugely disappointing on the night and fortune wasn’t on their side either when the video assistant referee prompted official Alina Pesu to review England’s penalty appeal late in the first half and rewarded a spot-kick for handball afterwards.<\/p>\n
This was not the test England would have hoped for but it was still a different opposition to the European competition they have faced in the past few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a celebratory feel around Wembley before kick-off with it being the final match of the year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-290325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}