Georgia Stanway wants England to take their game ‘to the next level’ following tough loss to Germany

GEORGIA STANWAY insists England need to step up their game following their heaviest loss under Sarina Wiegman.

While the midfielder netted twice the Lionesses succumbed to a 4-3  friendly defeat to Germany on Friday, nine months before the 2025 Women’s Euros. 

Three of the goals conceded at Wembley during a tough opening 29 minutes were scored by two of Stanway’s Bayern team-mates – Guilia Gwinn and Klara Buhl.

The clash ended with the reigning Euros champs, who face South Africa next, shipping four for the first time under Wiegman. 

It was also the first time England conceded four times at home since falling to a 6-4 defeat by Germany in Preston in 1997.

Stanway, who scored a first-half brace, said: “My initial reaction was we just need to fix this and it doesn’t matter who was to score or what was going to happen.

“Two Bayern girls had scored so I thought I needed to do something. 

“I need to fix something. I can’t have them bragging as soon as we get back to campus. 

“As soon as we got the penalty, we got the ball rolling and we were able to get some more chances. 

“It was a hectic game. Even coming in at half time with the score, it could have been 4-4.

“Every nation is going to get better and better and having won the Euros, we’ve got a massive target on our backs.”

England’s next friendly will be a duel with South Africa at Coventry’s CBS Arena on Tuesday evening. 

Their upcoming opponents suffered a hefty friendly loss on Friday, getting hammered 5-0 by Denmark. 

Stanway insists England have got things to learn ahead of the game against the 2022 Women’s Afcon champions.

And Wiegman’s side will face far sterner tests when take on the USA and Switzerland on November 30 and December 3. 

The midfielder, who sealed a May 2022 Bayern switch from Man City, added: “We need to take our game to the next level and we can’t rest. 

“This international camp so far has been intense and the game itself (on Friday) was intense. 

“It showcases we’re not there yet and we’ve still got nine months (before the next Euros). 

“The main thing is that we’re trying to do the right things, but it’s not necessarily working.

“Maybe it’s the little tweaks that are necessary, but we’ll review it. 

“We’ll have a few days to prepare for South Africa.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk