Georgia Stanway reveals Lionesses captain Leah Williamson held a crucial team meeting ahead of their 2-1 triumph over France… with England’s stars admitting they were NOT happy with standard of recent performances

Georgia Stanway said England captain Leah Williamson held a team meeting before their victory over France in which players said they were not satisfied with the standard of recent performances.

After failing to qualify for this summer’s Olympics on behalf of Team GB, England had got off to a stuttering start to their Euro 2025 qualifying group with just one win in their first three games.

Defeat against France last Friday had raised questions over the Lionesses form, but they responded in style with a victory in the return fixture in Saint-Etienne on Tuesday.

Stanway, who was on the scoresheet with a superb 25-yard strike, said Williamson had got all of the players together to address their recent struggles.

‘Leah just rounded us all up then and we said this week we weren’t satisfied with the way it’s been, we need to up our level,’ Stanway said.

Leah Williamson held a team meeting slamming England’s recent standards ahead of the game

‘Me individually, I wasn’t happy with my performance at St James’ Park and I’m glad I put it right today.

‘We know it will take an even better, faster, more physically stronger team and more technical team to win the Euros next year. Today is a massive step in the right direction because we’ve beaten a team that beat us a few days ago with the possession that we want.

‘I think it’s always going to happen when you’ve been riding a wave for a very long time. We’ve had some results in the past that we maybe would have won and not been satisfied with the way the game was played at the end of it. Sometimes we’ve had good moments but we haven’t made them count. Today was different. Today we exploited the spaces and our gameplan really worked today. We found ways that would work for us.

‘We know we need to take that to the next level and constantly demand every single game. We just need to hit the ground running [in July]. There’s no time to delay or to wait or for other people. You have to take responsibility yourselves and be ready for what’s coming. Today we were just on it.’

Jess Carter, who played in both games against France, spoke similarly of how players had recognised their recent performances had not been up to scratch.

The Lionesses doubled their lead through Alessia Russo (right), who scored with a header

Sarina Wiegman’s side were in disappointing vein of form heading into the Euro 2025 qualifier against France, having failed to qualify for this summer’s Olympics on behalf of Team GB

‘We just said in a huddle a minute ago how the standards haven’t been good enough for a while.

‘It’s not out of a lack of trying but we just haven’t found something else to lift us when things aren’t necessarily going our way, we’ve got to keep fighting and grind our way through it, which is what this team has shown we can do. That was maybe the difference today, the fight we had to keep going to the end.

‘I think the mindset’s got to be even more aggressive we’ve got to do even better, we can’t take out foot off the gas at all and take three points from every game. Today was just a step in the right direction, we’ve got to improve on this performance.’