Georgia Stanway: ‘We can learn a lot from tonight’

Georgia Stanway is keen that England learn their lessons after they lost 4-3 to Germany in a breathless game at Wembley.

Stanway netted two of the Lionesses’ goals within three minutes of each other in the first half to reduce her side's deficit to 3-2 but they were not able to complete a comeback.

But with this game the start of a journey towards EURO 2025 next summer, the midfielder insists there is plenty of time to put right what went wrong.

She said: "We can't back away from the fact that Germany are a world-class team.

"We need to review this and see how what we need to change. We've got another opportunity on Tuesday to make adjustments. 

"On the whole, I don't think we need to be too disappointed. This is the start of a long year, we've got a long process to be right for the EUROs next year. Whether it's a good or a bad one tonight, it's a way that we can learn."

Thank you for coming to see us tonight, #Lionesses fans 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/eav6h9Vrhl

— Lionesses (@Lionesses) October 25, 2024

The learning started at half-time, with Stanway revealing that some tactical tweaks were made in order to tighten up after a particularly end-to-end opening period.

Both teams scored one goal each in the second half and the Bayern Munich star was pleased with the way England remained in the game.

She said: "It could've been 5-5 at half-time. I don't think we were the weaker team, both teams were pretty even but the result went their way.

"We just needed to adjust our shape. We couldn't jump out of areas because that left space behind us. We needed to be more compact because their rotations disrupted us but as soon as we changed our shape we were able to get compact, regain the ball more and obviously we got them a few times on the counter-attack.

"We knew Germany were going to come out. Obviously they have a new manager, there have been a lot of changes within their squad, but that just showcases how good they are. It’s good we got back into the game."