Ian Wright and Karen Carney have expressed their concerns for England ahead of this weekend’s Euro 2025 final.
The Lionesses qualified for the final after a dramatic 2-1 extra-time victory over Italy.
Michelle Agyemang scored a 96th-minute equaliser to take the game to extra-time, before Chloe Kelly netted the match-winner in the 119th minute – seconds before a penalty shootout.
Sarina Wiegman’s side won their quarter-final with Sweden after a dramatic penalty shootout, after they came from two goals down to take the game to extra-time.
England will play in their third consecutive international final, and will look to defend the trophy they won at Euro 2022.
What Ian Wright and Karen Carney said about England after reaching Euro 2025 final
Former Lioness Karen Carney said that England boss Sarina Wiegman needs to ‘rip’ her squad up for the Women’s Euro 2025 final.
She said: “Sarina doesn’t make many changes, but we saw tiredness today. Freshness is important,” said Carney. “She has to look at her squad, rip it up, we need freshness to start the game.
“Plan A isn’t working, Plan B is magnificent, we have to make changes.”
Ian Wright, who returned to ITV duty after missing the start of the tournament, said that England can’t keep on relying on coming from behind.
“You can’t continue to rely on that,” Wright said. “Six semi-finals, three finals on the spin. At some stage, the luck will run out. We need to start better and get a foothold in the game.
“The thing is, if it’s Germany, very physical and direct, it won’t suit us. Spain, they play a more technical game, it might suit us more. I’m not sure about Plan A and Plan B, we’re in a final.
“But we need to start games better. We take too long to start games, we need to get into that, how we can get into our stride quicker.”
When is the Euro 2025 final?
England will face the winners of Spain’s clash with Germany in the final of Women’s Euro 2025 on Sunday, July 27th.
It will be shown live on BBC One and ITV One, as well as their respective streaming platforms iPlayer and ITV X.
The game will take place in Basel, and kick-off is at 8pm (BST).
There have been calls for a bank holiday if England win the tournament. SheKicks has launched their own petition, calling on the UK government to put in force a bank holiday if the Lionesses prevail.
What are England’s chances of winning Euro 2025?
The UK’s top football betting sites have the Lionesses at 2/1 second-favourites to win Euro 2025.
Spain, who beat England in the final of the 2023 World Cup, are 8/15 favourites to win the tournament.
