Lauren James turned in the finest performance of any Chelsea player on Sunday night as England dismantled Wales 6-1 to ease into the Women’s Euros quarter-finals.
As England eased into a 4-0 lead before half-time, Sarina Wiegman had the luxury of being able to turn attention to the knockouts to come and give some key players a bit of rest.
It didn’t appear that things would be so straightforward a week ago following a deeply disappointing performance and defeat against France. England deserve huge credit for the honesty and change they’ve made to just about everything they’ve done since that night.
Finishing second has even landed them on what would appear to be the kinder side of the knockout draw, avoiding Germany and Spain and of course France themselves as Wiegman takes a well-worn leaf out of the Gareth Southgate playbook.
It’s Sweden next for the Lionesses, with Norway or Italy to follow if they get through that one, while in the bottom half of the draw group winners France now face Germany with world champions Spain likely semi-final opponents.
Wales were, inevitably, bang up for this but were a clear step down in standard from the Dutch side England carved apart in midweek and it soon descended into a mismatch.
Perhaps for Wales the unique stresses of tournament play with three high-intensity games in such quick succession caught up with them. Perhaps if anything, Clive, they were almost too up for it. Perhaps some other cliché.
Whatever it was, a full-blooded start from Wales was undone inside the first 20 minutes as sloppy defending and a frankly baffling willingness to allow Lauren James to take the absolute p*ss out of them at walking space saw England into a 2-0 lead.
The first came as James’ cross was brought down by Georgia Stanway. When she too was brought down, she had a chance she wasn’t going to pass up for a nerve-settler from the penalty spot after VAR confirmed the precise location of the offence.
The second came from a defensive mix-up and the persistence of first Alessia Russo and then Ella Toone in both creating and finishing the chance at second attempts.
With Wales’ plan to frustrate England and hope to prey on some nerves duly exploded, the rest of the first half was as one-sided as we’ve seen in these championships. The way James and Toone were able to walk their way around the Wales defence to create Lauren Hemp’s goal was borderline embarrassing for the Welsh, while the same two players combined to at last allow Russo to get off the mark for the tournament just before the break.
The game was long over by then, but nevertheless an important goal, you feel, for a player who has created plenty and had one chalked off for a borderline offside against France but clearly wanted one for herself that actually counted here.
What England have shown in the last two games is just how mighty an attacking threat they carry. Toone, Hemp and Russo were all enthusiastic and integral participants in the fun, with both Beth Mead and Aggie Beever-Jones stepping off the bench to add goals of their own in an inevitably lower-key second half.
But this was James’ show. She’s a ludicrous footballer in this mood. Everything she did seemed to come off, and all of it conducted at one of two apparent speed settings: lightning fast or meticulously, almost mockingly slow. Her ability to shuttle from one to the other was dazzling, and it’s a shame her first half ended with a shot over rather than under the bar just before the whistle.
Had that gone in her performance would have been somewhere close to unimprovable.
It was a slight surprise to see James even appear for the second half at all, but no great shock when she played only 12 minutes of it.
The nature of the group situation meant England had little to gain from the margin of victory; only the victory itself was necessary, and then it was down to what happened in the France-Netherlands game.
For a while it looked like the Netherlands might pull off a shock that would have left England accidentally winning the group. A sparkling second-half turnaround put paid to that and confirmed France’s status among the favourites for this title.
Certainly their win over England in the opening game has only looked more and more impressive given what the Lionesses have done since. And with England themselves reminding everyone – not least themselves – just what they’re capable of in these last two games it wouldn’t come as any great shock to see France and England end the tournament as they began it against each other.
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