England boss Wiegman hints on naming strong line-up to face Latvia | OneFootball

England head coach Sarina Wiegman has hinted that she will pick a strong starting XI to face Latvia in Riga on Tuesday evening.

The Lionesses face the nation currently ranked 102nd in the world in their fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia New Zealand 2023 qualifying match. The game comes three days after the Lionesses defeated Northern Ireland 4-0 in front of more than 23,000 fans at Wembley.

Latvia come into the match without a victory in qualifying since they defeated Estonia in August 2017. The nation’s only victories since that game have come in the Baltic Women’s Cup. Latvia have lost all three of their FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia New Zealand 2023 qualifying ties, conceding 16 goals. They were most recently defeated 4-1 on home soil by North Macedonia, a side who England have already beaten 8-0.

When speaking in the pre-match press conference, England head coach Wiegman hinted that wholesale changes will not be made to her side for their latest match in Riga and that player load may be managed later in the game should the Lionesses hold a comfortable lead.

“We will make the final decisions after the last training session,” Wiegman said. “It’s obviously an opportunity (to make changes) but the bigger picture is about who we want to see, who is close to the starting line-up.

“We have shown that we have many players that could start. We would like to take player load before this international window into account but at this moment, what we need is to get the best team on the pitch and hopefully, we can make some substitutions when the game turns our way.”

While England made use of the perfect playing surface at Wembley on Saturday, they face very different conditions in Riga. Wiegman said that her team will approach the occasion as they always do but will do their best to plan for what awaits them.

She said “I saw the pitch on TV a couple of weeks ago when the Dutch men’s team played there and it didn’t look great. It is a totally different stadium to what we experienced on Saturday, the circumstances and facilities are different.

“We will stick with our plan and try to perform the best that we can on whatever pitch we play on but we have to be aware that sometimes we might need to take two touches instead of one touch or maybe we need to speed up the pass a little but we will figure that out.”

The FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia New Zealand 2023 qualifier between Latvia and England kicks-off at 6.30pm on Tuesday evening and will be broadcast live on ITV4.