Georgia Stanway says it is ‘time to get excited’ as England complete warm-ups

Georgia Stanway declared it “time to get excited” after England completed their warm-up matches ahead of the home European Championship.

Sarina Wiegman’s side made it three wins from three warm-up games as they beat Switzerland 4-0 in Zurich on Thursday, with Stanway scoring a penalty and also providing an assist.

Their Euros campaign starts on Wednesday with a clash against Austria at a sold-out Old Trafford in the opening match of the tournament.

And midfielder Stanway said in quotes on the Lionesses’ official Twitter feed: “We’ve got another week to prepare, another week to try to ease things down, making sure we’re ready for that first game on the sixth.

“But, yeah – time to get excited.”

After Alessia Russo had headed England in front in the 56th minute, Stanway then doubled the lead by firing a penalty past Seraina Friedli in the 74th minute.

The visitors scored again two minutes later when Stanway’s corner was headed in by Beth England, and the latter’s fellow substitute Jill Scott subsequently added a header of her own in stoppage time.

Stanway, who has left Manchester City this summer to join Bayern Munich, said of the match, which took England’s unbeaten record under Wiegman to 12 victories from 14 games, with 84 goals scored and just three conceded: “It felt good.

“It’s nice to know that they (the warm-up matches) are all done and it’s on to the real thing now.

“Obviously the scoreline says that we had a good performance, but there was times in there where we weren’t satisfied.

“It was about us, to increase the tempo, increase the quality, and obviously that’s what we did in the second half, and that’s why the scoreline was what it was.”

It was another game that saw England, after being level at half-time, produce a strong second-half display with players making key contributions off the bench, as had been the case in last week’s 5-1 victory over the Netherlands at Elland Road and the 3-0 victory over Belgium at Molineux the week before.

Wiegman spoke about the match showing once again the fitness level in her squad and its depth, before describing England as being “in a very good place” but still having “to improve a couple of things”.