Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.
Ella Toone’s impressive response to being left out of England’s squad was the reasoning behind her late call up to the Lionesses’ fold, says Sarina Wiegman.
Toone, along with Arsenal’s Chloe Kelly, were omitted from the initial squad after Wiegman said the pair had failed to live up to expectations for their clubs in recent weeks.
However, Lucy Bronze was ruled out with a minor injury ahead of their Women’s World Cup qualifier first leg away to Greece, prompting Wiegman to make a swift replacement.
And she decided to call up Toone, who has netted 24 goals in 69 England outings, as well as winning two European Championships during her time with the Lionesses.
The 27-year-old has failed to score or assist in her first four Women’s Super League games with Manchester United this season, and after learning she had missed out on the latest England squad, she revealed her frustration.
“It’s about me now, I’ve got to keep working hard and use it as fuel to keep getting better,” Toone said post-match after the Liverpool game.
“I’ll use the international break to reset, get my mind focused, and then we’ll go again.”
And that answer, and her form, impressed Wiegman, who said: “I think when I gave her the call, of course, it was a hard call, and she was very disappointed.
“But the first thing she said was, ‘Okay, I’m going to get back, how are we going to do that?’ She has support around her too.
“That answer [after the game] and the way she spoke, I thought that was really good.”
— Lionesses (@Lionesses) October 8, 2026
England are preparing to take on Greece at Pankritio Stadio on Friday, having finished second in their World Cup qualifying group behind Spain.
This will be the first ever meeting between Greece and England, with the Lionesses unbeaten in their last 41 fixtures when facing an opponent for the very first time (W34 D7).
England are also unbeaten in each of their last 15 matches when facing a European nation for the first time in a competitive fixture (W13 D2), scoring 87 goals and conceding just three times. Their last defeat in such a game came in a Women’s World Cup qualifying play-off match against France in October 2002.
In League A of the World Cup qualification groups, only Germany (16) won more points than England (15). Likewise, only Spain (21) and Germany (18) scored more goals than the Lionesses (13), with potentially two more play-off matches to come.
The winners face either Slovakia or Ukraine on 26 November and 5 December in another two-leg play-off to decide which team progresses to next year’s World Cup, which is being held in Brazil from 24 June to 25 July.
And Wiegman wants her team to put in a comprehensive performance ahead of the second leg in Leicester next Tuesday.
“Of course, that’s the main goal,” Wiegman added. “We’re fully focused on how we want to play tomorrow. What do we expect from Greece?
“We’ve never played them before. They’ve done well in that campaign too.
“So we have our game plan ready, being the best we can be, and then we absolutely want to dominate that game tomorrow and win it, of course.”
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