England manager Sarina Wiegman expressed her concern about midfielder Keira Walsh, who sustained an injury during the 1-0 World Cup victory over Denmark in Sydney.
Walsh, a 2023 Champions League winner with Barcelona, had been an essential part of the Lionesses’ successful Euro 2022 campaign, starting every game.
Unfortunately, during the match against Denmark, Walsh suffered a knee injury, and she could be seen telling medical staff about it after sliding to collect the ball late in the first half.
The worrying incident overshadowed the joyous mood following Lauren James’ early goal, which marked her first-ever World Cup goal as a 21-year-old forward for Chelsea.
Wiegman, 53, said: “Of course I’m concerned because she couldn’t walk off the pitch, but we don’t know yet, so we can’t take any assumptions. Let’s just wait until we really have a diagnosis and then we can tell you.
“You saw what we did, [Georgia] Stanway dropped back and Laura [Coombs] came in. Yes, of course we had to find our feet a little bit.
“You saw different stages. We really dominated the first half. Then Keira went out and we had to adapt to the situation.
“In the second half, Denmark also had such a direct style of play. We also showed we can fight. The team showed real resilience. We kept it to 1-0 so it was really good and I’m really proud of the team.”
An update on Walsh is not expected until tomorrow at the earliest.
Keira Walsh came out for the second half on crutches
On James’ match-winning impact against Denmark, Wiegman added: “She has done really well but it is a team effort too and we were very careful with her.
“She is a very young, talented player. And yes, we were happy with the performance and she was ready today, so that was really good.
“Of course the approach of this game, we know that Denmark was dropping a little deeper, that they have a very tight, defensive block and we really thought we needed to play it in the pockets.
“That’s where she came a lot together also with Stanway and [Ella] Toone, and that worked really well. They really struggled with that, and yes, she made indeed a very nice goal.”