Stanway and Mead hit new milestones in Ukraine win

Two of England’s all-time hotshots added their impressive tallies on Tuesday night, during the Lionesses’ 3-0 win over Ukraine at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.

When Georgia Stanway registered her 33rd goal for England, to put Sarina Wiegman’s team two goals up in the first half, she moved level with Karen Carney and Eni Aluko as team’s joint sixth top goalscorer.

And Beth Mead came off the bench in the second half to score a precise free-kick and take her record to 40 goals in 81 appearances, level with Fara Williams in fifth place.

“It’s special,” admitted Stanway after the game. “It’s a very nice place to be amongst those names, not bad for a midfielder, but you can’t do it without your teammates!”

And Mead added: “It’s not a bad person [Fara Williams] to be joint alongside.

“I’ve loved playing for England over the years and scoring goals, as you can tell. It’s like scoring the first one every time I score, and it is always nice to get on the scoresheet.

“I’ve had the highs and lows and that’s been my motivation throughout. It’s a huge honour to get to play for England and to score that many times, I am very proud.”

Despite the win, England still have to overcome a play-off in the autumn to secure their place at next summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil with Spain topping the table on goal difference.

But both players remain optimistic that the Lionesses will regroup and be ready to go again for the start of the 2026-27 campaign.

“Mixed feelings, of course we were disappointed with the away game [against Spain] but, to be honest, we got 15 points and still didn’t make it out of the group.

“I think that shows our level, our consistency but we know that our performance away wasn’t good and today we needed a reaction and I think we got that.

“We knew ourselves that we wanted this game to come as quickly as possible, we probably wanted to play on Sunday just so we could get Friday out of our heads. It was important that we put out a big performance today, one to end the season, and it was important that we got the result today and prepare ourselves for play-offs.

“If anything, tonight we can be disappointed that we didn’t score more goals, we created a lot of chances, we dominated the ball. We need to be more ruthless, 3-0 probably wasn’t enough.”

Mead added: “Obviously, it’s frustrating and there are not many teams that aren’t qualifying on 15 points.

“It is the nature of the competition at the moment and when you are in a group with Spain it is very, very tough.

“Unfortunately, we finished second and we go into the play-offs, but we stay motivated to qualify through that route instead.”