Walsh: 'We need to do better'

Keira Walsh was full of praise for her teammate at both club and country, Lexi Potter, who received her first senior call-up under Sarina Wiegman this camp.

The Lionesses midfielder addressed the media ahead of England’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 round one play-off tie against Greece at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium on Tuesday 13 October (7.30pm kick-off).

And Walsh, who plays with the 20 year old at Chelsea, is pleased to see Potter getting her plaudits.

“I feel like all I do is talk about her at the minute!” said Walsh. “A lot of the girls have come up to me and been like, ‘she’s such a good player’.

“I’m not surprised because I get to play next to her every week. For her, it’s a really good thing that she’s finally being appreciated for how good she is.

“Probably more impressive for me is the way she goes about it at her age. She’s so calm and collected.

“Her performances never really dip. As a young player, you see where it’s sometimes really good and they sometimes have poor games but with Lexi, that never really happens.

“I’m really glad that a lot of the other senior players are seeing how good she is and what she brings to the team environment.”

Head coach Wiegman confirmed there could be changes tomorrow to the side that were 3-1 winners over Greece in Crete in the first instalment of the two-legged affair.

“Everyone’s available, so everyone’s on the pitch,” said Wiegman “We have one more training session left, so hopefully everyone can continue and go to Leicester after that.”

The duo also reflected on Friday’s result that gives England the advantage at half time in the tie.

“We had some very good things,” explained Wiegman. “We had some things in the game that we definitely want to do better.

“That’s what we’ve been talking about, going out on the pitch and trying to do better and to show tomorrow that we can do better than Friday and get a better win over the line.”

“As an experienced player, I probably expected more from the game myself. I think we probably should’ve put more chances away,” added Walsh.

“I think it was a bit frustrating but I think it’s responsibility from all of us that we need to do better and we need to probably put the game to bed a little bit earlier, to be honest.”

Tomorrow, the Lionesses return to Leicester for the first time since beating Jamaica 7-0 in their UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 send-off.

And the England boss is looking forward to returning to the East Midlands.

“We travel around a little bit, so people from those areas also have an opportunity to come and watch us and see us live,” said Wiegman. “I think that has been a very good thing.

“Obviously, we also love to play at Wembley – that’s our home – but travelling around and having that balance, I think that works really well for us at the moment and also for the fans in the country.”