Exclusive: Expect Sara Wiegman to name unchanged England team for World Cup final – Lucy Ward

Lucy Ward has backed Lauren James to have an impact in England’s World Cup final against Spain on Sunday – but from the bench – as Ward expects Sara Wiegman to name an unchanged team for the showpiece match.

James lit up the tournament in the group stages, as the Lionesses’ key player in attack with three goals and three assists, but received a red card for violent conduct in England’s round of 16 match against Nigeria.

FIFA upped the initial one-game ban to two for James, which meant that she missed England’s 2-1 victory against Colombia in the quarter-final, and 3-1 win against co-hosts Australia in the semi-finals.

“Sarina Wiegman, in my opinion, won’t start her. That’s how I feel,” Ward told TNT Sports. “Wiegman is known for consistency. In this World Cup, she’s searched for that and found it.

“She wasn’t consistent from the start because it wasn’t quite clicking, and she’s found the formation that she thinks works and obviously the proof is in the pudding that it does.

“Obviously, Ella Toone had not quite been firing but then instinctively scored a fantastic goal against Australia and played very well, and she presses really well too. So I don’t think Wiegman will interrupt that, nor should she, to be honest. I suspect that Lauren James will come on, but I don’t think that she’ll start.”

Ward also explained why James coming off the bench can still have an impact, saying: “The way England got in behind Australia and found the spaces was because of the runs from the likes of Toone. James is not going to stretch [the opposition]. But what she does is she deals with the ball very well, passes really well and has great vision. She drags opponents towards her, and she creates space for others. And obviously, she can score.

“Ideally she would come on at some point, I think that that’s what will happen. Because out of possession against Spain, you need to be absolutely 100%. Everybody has to work really, really hard. And I think later on in the game, James will be more effective when maybe some of the spaces are open that she can then obviously utilise and exploit within her passing range.”

Despite the football that Spain have put on display, Ward believes that England will have the edge because manager Jorge Vilda “doesn’t offer any value” to his side.

“Wiegman is tactically elite. The most difficult thing to do as a manager or coach is to watch a game and be able to make changes, and to do that under extreme pressure. She will put Millie Bright up front if it means winning the game. She doesn’t go through any sort of specific process, she’s got that individuality. She’s very ruthless. She is tactically very astute and she makes decisions based on the team rather than individuals.

“Vilda is nowhere near as tactically astute as her. He benefits from his team being very, very football bright and having a lot of football intelligence simply because they’ve come from Barcelona and other emerging teams like Real Madrid in Spain.

“A lot of that relies on the players themselves. And in that where England have an advantage because they’ve got a manager who could watch and change, which would tilt the match in England’s favour.”

“Spain will offer something different to what England have faced already in this tournament,” she added. “Spain are beatable. But they’re a very good team, probably one of the best in the tournament, even though they had that loss against Japan. I think Japan were tactically the best team in the tournament; their players have a very high level of understanding of tactics. I don’t think England will play very similar to Japan in terms of completely sitting back and working on the counter, but I think they’ll use some of those tactics against Spain.

“I watched a Champions League final a couple of years ago that Barcelona played in, and a lot of Barcelona players are in the Spain team. They played against Lyon who were very physical with them and very tough with them. They won individual duels, and I think that’s what England will have to do against Spain: use the physicality to stop what Spain want to do. Spain just want to control you by possession. They’ll kill you off with passes, and I think England have the capacity to deal with that.

“Spain control games using passes – short and medium length passes, they enjoy possession, they not happy if they’re not doing that. They’ve got players who can be fluid and interchange, but Spain have struggled with the final third in recent years. Who’s going to score all the goals? Obviously, [Jennifer] Hermoso is coming to the latter stages of her career, but she’s actually been playing a little bit deeper, which has helped her.

“They’ve got [Salma] Paralluelo, who comes on and makes a difference, I don’t think she’ll start, I think they’ll use her as an impact sub. She does something different, she stretches teams, and as soon as you start to stretch teams, you create space for the players that Spain have got.

“That’s what Spain will rely on. I think that’s the way that they will play, they’ll start with her on the bench, they will try and break England down through passing.

“I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between the manager and the squad, but the squad are very together. They’ve already won the under-17 World Cup and the under-20 World Cup in recent months. So they’re a good team.”

While Ward believes England will get the job done on Sunday, she’ll be interested in what happens after the final whistle, and specifically if Wiegman will thinks her job is finished.

“She behaves like a manager of a men’s team, in terms of ruthlessness and the clarity of decision making. She doesn’t let anything else affect the decisions she makes. She likes everybody, and everybody likes her, but she doesn’t let those sorts of relationships affect her decision-making. I think that the girls have now gotten used to that, and they recognise that buying into what she does wins them things.

“I can see her winning on Sunday and then going and managing another team like the USA or someone like that. Not that I know anything, but there is nowhere else to go after you’ve won a Euros back-to-back with a World Cup.”