England has no excuses for Euro 2025 from poor start

Lauren Hemp has argued that he cannot blame the player who returned from injury for England’s overwhelming start to the Euro 2025 following a 2-1 defeat to France in Zurich on Saturday.

The Lioness was the second best for most of the match, but now they’re living up to their title defense in the face of a must-see clash with the Netherlands on Wednesday.

A second straight loss would eliminate the European champion in the group stage.

Looking back at the performance, Hemp admitted that the team lacked the ball’s sharpness and slowly paid their price.

“We need to work on the quality of our possessions,” she said, admitting that England has “made a mistake” throughout the game.

It was a distinctive error and a suppressed outing from Sarina Wiegman’s side, with France taking advantage of the UK’s defensive failure to secure all three points.

Hemp was one of the first few XI players and had just returned from a long-term injury recently.

She missed most of the season after undergoing knee surgery in November, but returned in April.

Teammate Alex Greenwood was sidelined with an MCL injury from December to April, while Georgia Sternway was on the sidelines from January to May with knee problems. Lauren James made a comeback from a hamstring injury when he defeated Jamaica 7-0.

Lauren James starts for the UK! 📋

“Every defender is nervous!” 👊

Lauren Hemp praised her teammates. pic.twitter.com/87in2srhlf

– The match of the day (@bbcmotd) July 5, 2025

Nevertheless, Hemp refused to attribute England’s poor start to a few minutes of pitch.

“That means a lot of us have a ton of timeouts. “I missed most of the season, but we also had four or five games to get to scratch. I don’t think that’s an excuse.

“We have this with you as a team, and whether we’ve been out for seven months or playing a six-year career, we’ve had a lot of experience on the pitch.

“It’s important to remember that and then be confident. Obviously we’ll get a little rusty, but everyone will get a little rusty, so we’re all on the same boat.”

Now, everything is on a collision with the Netherlands, so Hemp is sure the team can get up on that opportunity. Keira Walsh’s late goal provided a faint glow of hope and belief despite his loss to France.

“In many cases, we thrive under pressure,” Hemp said. “From how we acted in the last 10 minutes of the game, we know what’s going on and we clearly want to win as much as we can. We dominate the champions and then it’s important to have confidence and earn them.

“I love playing and playing football where we need to win. They’re the game you’re involved in. Yeah, it’s important to be confident from some of the yesterday.

“I think it’s the biggest thing we stick to together. I think yesterday we were together as a team and team throughout the entire game and we got caught up in the final stages.

In the showdown with the Netherlands, he is reunited with some familiar faces from her club days. Last season, in Manchester City, she shared a dressing room with Keltin Casparri, Jill Rour and Vivienne Mieda of the Dutch Internationals.

“We know that a lot of them are good players,” she said. “I’m lucky enough to play with some of them in WSL, and I know like their pros and cons, so we’re definitely going to work on them in the next few days.”