England head coach Sarina Wiegman hailed her side’s resilience as they battled to victory against Denmark after Keira Walsh went off with a “horrible” knee injury.
Walsh injured her knee 10 minutes before half-time of the Lionesses’ 1-0 win over Group D opponents Denmark, which put them on the cusp of qualifying for the last-16 of this World Cup.
Before that, England had taken the lead through Lauren James when she curled home a brilliant strike after just six minutes.
The Walsh injury rocked the Lionesses, though, and Wiegman praised her side for grinding out the win in Sydney.
“We also showed we can fight,” she said. “The team showed real resilience. We kept it to 1-0 so it was really good and I’m really proud of the team.
“Of course I’m concerned because she (Walsh) couldn’t walk off the pitch, but we don’t know yet [how bad the injury is], 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, they [Denmark], also had such a direct style of play.
“It did look serious, if you can’t walk off the pitch it’s serious but I don’t know yet. During the game you just have to move on, however horrible it is for her.
“Now it’s time to look at how she is and what the next steps are. It was very clear that she needed to be subbed. That’s not nice.
“We started well, then we had the horrible moment with Keira, and the second-half was a fight.
“We adapted to the new situation, and we really, really had to fight for the win. I’m very proud of the team.”
