Stanway: Lionesses must evolve as plateau is 'inevitable'

Georgia Stanway said it is "inevitable" that England will plateau after their huge success and that they need to reinvent themselves to avoid becoming predictable.

- Suzanne Wrack

The Lionesses came from three goals down in a 4-3 defeat by Germany at Wembley on Friday night. They clawed their way back to a more respectable scoreline after a chastening first 30 minutes.

The air of invincibility that has been a feature of Sarina Wiegman's tenure, the side having won a first major international tournament at Euro 2022 and reached the World Cup final in 2023, has dissipated as teams have started to figure them out. The expectations on the side remain as high as ever though.

"When the expectation is continuous, we are probably not able to live up to it," said Stanway. "It's inevitable that at some point you are going to plateau. We have been with Sarina [Wiegman] for four years now, so we will get to a point where we can't continuously win because teams will figure us out and are getting better.