'Not good enough' - Lionesses boss Sarina Wiegman fumes after England suffer shock Nations League defeat despite being 'prepared' for familiar Belgium threats

England were 3-0 down inside 30 minutes on Tuesday night in Belgium, despite beating their hosts 5-0 just four days prior. Tessa Wullaert, who missed the first game in Bristol but was back for the reverse fixture, ran the Lionesses' defence ragged, scoring twice and assisting another as the Red Flames raced into an unassailable lead.

England did claw a couple of goals back, first through Beth Mead's penalty and then via an absolute wonderstrike from teenage debutante Michelle Agyemang, but the damage had been done in the first half. The Lionesses' last away defeat came in Leuven 18 months ago and they left the city empty-handed again here, while also losing top spot in their Nations League group.

Speaking to ITV after the game, Wiegman tried to explain what went wrong. "We started really sloppy, not sharp, and they exploited us. Then you're down very quickly and the second time they come to our goal, they score again, so we conceded three goals within half an hour which is, of course, now what you want. It's not good enough. Later on, we played better. I think we played a better second half but overall, it wasn't good enough."

Asked about the inconsistency of this result in comparison to the 5-0 win over Belgium on Friday, Wiegman replied: "We expected this and we were prepared for this and we said, 'This is going to be a totally different game. Friday was 5-0 and you know exactly what happens here. We've been here before. They missed a couple of players. They missed Tessa Wullaert'. We knew this was going to be the case. I think that this game also had to do with being ready and being really focused and that's what we didn't do in the first 30 minutes. I think that's the biggest lesson we can learn from this altogether."

The Lionesses were without a number of important players for this fixture, with Lauren James and Alessia Russo both dropping out of the squad over the weekend due to injuries. Chloe Kelly also withdrew and returned to her club on Friday, while the likes of Lauren Hemp, Alex Greenwood and Georgia Stanway all remain sidelined after undergoing knee surgeries.

England will hope to have some of those absentees back when they return to acton at the end of May. The Lionesses first host Portugal before travelling to Spain to face the world champions in their final game of the Nations League group stage.