England settle for Women’s World Cup play-off place despite comfortable win over Ukraine

England 3 Ukraine 0 If the Lionesses want to win the World Cup in just over a year, they have work to do. Firstly, they still have to qualify. Their comfortable victory over Ukraine was not enough to book their place at next summer’s tournament due to Spain’s win over Iceland. England will have to qualify the hard way by coming through two sets of two-legged play-offs later this year. There is still every chance they will do that, given the lower-ranked opposition they are likely to face. But there are issues for manager Sarina Wiegman to fix. The most important aspect of Tuesday’s game was responding to a brutal humiliation by Spain three days earlier. Their 4-0 defeat in Mallorca was the worst result and performance of Sarina Wiegman’s reign to date and she had called for a reaction. England were better here, but not outstanding. Ukraine are 30 places below them in Fifa’s rankings and finished this qualifying campaign with six defeats from six games. These are the types of games where you want the Lionesses to be ruthless. They should be fun and exciting to watch. There were times when this game felt like an exhibition match, with England doing enough to win comfortably without fully exerting themselves. Full report to follow...