Sarina Wiegman hoping for ‘headaches and big decisions' from return of England stars Hemp, Greenwood and Stanway
SARINA WIEGMAN hopes to have an England selection headache from Lauren Hemp, Georgia Stanway and Alex Greenwood returning to fitness.
The Lioness boss, 55, reckons Hemp has built enough credit to be in contention despite the forward yet to play a full 90 minutes this year.
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The squad returns of Hemp, 24, Stanway, 26, and Greenwood, 31, comes at a pivotal time with the start of England's Euros title defence less than two months away.
Before then the team will take on Portugal in the Nations League at Wembley on May 30.
And they also face a stern test against World Cup holders Spain in Barcelona on June 3.
Wiegman's fit again trio had contended with knee injuries with Hemp and defender Greenwood making their returns to match action for Manchester City earlier this month.
Bayern Munich midfielder Stanway is the only member of the three yet to return to club duty since recovering from a lateral ligament tear sustained in January.
Wiegman said: "Georgia is in training. She still needs to build.
"What we know is she can come into camp and continue building with us.
"Hopefully towards the Euros she can be healthy and can handle the training loads to recover.
"She has to be healthy and recover from training sessions then we can see where she's at.
"She has to be performing at the highest level – at her highest level – to compete for the position just like everyone else."
Hemp's squad return comes 16 days after her first game for Man City this year.
The 61-capped Lioness played in a competitive game for the first time this year on April 27 with a cameo appearance in City's 1-0 defeat of Leicester.
While Hemp did not play a full match for City in the second half of the season, she could potentially be in line for game time at the World Sevens tournament if selected to play.
Man City are one of two WSL sides competing in the seven-a-side contest taking place in Estoril, Portugal from May 21-23.
On whether it is a concerned that Hemp has so far not played a 90-minute this year, Wiegman added: 'Of course it is.
"But we still have two months – almost. We have to keep building on that and manage it well to keep them fit.
"We want to keep building and see what she is able to do.
"She has to perform at her highest level too, but she has shown so many things before her injury that she has built some credit.
"When everyone is fit we have big decisions to make because we have many options up front and within the team in other lines we have options too.
"I hope everyone does really well and it's really nice to have this opportunity to train before the Nations League.
"I hope I'll get a lot of headaches because that means everyone is performing at the highest level and we'll have decisions to make."
Wiegman, 55, is waiting to see how far Lauren James, 23, can go in her fitness race, before the Euros with the forward battling to recover from injury.
I know Lauren is absolutely working really hard to get there. Let's see how far she gets.
Sarina Wiegman on Lauren James' push to return to fitness before the 2025 Women's Euros
In their upcoming clashes with Portugal and Spain the team will be without the services of James who was among England's standout performers at the 2023 World Cup.
The Chelsea star came off during England's 5-0 Nations League trouncing of Belgium due to a hamstring concern.
Wiegman said: "She's a special player who has moments in the game where she can be decisive.
"Let's see how far she gets and what she can bring us. I know she's absolutely working really hard to get there."
Wiegman's latest squad selection has included Arsenal's Michelle Agyemang, 19, keeping her place and a first senior call-up for Tottenham defender Ella Morris.
Agyemang's return follows her netting a stunning goal on her senior international debut volleying home during the Lionesses' 3-2 away loss to Belgium
While the England boss hopes the striker can become a little bit calmer in duels, she believes Agyemang has much potential.
Wiegman said: "Michelle is a very high-potential talent.
"She is very powerful and as we have seen, she can score goals.
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"In duels she needs to calm down a little and we've spoken about that already.
"Hopefully she can manage a bit when we play in the duels.
"You don't want to almost destroy your opponent."
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