Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Simon Collings

Chelsea star Fran Kirby a doubt for Sarina Wiegman’s first game as England Women boss

Chelsea star Fran Kirby faces a late fitness test ahead of Sarina Wiegman’s first game as England Women boss on Friday night.

Kirby has not been training fully this week, with new Lionesses boss Wiegman explaining they have been managing her workload.

Chelsea forward Kirby is consequently a doubt for Friday night’s World Cup qualifier with North Macedonia at St. Mary’s, which is Wiegman’s first game as head coach.

“Today she will start up training a little more and after this training session we will decided what we do,” said Wiegman.

“She hasn’t had much training load this week, so we are not going to take any risks.

“She just needed some managing of load and we didn’t want to take any risk to press or push that [this week].”

England are huge favourites for the match with North Macedonia, but Wiegman is still expected to name a full-strength side.

“We are going to be very strong I think. We are going to have position of the ball most of the time,” she added.

“We want to have a good match, score a lot of goals and while the match is going we will see if we need some substitutes and what we will do.”

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.