Sarina Wiegman offers injury update on England forward Lauren James

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Evening Standard

·3 July 2024

Sarina Wiegman offers injury update on England forward Lauren James

Chelsea forward not with Lionesses at training camp in Netherlands

Chelsea forward James is not with the Lionesses on their training camp in the Netherlands and won’t feature against Ireland or Sweden in England’s last two Euro 2025 qualifiers last this month.

James pulled out of the squad who played France in a double-header in May.

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The England manager explained that the risk of a more serious injury explains the decision not to select call up James, who has scored seven goals in 24 caps since her senior England debut back in 2022.

Wiegman said: “This last year, she has done really well and has been available most of the time so I think she’s growing in that and improving. It’s still the toe [injury]. It’s progressing well but it was too early to bring her in.

“She has been out of training and is also still not totally recovered, while she is going in the right direction. This is not the moment to take a risk with her health when there is a chance she could be out for a longer period of time, that’s not what we want. We will look forward to next season.”

Lauren James has been struggling with injury of late

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England face Wiegman’s native, the Netherlands, in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Thursday.

She said: “Everyone who is here is either fit or in rehab or building towards [playing] minutes. The situation is very different to what we've been used to: some players have been on holiday, some players come in at different stages of rehab, stuff like that, everything has gone by [the] plan so far.”

Georgia Stanway will not join up with the group until next week due to Bayern Munich’s early return to pre-season, while new call-up, goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse of Orlando Pride, will join the squad after Sunday’s clash with NWSL leaders KC Current.

“We said at the beginning of this year that we talked to every club and discussed what the summer would look like, and they could train with us when the club release them,” Wiegman explained.

“But Bayern Munich have already started their prep for next season, so [Georgia] is training there and not with us. But we’ll update her on Monday when she comes in. She does get football sessions and training sessions before she comes into the next camp.

“We've been following her [Moorhouse] for a while. She became a starter for Orlando and they're in a very good place at the moment. We thought she'd done really well. We thought this was the moment to bring her in.”