Lionesses legends’ private message inspired England’s Dutch demolition in Euros statement

England rebounded from their painful defeat against France to beat the Netherlands and move themselves one step closer to the quarter-finals of the European Championships

Lucy Bronze revealed messages from former Lionesses including Jill Scott and Toni Duggan helped remind England of the task at hand before they crushed the Netherlands in Zurich on Wednesday. England’s defeat against France over the weekend meant anything less than victory in their second group game would have left their fate out of their own hands.

Bronze has rebounded from setbacks before, with her and Alex Greenwood the only survivors from the squad which reached the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup after losing their opener to France. And she reminded her team-mates of that ability to rebound – something which was clearly relaid to her by team-mates from years gone by.

“We stuck together. I think drawing on experience is obviously a huge part of that,” Bronze said. “Getting the noise out of your head and getting a different noise in, I guess, is a good thing.

“It was obviously myself and Alex who went through that. A couple of older Lionesses messaged me to remind me of the same kind of experiences that we went through, told us that everybody is believing in us. I think that was the most important message, sticking together, and that’s how we played from the first minute.

When asked about those messages, she added: “Jill Scott’s obviously hanging around, she’s a very positive influence. Toni Duggan was actually someone who texted me straight away after the [France] game, sharing experiences.

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“But yeah, there’s plenty of them. We actually still have the group chat from the last Euros [and] they’re always putting in messages to say good luck and keep going. The likes of Millie Bright, Fran Kirby, loads of them are messaging.”

England boss Wegman made one change to her starting XI, with Ella Toone replacing Beth Mead. There were also positional tweaks, though, with Greenwood shifting to left-back and Jess Carter moving into the middle, while Lauren James moved out to the right-wing and her link-up play with Bronze was valuable throughout.

James scored England’s first goal, coming inside and finding the top corner after a stunning ball out from goalkeeper Hannah Hampton was collected by Alessia Russo, who found James in enough space to pick her spot. Georgia Stanway delivered another from distance in first-half stoppage-time, blasting a low effort beyond Daphne van Domselaar in the Dutch goal, and a Russo effort early in the second half was disallowed for offside.

James made the win safe on the hour mark with her second of the night, picking up the pieces after Toone had an effort blocked. And iit was Toone herself who got the fourth with a low finish which crept beyond Van Domselaar’s dive and into the far corner.

“You saw good, I think she can do even better,” England manager Sarina Wiegman said of James, who has started to kick into gear after returning from injury. Of course, she has been out for a while but she is really back on it and that looked really good.

“She’s a special player and that’s what you see, and the team supports her and she supports the team and it’s really nice she plays to her strengths because she can change games.”

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