England's Euro 2025 build-up: 'There is no crisis' says Lionesses boss Sarina Wiegman

England manager Sarina Wiegman says "there is no crisis" despite a chaotic 10 days which has seen three high-profile senior players either retire from international football in the build-up to Euro 2025 or withdraw from the tournament.

Wiegman named a 23-player squad on Thursday for the tournament in Switzerland, which starts on 2 July, where England are defending champions.

She will be without goalkeeper Mary Earps and midfielder Fran Kirby, who have both retired from international football, while defender Millie Bright, who captained the side to the World Cup final in 2023, withdrew from selection to focus on her mental and physical wellbeing.

The loss of three players, who have won a combined 217 caps, in such a short time has led to a potentially unsettling period for the Lionesses - and distractions off the pitch dominated discussions at the end of their Women's Nations League campaign this week.

"Yeah, of course, [it] has been hard," said Wiegman. "I think there are three different stories and every story is one on its own.

"[These are] players who have been with us for a long time, who I have been working with for a long time and so that's hard."

But the Dutchwoman says she is happy with the atmosphere inside the England camp.

"You [the media] see part of it, you are not in our environment all the time and I can ensure that the training sessions were really good last week," she said.

"I didn't see anything [to suggest] that there were no connections within the team. I am really happy [with] where we are right now."

Wiegman had to address issues around player's performance-related bonuses in the build-up to the World Cup and there was also heavy scrutiny on her decision to omit former captain Steph Houghton from the Euro 2022 squad in her first year in charge.

"My experiences before is that there is always noise. We expect noise until we go into the tournament," said Wiegman.

"The difference is, between 2015 and 2017 to now, is that the attention and visibility of the women's game has increased so much.

"It seems like there is more noise but there's just more journalists here. Which is right. It shows what we are doing. We have to deal with it and move on. Which we have."

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