England ran out comfortable 3-0 winners against Australia at Pride Park, but the friendly was marred by a ‘horrible’ injury to Lionesses striker Michelle Agyemang.
Agyemang, who played a starring role in England’s triumph at the Euros in the summer, came on as a second-half substitute for Alessia Russo but went down off the ball clutching her knee just 11 minutes later.
After receiving lengthy treatment on the pitch, the Arsenal striker, who is spending her second season on loan at Brighton, appeared in agony as she left the pitch on a stretcher.
And England boss Sarina Wiegman gave a fearful update at full-time, telling ITV: ‘I haven’t been inside yet but that looked horrible.
‘When you are stretchered off, it’s not nice anyway, and it doesn’t look good.
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‘Of course, it’s not confirmed, but it looks bad.’
The injury to Agyemang, unfortunately, overshadowed what was a positive night for a new-look England side that featured debutants Lucia Kenall and Taylor Hinds.
Given a rare chance to start, Aggie Beever-Jones continued her impressive start to the season when she opened the scoring just moments after Australia were reduced to ten players.
Alanna Kennedy was given her marching orders for denying Alessia Russo a goalscoring opportunity, with Beever-Jones smashing home at the second attempt from the resulting free-kick.
Lucy Bronze, who set up the opener, then got on the scoresheet herself shortly before the break, stroking Ella Toone’s cross past Mackenzie Arnold and into the bottom corner.
And the Lionesses added a third when Georgia Stanway scored a late second-half penalty after Katrina Gorry brought down Missy Bo Kearns inside the penalty area.
Asked about her side’s performance at full-time, Wiegman noted: ‘Of course, we wanted to dominate the game and early in the game, a player was sent off for them and they go down to 10.
‘We had a lesson the other day on how to do it against 10, so we wanted to keep up the pace of the game, create chances and harm them.
‘I think we were OK on the ball but we can do better, especially in the final third, be tighter on the ball, be aligned a little more, make better decisions, then we could’ve scored a little bit more.
‘Overall, we were solid when we didn’t have the ball, I thought.’
England are back in action next month when they face friendlies against China and Ghana.
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