Jess Carter fires England Euros warning despite thumping seven-goal win in farewell game

Jess Carter believes England learned valuable lessons despite the apparent ease of their victory over Jamaica. The Lionesses scored seven unanswered goals as they signed off ahead of the Euros in Switzerland, but there were a couple of nervy moments in the first half.

Jamaica saw a goal disallowed at 1-0 down, with Kayla McKenna’s goal ruled out after a VAR check found her Reggae Girlz team-mate Kiki Van Zanten to be offside and interfering with England keeper Hannah Hampton. Van Zanten later had a chance of her own, only for Carter to put in a perfectly-timed crunching tackle, and the England star recognises it wasn’t all plain sailing in Leicester on Sunday.

“It was really important, [to have challenging moments] and it’s why we wanted to play them, because we thought they would test us,” Carter said. “We couldn’t be complacent.

“We had to try to be clinical in front of goal and we saw they could really test us at the other end. I feel we got fortunate with the goal we conceded that got cancelled because of VAR, and I think it goes to show that we can’t switch off for any moment.”

Six different players scored for England, with Carter registering an assist when she combined with fellow full-back Lucy Bronze for England’s second, and that was a different kind of contribution for the Gotham defender. Ella Toone bagged a brace either side of Bronze’s effort, before second-half goals from Georgia Stanway, Alessia Russo, Aggie Beever-Jones and Beth Mead rounded off the scoring.

“I don’t normally attack as much but i think with England they sometimes give you the freedom to attack a bit more,” Carter added. “It was nice to link up and try to help out a little more going forward today.”

England stayed on the King Power Stadium pitch after the game so the crowd of more than 25,000 could give the players a proper send-off. There was also a moment of thanks for the Lionesses’ four standby players - Sophie Baggaley, Laura Blindkide Brown, Missy Bo Kearns, and Lucy Parker - who will stay home as Sarina Wiegman ’s 23-player squad heads out to Switzerland.

England, who go into the tournament as holders, begin their campaign against France on July 5 and have matches against the Netherlands and Wales to follow. Wiegman has the chance to win the tournament for a third time, having led her native Netherlands to glory in 2017, but wasn’t getting ahead of herself.

“I've been involved in many tournaments now. Things develop in the tournament. You have to be prepared,” she told ITV.

“You have to adapt to what you have in front of you and see what happens and make big decisions. I think there is huge potential in this squad and we have many options."

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