England take on South Africa as Euro 2025 preparations continue – follow live

“We gave the ball away too often and that resulted in too many turnovers,” said the Lionesses’ coach Sarina Wiegman when assessing her team’s performance against Germany.

Speaking at a pre-match press conference yesterday she added: “The trigger moments in our press also need to be worked on. We have four friendly games this year, we got lots of information from the first one and we will go out to try and win again tomorrow.

“You will see some changes to the team tomorrow.”

At her pre-match press conference Sarina Wiegman explained what she is expecting from tonight’s encounter with South Africa.

She said: “We are expecting a very physical team, athletic team. They are unpredictable and have a lot of speed. We wanted to have different styles of play against us and we are later on our journey so can we play our game and stay out of those duels?

“Looking at the bigger picture, we are playing better opponents in the Nations League and in these matches so, while we don’t want to concede goals, it can happen.

“We have to question how we’re keeping the ball, how we’re pressing, and make sure we get our tactics right.”

Perhaps the only positive for England is there can be no avoiding the reality now. For the Lionesses, there was no repeat of their glorious victory over Germany at Wembley. Instead, a rematch of the Euro 2022 final served up a warning ahead of England’s European Championship defence next summer.

The Lionesses were complacent and error-strewn as a refreshed, reshaped Germany team repeatedly tore through them. Had it not been for Germany’s own calamitous defending, the scoreline could have been even more of an embarrassment.

England conceding four at home should be enough as it is. That this was a friendly does not hide the fact it was a bad night for Sarina Wiegman, her worst as England manager, but there is an argument that a wake-up call like this was needed ahead of Euro 2025. If the manager has been accused of being too loyal to too many of her players who won the Euros and reached the World Cup final, there is an even greater case to finally change her first-choice team. Wiegman insisted she would not “make changes for the sake of it” – but there are too many starting for England who are living off their reputations, at least on current form.

“I think this is a great opportunity to play South Africa, it’ll be another learning moment for us, and how we can approach that,” Sarina Wiegman said.

“You will see different faces tomorrow. You will see changes, that’s what we said, we want to try out things, we want the players to see connections and so many games coming after the camp.”

Earps; Le Tissier, Wubben-Moy, Greenwood, Carter; Stanway, Clinton, Park; Beever-Jones, Russo, Hemp

Sarina Wiegman has confirmed that she will see “different faces” in her England team. Mary Earps could return in goal and Maya Le Tissier, Lotte Wubben-Moy and Alex Greenwood are candidates to come into the defence in place of captain Leah Williamson, who had a difficult night against Germany.

Georgia Stanway appeared alongside Sarina Wiegman in her pre-match press conference so could start in midfield but either Grace Clinton and Jess Park could start alongside her, while Fran Kirby is available after missing the Germany match with an injury.

Aggie Beever-Jones and Jess Naz could feature in attack should Wiegman make changes to her forwards, but Lauren James is not available after missing out on the squad due to injury.

The matchc will be shown on ITV 4, with coverage underway from 7pm.

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The match will kick off at 7:45pm BST on Tuesday 29 October at the CBS Arena in Coventry.

It was a wake-up call for England ahead of their European Championship defence next summer, and Wiegman has confirmed she will make changes to her team tonight.

South Africa will be a different test and this is the first time the teams have met since 2010. The Banyana-Banyana reached the last-16 of the World Cup last year.

Welcome to The Independent’s coverage of tonight’s clash between England and South Africa.

Though this game is only an international friendly the Lionesses will want to impress and get back to winning ways after slipping to a 4-3 defeat against Germany last Friday.

Sarina Wiegman’s side are preparing for their European Championship defence and the manager has primised changes in personnel for tonight’s outing.

The match is being played at the CBS Arena in Coventry and we’ll bring you all the team news, line-ups and updates throughout the night. Stick with us as we build up to kick off at 7.45pm.