England have lost captain Leah Williamson and goalkeeper Khiara Keating to injury for their World Cup Qualifier with Spain.<\/p>\n
\u200bSarina Wiegman’s side face the World Champions, Spain, at the Estadi Mallorca Son Moix on Friday 5 June before hosting Ukraine at Everton’s Hill Dickerson Stadium four days later.<\/p>\n
Arsenal’s Williamson has withdrawn from the squad with a hamstring injury, while Manchester City’s Keating will sit out the trip to Spain as she follows concussion protocols.<\/p>\n
The defender, who was part of the Gunners\u2019 bus parade celebrating the Champions Cup win on Sunday, has started just twice this season.<\/p>\n
Keating missed City’s FA Cup final win over Brighton on Sunday after suffering concussion during training last week but will remain in the squad for the final qualifier with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Their places will be taken in the national squad by Liverpool\u2019s GraceFisk and Brighton\u2019s Sophie Baggaley, who are yet to receive senior caps for the Lionesses.<\/p>\n
Baggaley, 29, has played just eight times for the Seagulls this season, predominantly as an understudy to Nigerian Chiamaka Nnadozie, but will provide cover for Keating.<\/p>\n
A further assessment will be made on Keating whether she will be available for the final qualifier against Ukraine in Liverpool next Tuesday.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s 1-0 win at Wembley against Spain means the World Champions must beat the Lionesses on Friday to keep their chances of topping the group in their own hands.<\/p>\n
Only group winners will directly qualify for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil, with the runners-up going into the play-offs with the Group winners and three best runners-up from League C.<\/p>\n
A draw for Wiegman’s side in Palma Del Mallorca would mean they likely need to beat Ukraine, with Spain heavy favourites to beat Iceland in Reykjav\u00edk.<\/p>\n
England arrive at St George’s Park on Monday before travelling to Spain later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have lost captain Leah Williamson and goalkeeper Khiara Keating to injury for their World Cup Qualifier with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16047,2383,2378,2379,17,369],"class_list":["post-32778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-arsenal-women","tag-england","tag-leah-williamson","tag-lionesses","tag-spain","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}