England head coach confirms new role for Man Utd star at Wembley

Lionesses boss Sarina Wiegman has confirmed Manchester United star Mary Earps will captain England at Wembley tomorrow night.

Earps and her England team mates are in Nations League action at Wembley against the Netherlands as they look to bounce back to two defeats in their last three games and with regular captains Leah Williamson and Millie Bright ruled out, the 30-year-old will take the captain's armband.

"Mary will captain the team tomorrow. She (Bright) wasn’t available for Chelsea before, so we knew," explained Wiegman in her press conference. "We always know what our next step is, we’re always thinking of scenarios when someone is not available. (The Netherlands) have an experienced team, most of their squad has played in big occasions. They’ll be excited to be there and to play at Wembley" added the Lionesses boss.

Earps has captained England previously and last wore the armband during 0-0 draw with Portugal in World Cup warm up match earlier in the year and tops of another remarkable weeks for the goalkeeper after being named BBC Women's Footballer of the Year earlier in the week.

The Lionesses sit third in their Nations League group after an indifferent campaign that has seen them lose to both Belgium and Netherlands in recent games and know anything less than a win against the Dutch at Wembley would almost mathematically make them unable to win the group.

Wiegman remained calm though when asked about her side's recent downturn in form, saying: "I think we completely dominated the game against Belgium - a couple of things we should have done better, of course, because if you do that really well then you win the game and we didn't win that game.

"I think before team's wanted to be beat England, it is even more now that we have done so well. If you look at the games, I don't think we've played really, really poor. Just in moments we didn't get it over the line and then we got some losses - which is not good. We want to do better but that is also sport.

"You want to go up all the time, but in football like life you have ups and downs. We want to go to the high again and that's what we want to do tomorrow" added the Dutch head coach.

The Lionesses take on Netherlands at Wembley tomorrow, with kick off scheduled for 7:45pm.