Sarina Wiegman said she was “not feeling very positive” about the extent of the knee injury suffered by forward Michelle Agyemang in England’s 3-0 defeat of Australia.
The 19-year-old forward, on loan at Brighton from Arsenal, slammed the Pride Park pitch in agony after going down off the ball, prompting teammates and medical staff to rush to her side. She exited on a stretcher, with a concerned Wiegman speaking to her as she was taken down the tunnel.
“That was an awful moment,” said the England manager. “It doesn’t look good. We don’t know the extent of it yet, she needs to be assessed, but I’m not feeling very positive.”
The young forward, who was seen leaving the ground on crutches, was substituted 18 minutes after coming on in place of Arsenal’s Alessia Russo.
“It is never nice when anyone comes off a stretcher, let alone a teammate,” her fellow forward Aggie Beever-Jones told ITV. “I don’t know what she has done but I will be praying she will be OK.”
Agyemang scored 41 seconds into her England debut in a 3-2 loss to Belgium in April, two days after being called up to replace injured Russo. She earned an inclusion in Wiegman’s squad for the Euros and arrived on the international stage in style in the summer, scoring the critical 81st-minute equaliser against Sweden in the quarter-finals to send the game to extra-time before England won on penalties and the 96th-minute equaliser against Italy in the semi-finals to force extra time again, this time England securing the win in the 119th minute.
The injury to Agyemang marred a promising performance from England following their defeat by Brazil on Saturday. However, Wiegman was frustrated by Alanna Kennedy’s early red card for Australia because it meant England did not quite get the test they had wanted.
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“That was disappointing and those are the rules,” she said. “In a qualifier I don’t care but in a friendly you want to play 11 v 11 as that provides the most challenges. We tried to adapt straight away, they dropped deeper so the spaces became smaller and very tight. We hoped to do other things at the end of the game but unfortunately we had some injuries.”
