\n<\/p>\n
England captain Leah Williamson has been ruled out of the Women’s World Cup qualifying matches against Spain and Ukraine.<\/b><\/p>\n
The Arsenal defender, 29, will be absent with a hamstring injury, despite having followed a rehabilitation programme that she hoped would enable her to play.<\/p>\n
Sarina Wiegman’s side can qualify for next year’s World Cup in Brazil if they avoid defeat in Spain on Friday (20:00 BST).<\/p>\n
They sit top of their group with four wins from four matches and have a three-point advantage over world champions Spain.<\/p>\n
England take on Ukraine at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium on Tuesday, 9 June (20:00 BST).<\/p>\n
Williamson, who led England to back-to-back European Championship victories in 2022 and 2025, has started just two Women’s Super League games this season.<\/p>\n
She had knee surgery following England’s Euro 2025 victory and has played only three games for her country since.<\/p>\n
Liverpool captain Grace Fisk has been called up to the squad to replace Williamson, while Brighton goalkeeper Sophie Baggaley also joins the Lionesses.<\/p>\n
Baggaley will provide cover as Manchester City’s Khiara Keating will miss the Spain game as she follows the return-to-play concussion protocols.<\/p>\n
Keating missed Sunday’s victory over Brighton in the FA Cup final, at which Baggaley was on the bench for the opposition.<\/p>\n
A further assessment will determine whether Keating can be available for the Ukraine game, though regular number one Hannah Hampton is expected to start.<\/p>\n
The squad arrive at St George’s Park on Monday before travelling to Spain later in the week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
England captain Leah Williamson has been ruled out of the Women’s World Cup qualifying matches against Spain and Ukraine. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}