ZURICH -- Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman and players hailed a "proper England" performance after they hammered the Netherlands 4-0 in Zurich on Wednesday.
England bounced back from their opening round defeat to France, to keep alive their hopes of reaching the knockouts of Euro 2025 with a commanding win.
A brace of goals from Lauren James and strikes from Georgia Stanway and Ella Toone helped them to their victory as they responded to the disappointment of the performance against France in perfect style.
Toone, who scored England's fourth, told the BBC: "There are always doubters. We don't listen to it. We have that belief in the squad. We know we have the talent, but it is just about getting it out on the pitch. It was a proper English display."
She added: "I think we put the pressure on them right from the off and we didn't take our foot off the gas right until the very end. It's definitely a performance we can be proud of and hopefully we can take that into the Wales game."
Bronze echoed her, with Alessia Russo saying: "I think 'proper English' to us means we'll work hard, we'll work until we can't run anymore. We'll stick together. And we know we're very dominant on the ball as well. So I think, kind of returning to that, that's our standard, and that's our DNA as a team, and we definitely saw that today, from the first minute right until the end. Everyone was working so hard.
"We were really dominant on first and second balls, picking up the balls in the right areas and clinical with our chances that we had. We probably could have scored even more as well. It was definitely something that we wanted, to return to our roots, and we know we're capable of performances like that."
Wiegman said that "proper England" phrase is something the players have introduced to sum up the mentality in the group.
"Yes, the players use that [phrase] a lot now. I think we started using that when we played against Portugal we tied and then we played against Spain, and when we played Spain in that moment it was really like togetherness and the fight.
"There are moments in the game when you have to do that, but at the same time, when you're in possession, for me it's important that the passes we play are with purpose, and today you really saw the purpose in every pass we played, and for me that's also 'proper English.'"
Wiegman's tactical shifts all paid off as she moved James to the right wing, brought in Toone to bolster the midfield and swapped Jess Carter and Alex Greenwood around in defence.
"The priority was that we wanted to skip and exploit space," Wiegman said. "The Netherlands pushed up so we wanted to go over them. That worked really well. When you're in their half of the pitch you can start playing. We had some nice crosses and we spoke about that too."
England knew that if they fell to the Netherlands, the likelihood was their tournament would be over.
Wiegman admitted she did have moments where the France defeat got to her, but equally, she trusted the team to turn things around.
"I found it hard too of course," Wiegman said.
"I always knew ahead of this tournament that it was a very hard group. It can happen but then you need to win the other games. So yes, I was excited but at the same time I felt a little tense too. I think that's completely normal and you really want to stay in the tournament so you want to win.
"We also know the Netherlands are a good team. I just had to focus on my job, review well and think about how we could bring people together."