SARINA Wiegman previews the first game of her England career that gets under way at St Mary’s tonight, admitting: “We’re expecting them to be pretty defensive, we will have possession for a lot of the time.”

England Women take on North Macedonia at the home of Saints in the first game of the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup qualifiers for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

It’s also the first game as head coach for Wiegman, after she joined Lionesses following managing the Dutch national team in the last European Championships, World Cup and Olympics.

It’s the first meeting between England Women and North Macedonia in history, but Wiegman insists she knows what to expect.

She told the Daily Echo: “We’re expecting them to be pretty defensive.

“We will have possession for a lot of the time in the game, there will be a level difference, they have two players that play abroad, one in Finland and one in Spain.

“Those are the most visible players they have, but we will expect to be in the attack and in possession a lot of the time.”

Wiegman also gave us an insight into her potential tactics, revealing: “At this moment I don’t see any reason why I should change that (playing 4-3-3), but a shape is not always the same.

“When you take a picture at a moment it can look like a 4-4-2 or at another time a 3-4-3, it’s just a starting formation so hopefully if we’re playing dynamic it looks a little different.”

Although Wiegman has known she was going to be replacing Phil Neville since September of last year, she still insists that picking her first ever Lionesses squad has been no easy feat.

She added: “It was hard now, lots of players have been in the Olympics, only a short preparation for this new competition, some players played in the Champions League, so we couldn’t see where these players are at the moment because there were so less matches.

“Some players got some more rest after the Olympics. But the scouting team did a very good job and informed me and the backroom staff very well.

“We had some hard decisions but we also had some injuries so we expanded the group a little bit to 25, now we have a mixture of experienced okayers and some other talented players coming in.”

England kick off their 2023 World Cup qualifying campaign against North Macedonia at St Mary’s, at 7pm.