GEORGIA STANWAY insists England need to step up their game following their heaviest loss under Sarina Wiegman.

While the midfielder netted twice the Lionesses succumbed to a 4-3  friendly defeat to Germany on Friday, nine months before next year’s Euros. 

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Three of the goals conceded at Wembley during a difficult opening 29 minutes were scored by two of Stanway’s Bayern team-mates – Guilia Gwinn and Klara Buhl.

The clash ended with the reigning Euros champs, who face South Africa next shipping four for the first time under Wiegman. 

It was also the first time England conceded four times at home since falling to a 6-4 defeat by Germany in Preston in 1997.

Stanway, who scored a first-half brace, said: “My initial reaction was we just need to fix this and it doesn’t matter who was to score or what was going to happen.

“Two Bayern girls had scored so I thought I needed to do something. 

“I need to fix something. I can’t have them bragging as soon as we get back to campus. 

“As soon as we got the penalty, we got the ball rolling and we were able to get some more chances. 

“It was a hectic game. Even coming in at half time with the score, it could have been 4-4.

“Every nation is going to get better and better and having won the Euros, we’ve got a massive target on our backs.”

England’s next friendly will be a duel with South Africa at Coventry’s CBS Arena on Tuesday evening. 

Their upcoming opponents suffered a hefty friendly loss of their own, getting hammered 5-0 by Denmark. 

Stanway insists England have got things to learn ahead of the game against the 2022 Women’s Afcon champions.

And Wiegman’s side will face far sterner tests when take on the USA and Switzerland on November 30 and December 3. 

The midfielder, who sealed a May 2022 Bayern switch from Man City, added: “We need to take our game to the next level and we can’t rest. 

“This international camp so far has been intense and the game itself (on Friday) was intense. 

“It showcases we’re not there yet and we’ve still got nine months (before the next Euros). 

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“The main thing is that we’re trying to do the right things, but it’s not necessarily working.

“Maybe it’s the little tweaks that are necessary, but we’ll review it. 

“We’ll have a few days to prepare for South Africa.”

Magomed Ankalaev continued his unbeaten streak with a decision win over Aleksandar Rakic at UFC 308 and now he’s hoping he finally got Alex Pereira’s attention.

Over three rounds, Ankalaev showed he was the superior striker as he continued chipping away at Rakic and looking to set up a potential fight finishing sequence. The knockout never came but Ankalaev kept Rakic on his backfoot for the entire fight as he cruised to victory with all three judges scoring the fight 29-28 in his favor.

“I kept running after him but it was really hard to catch him,” Ankalaev said about his performance. “I don’t want to say anything bad about him but I didn’t understand his striking at all. Very uncomfortable opponent for me.”

The massive light heavyweights exchanged some huge, heavy kicks early with both trying to find an opening to do maximum damage. Ankalaev was marching forward and closing the distance on the taller fighter but Rakic was doing a good job keeping him honest with some well-timed straight punches and mixing in more of those long, rangy kicks.

While Rakic kept tossing out a head kick, Ankalaev displayed good hand speed and power with his boxing as he continued leading the dance. Ankaleav continued stabbing at Rakic with a variety of punches including a stiff shot to the body that definitely got his opponent’s attention.

Ankalaev was really starting to mix up his punches, tossing out a straight right and the following with a slick left uppercut behind it. As time passed, Rakic was stuck playing defense with Ankalaev really finding his rhythm on the feet.

With less than a minute remaining in the second round, Ankalaev mashed Rakic’s face with a nasty straight left down the middle. Rakic kept thrown back at him but Ankalaev was really beginning to control the action with his superior striking.

Ankalaev stayed on the gas moving forward and unleashing more and more of those straight left hands that just kept finding a home on Rakic’s chin. As time ticked away to the final horn, Ankalaev continued to punish Rakic on the inside with heavy punches and knees as he did more than enough to ensure that he would leave Abu Dhabi with the win.

Following his latest performance to stay unbeaten for 13 consecutive fights, Ankalaev wasted no time turning his attention to the UFC light heavyweight champion with hopes that a title shot is next in 2025.

“I think I’ve done everything to deserve the next title shot,” Ankalaev said. “I’d like to tell Alex, stop running away from me. Alex, stop running away from me.”

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Bath: De Glanville; Cokanasiga, Hennessey, Butt, Muir; Russell, Schreuder; Reid, Pepper, Hill, Molony, Roux, du Toit, Dunn, Obano.

Replacements: Annett, Van Wyk, Sela, Bayliss, Staddon, Carr-Smith, Bailey, Coetzee

Red card: Will Butt (51 mins)

Sale: Carpenter; Addison, James, Bedlow, Reed; R. du Preez, Warr; McIntyre, McElroy, Harper, Bamber, Andrews, van Rhyn, Dugdale, D. du Preez.

Replacements: Caine, Onasanya, Opoku-Fordjour, Roets, Beaumont, Thomas, Curtis, JL du Preez

Red card: Nye Thomas (61 mins)

Referee: Karl Dickson

ABU DHABI – Lerone Murphy resorted to his grappling to remain unbeaten against Dan Ige at UFC 308.

Murphy (15-0-1 MMA, 7-0-1 UFC) was cracked early before rallying to defeat Ige (18-9 MMA, 10-8 UFC) by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28). The featherweight bout was part of the UFC 308 main card at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.

Ige stalked Murphy to start, attacking him to the body and landing a nice combination. A minute and a half into the round, Ige slammed Murphy down for the takedown. Murphy managed to escape by giving up his back and turning out of the body lock. A cut opened up on Ige’s face. Murphy landed a nice spinning back kick to the body. Ige then dropped Murphy with a big counter left and swarmed him. Murphy covered up and fired back with a counter of his own, before taking Ige down at the end of the round.

Ige continued to press forward in Round 2. Murphy appeared to recover as he landed a body kick, followed by a straight right. The pace slowed down significantly until Ige decided to shoot for a takedown. Murphy reversed him and started working for his own takedown. Neither man was successful, as they returned to the center of the octagon. With less than a minute remaining, Murphy took Ige down and mounted him. He transitioned to his back then locked in a triangle choke to end the round.

With the score seemingly tied at one round a piece, Murphy immediately tried to take the fight back to the ground. Ige defended well, but ate a knee on the break. Murphy landed a head kick, followed by another takedown attempt. Ige reversed him and wound up in top position. Murphy tried to use a leg lock attempt to escape, but was denied. Ige tried to take Murphy’s back, but Murphy was able to work his way back up. Murphy then landed his own takedown, and worked for a front head lock. The pair exchanged in the pocket in the final 15 seconds as the clock winded down.

Following his win, Murphy called out former interim featherweight title challenger Josh Emmett.

https://twitter.com/UFCEurope/status/1850254284769620298

Emmett responded, and appeared seemingly unimpressed.

https://twitter.com/JoshEmmettUFC/status/1850254065596535111

Up-to-the-minute UFC 308 results include:

• Lerone Murphy def. Dan Ige via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Shara Magomedov def. Armen Petrosyan via TKO (spinning back fist) – Round 2, 4:52
• Ibo Aslan def. Rafael Cerqueira via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 0:51
• Geoff Neal def. Rafael dos Anjos via TKO (knee injury) – Round 1, 1:40
• Mateusz Rebecki def. Myktybek Orolbai via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Abus Magomedov def. Brunno Ferreira via submission (arm triangle) – Round 3, 3:14
• Kennedy Nzechukwu def. Chris Barnett via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 4:27
• Farid Basharat def. Victor Hugo via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Ismail Naurdiev def. Bruno Silva via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Rinat Fakhretdinov def. Carlos Leal via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.