England boss Sarina Wiegman has said that she is "very positive" her side will qualify for the 2027 World Cup finals despite being made to go through the playoffs following their 3-0 victory over Ukraine at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Their 4-0 defeat to Spain on Friday meant automatic qualification was out of their hands and after the latter also beat Iceland, the Lionesses will have to play extra games to earn their spot in the 2027 tournament.
However, England bounced back on Friday with a professional performance and earned a comfortable win courtesy of goals from Jess Carter, Georgia Stanway and Beth Mead, who went level with Fara Williams as England's fifth highest all-time goalscorer.
Wiegman said she is confident her side will still progress through to next year's tournament.
She told a news conference: "The competition in Europe is really high. The bit I'm disappointed about is we win five games, we have 15 points, in a group with the world champions and then can't qualify.
"Tonight was a good football night, I'm happy with the performance but not with the result that we have to go into the playoffs. It's the way it is and we will be ready for it.
"We have a team that is very good I think. We know what we have to do. I'm very positive that we will qualify anyway.
"If we would have qualified we would have had the opportunities in October, November and December to play friendlies and to get our aim on Brazil. That's not the case but we will find a way to get prepared."
England dominated proceedings on Merseyside and had 26 shots, with 10 of those on target, but were only able to score three goals.
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"I saw a team that was a team, dictated for 90 minutes and wanted to score lots more goals, we could have and should have scored a lot more but overall showed how we are.
"Tonight we got the opportunities. How we created the chances against Ukraine, who played defensive, they made it compact and hard to break through the defensive lines.
"We created the opportunities but final things we can do more ... 3-0 is a good score."
Wiegman is under contract until the end of the 2027 World Cup, meaning there is only a year left on her deal.
The 56-year-old was asked about her future but said she does not yet know what that looks like.
Asked whether she has time to think about her future, she replied: "Probably. But first I'm going on holiday and will watch football too.
"We are in conversations all the time. It's going to be different than last summer but the future, I don't know yet what that looks like."
