Four players who could replace Leah Williamson in England’s World Cup opener vs Haiti

The first emotion was spiralling concern, swiftly followed by a numb, abject disappointment. As Leah Williamson lay in a crumpled heap beneath the voyeuristic glare of a television camera, face wrought in pain, teammates gathered round in anxious vigil, you feared the worst and hoped for the best.

Just a few days later, the England captain would confirm the former and dispel any lingering dregs of the latter. ‘Unfortunately the World Cup dream is over for me’, she wrote in an agonising post to her various social media platforms, hitting send and gutting a nation. Struck down by a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, that screeching vulture of the women’s game, Williamson never had a chance of making this month’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand, and will not be on hand to help Sarina Wiegman’s squad as they bid to add a world title to last year’s European Championship success.

It should go without saying that nobody will be more broken by Williamson’s absence than the Arsenal defender herself, but for the Dutch coach, losing her dressing room leader and first choice centre-back will have come as a sledgehammer blow to the temple of her preparations. Like fellow casualties Beth Mead and Fran Kirby, Williamson has played a significant role in bringing England to the point at which they currently stand, and she should be commended even in spite of her unavailability this summer, but there is no shaking the cast iron suspicion that the Lionesses are a worse team without her.

How, then, does Wiegman go about replacing her? The facetious answer would be ‘with great difficulty’, but the earnest response is that there are four probable candidates to partner Millie Bright in England’s group stage opener against Haiti on Saturday.

The first, and most likely, is Alex Greenwood. Throughout much of Manchester City’s WSL campaign, the versatile defender was a sure-footed and dependable presence. While it is true that she lacks a little in terms of both pace and aerial dominance, her superlative range of passing and her admirable club form would suggest that she is the closest thing Wiegman has to a like-for-like Williamson replacement.

The issue, however, is Greenwood’s aforementioned versatility. As things stand, she remains Wiegman’s preferred left-back, and indeed, it was there that she started in England’s final World Cup warm-up fixture against Portugal at the beginning of the month. To shunt her into the heart of defence would, therefore, leave the Lionesses short in another key area, and raises further questions about who would be parachuted in on the left flank. Rachel Daly, of course, is an option, but given the 22-goal season she has just completed with Aston Villa as an out-and-out forward, that too would feel like something of a waste.

Perhaps then, Wiegman will turn to Greenwood’s City teammate, Esme Morgan. At 22, she is a member of a new generation of talent who have slowly burrowed their way into the manager’s thinking of late. Only reinstated into the squad last September, the centre-halve has featured in each of England’s past two outings, and appears to have won the trust of those whose opinion matters most.

There will be some who point to her relative lack of experience at senior international level, or the fact that she doesn’t always play in the heart of defence for her club as reasons to be hesitant, but Morgan continues to impress, and the one obvious advantage of her inclusion is that it would allow Greenwood to operate out wide, where Wiegman evidently wants her to be.

Elsewhere, Jess Carter has been in and around the team for some time now, and has shown that she is capable of playing in the middle despite predominantly being a full-back by trade. To that end, she may prove to be the ideal foil that gives England the insurance needed to shift Greenwood inside - and her superb display against Brazil in the Finalissima earlier in the year will have done her no harm in the eyes of Wiegman and her staff.

With regards to her credentials as a centre-back, Carter possesses both the pace and anticipation required to patch a leak, and she did feature alongside Bright in a back three for Chelsea on occasion last season. It does feel, though, that if Wiegman is intent on going with an actual central defender, there are more comfortable fits in her travelling contingent.

Fits like Lotte Wubben-Moy, for instance. The Arsenal defender is arguably the most natural centre-back of the potential Williamson understudies, and showed flashes of her excellence during the domestic campaign, including an assured display in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final away to Wolfsburg.

‘Flashes’ is, however, the operative word. Wubben-Moy was by no means first choice in north London last season, and the prospect of taking her from the periphery of a club side and throwing her straight into the deep end of a World Cup feels like something of a risk.

But then again, this is where Wiegman finds herself; surrounded by tactical headaches and imperfect solutions, trying to cobble together the best makeshift defence that she can in the wake of a catastrophic loss. She is not short of options, nor are any of them disasters-in-waiting, so to speak, but all will require a certain amount of tinkering and a notable leap of faith.

Fortunately for England, Wiegman is nothing if not cerebral and brave.