Millie Bright insists England's previous semi final exits are 'parked to one side'

Millie Bright has insisted that England's previous major tournament semi-final defeats have been 'parked to one side' ahead of the Lionesses' Euro 2022 last four clash against Sweden.

England are preparing for their fourth consecutive major tournament semi final when they face Peter Gerhardsson's side at Bramall Lane on Tuesday evening, but have been beaten on all three previous occasions.

A heartbreaking Laura Bassett own goal saw England suffer a 2-1 defeat to Japan at the 2015 World Cup, before they were comfortably beaten 3-0 by a Netherlands side managed by Sarina Wiegman at Euro 2017.

There was more heartache at the 2019 World Cup, as Steph Houghton missed a penalty and Ellen White had a goal marginally ruled out for offside as the Lionesses lost 2-1 to the USA.

"I think either way you learn from the experiences, so the players that experienced them, we've learnt a lot of lessons from them," Bright said of England's recent semi final exits.

"But to be honest I think they're parked to one side. We're on a new journey, we're in a different place completely as a team.

"But also the youngsters have experienced big losses, so even though they're young they're still experienced in different ways. I think everyone is ready and ready for their roles."

England head into Tuesday evening's fixture off the back of a hard fought quarter final victory over Spain six days earlier.

The Lionesses came from a goal down for the first time this tournament, and just the second time during Wiegman's reign, to win 2-1 in extra time thanks to a late Ella Toone equaliser and a long range Georgia Stanway stunner - and Bright says this comeback victory has added to the team's growing resilience.

"For us it was: how do we overcome that challenge?" Bright added. "In the past, obviously we'd been scoring a lot of goals and kind of not faced that. But we stuck together, everyone remained calm, and I think there was always that belief that we would get that chance in front of goal and we just needed to be clinical and take it.

"I think our resilience in games is growing each time, but we'll fight from start to finish in every single game."