Lucy Bronze has promised England will return fitter and faster from their European Championship heartache.
The Lionesses saw their impressive campaign at Women's Euro 2017 end in a huge anti-climax as they were overrun 3-0 by host nation Holland in their semi-final in Enschede.
Goals in each half from Arsenal pair Vivianne Miedema and Danielle van de Donk undid England before Millie Bright put through her own net with the last kick of the game.
Having made confident progress through the tournament, England had looked like serious contenders for the title and Bronze feels a lot will be learnt from the campaign.
The Manchester City right-back, one of the most eye-catching performers throughout the event in Holland, said: "We have got to take the positives from it. We can't dwell too much on it even though it was the most pivotal game for us.
"We've scored a lot of goals, played some great football, won every group game, beaten France - finally.
"There are things that we can take out that we haven't done before and hopefully stand us in good stead for the tournaments to come.
"We have to keep working hard. We'll keep pushing ourselves, get fitter, faster, stronger, smarter and we'll be much improved for the next tournament."
England shone in their first four matches of the tournament, scoring 11 goals and conceding just one. That included a 6-0 thrashing of Scotland in their opener and a first victory over France since 1974.
Coming after winning bronze at the World Cup two years ago, England have emerged as a force on the highest stage under the guidance of manager Mark Sampson. They went into the tournament ranked fifth in the world and are set to climb higher.
Bronze admitted, however, it was difficult to find consolation in a lot of the positives as the disappoinment of defeat sank in.
The 25-year-old said: "Our rankings have changed now, so we are even higher than we were before.
"There's no team in the world that we've played that we haven't beaten in the last two or three years since Mark's been in charge. We've beaten all the big ones.
"But at the end of the day we wanted to win the trophy and all that doesn't really amount to too much unless you have the trophy in your hands. That's what we're missing."
Source: PA
