Phil Neville admits England's form is 'unacceptable' and demands that his players get angry to fix it
Phil Neville, the England manager, has admitted that the criticism he is facing is “only half of what it should be” as the Lionesses aim to secure only their second win in eight matches, against the Czech Republic on Tuesday night.
England are still reeling from their 2-1 defeat by Germany in front of a record 77,768 crowd at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. It was the latest blow in their abysmal run of form since their World Cup semi-final loss to the United States, and increased the pressure on Neville ahead of Tuesday's crucial friendly in Ceske Budejovice.
But the manager said on Monday that he still felt safe in his job, despite acknowledging that the criticism he had received had been more than warranted.
“I’m a realist, I want success for this team and I know the capabilities of this team and I realise fully the criticism going my way is probably only half of what it should be, one win in seven games is without doubt unacceptable,” Neville said.
“It is a results business and if I was in the Premier League there would be even more expectation, even more scrutiny. I have been in situations at Manchester United with David Moyes, my brother [Gary] in Spain, with Nuno [Espirito Santo] in Spain where I have seen first hand the impact of poor results, on supporters and everything.
“I’m not stupid, but I have got full confidence in the people that I work for and the players that I am coaching and they have got full confidence in me. That support I think will remain until the point where we both think we can’t go any further and I don’t think we are at that point by any stretch.”
The manager struck an altogether different tone to previous losses, where he has staunchly defended England’s lacklustre play. Instead, Neville suggested he was now adopting a more aggressive approach with the squad, in an attempt to “reset” a team no longer living up to his self-imposed tag of “best in the world”.
“We’re thinking we’re one of the best teams in the world, but we’re not,” he said bluntly. “We’re not playing like one, we shouldn’t be acting like that. Not a single one of us have performed to the level that we have done in the past. Forget the World Cup. We’re still wallowing when the rest of women’s football has moved forward. If you stand still others will overtake you, that is the harsh reality.
“I want them to be really angry, I want them to be angry with me, with themselves, and to play angry. Because I think we’ve gone a little bit soft in terms of our mentality. ‘Oh they’re tired, they’re this, that’ – no. Not any more.”
England need to produce a convincing win. At 28th in the Fifa rankings, the Czech Republic sit three places above Portugal, a team the Lionesses barely snuck past last month in a 1-0 win.
England will be without captain Steph Houghton, who is being rested along with Saturday’s goalscorer Ellen White, as well as Alex Greenwood and Jodie Taylor, who both pulled out of the squad with injuries. Uefa player of the year Lucy Bronze will fill in as captain, and said that going from underdogs to leading nation this year had contributed to their dip.
“We started the year wanting to be one of the best teams and we showed that in SheBelieves and at the World Cup. We put a target on ourselves by saying we’re the best in the world, so now every team want to beat us,” she said.
“I’m used to it week in, week out at Lyon, and now at England it’s maybe something we’re not used to. [Teams] treat us like a USA, French, German team – like a top team, which is what we’ve wanted. But we prepared so much to get there that we’ve now got to realise that we’re there and prepare for what that takes.”
