Phil Neville, Lioness Tamer

[Benji]

He is manager of the England Women. He has never indicated any knowledge or interest of women's football. He has deleted his Twitter because he said some 1950s stuff about what women should be doing.

How long will it last?

 

[Cornish Piskie]

Yep, another master stroke from the FA, an organisation that demonstrates how enormous dinosaurs managed to survive for millions of years with brains the size of walnuts.

 

[AnimoEtFide]

As long as he doesn't do anything stupid, like send misogynist, racist or homophobic tweets, the FA will consider it a successful appointment.

 

[mistermagic]

Yep, another master stroke from the FA, an organisation that demonstrates how enormous dinosaurs managed to survive for millions of years with brains the size of walnuts.

I don't think their brains have any particular problem. It's just they consider that going with the easy PC way out to be the only way to go all the time. Too bad. Iiked Sampson. Phil Neville is completely inexperienced at any level. Good luck to him however, as a player I preferred Gary but Philip was alright.

 

[JimJams]

Do you need to be a good coach in womens football?
From what I've seen, which is admittedly not a great deal it's like lower level football where 1 or 2 truly talented individuals carry their team, which kind of does away with a lot of the tactical side of things. Plus the keepers are generally shit.
Maybe its moved on from that, or maybe only a handful of nations have. Someone enlighten me.

 

[Cornish Piskie]

The point is, he's in a completely alien environment. He has to learn to build a team in a sporting world he knows nothing about.

Women's football is played at a slower pace, mostly on the floor and by players with significantly different physiques to males. How can he coach players who play a game he has never experienced..?

The best England manager was Hope Powell, but she was undermined by a determined campaign against her within and without the team. Sampson did well, that is true, but he took over at a point when a lot of players that were brought on by Powell (Lucy Bronze, Steph Houghton, etc) were maturing and other, younger rising players were ready to slot into the places vacated by those who were past their best.

During her time in charge of the England set up, as well as managing the England senior team she completely structured the England women's set up from Under-15s to the Under-23s, implemented a coach mentoring scheme and organised The FA’s National Player Development Centre at Loughborough University.

In 2009 she implemented central contracts, which enabled players to focus on full-time training and playing, without having to fit it around full-time work. In 2003 she became the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro Licence—the highest coaching qualification available.

Hope Powell created the England Women's set up from scratch AND managed the team at the same time. Every young female player coming through the England set up at every level owes her development to Hope Powell. And yet this is completely ignored.

Powell was undermined by a campaign led by another coach, Keith Boanas who made an outspoken attack on Powell and publicly called on her to resign. He had applied for the job in 1998, but was not granted an interview. He blamed Powell for the retirement from international football of his wife, former England women's goalkeeper Pauline Cope-Boanas, who herself is related to the man Powell replaced as England women's manager.

Powell removed the goalkeeper, got the job ahead of her husband and replaced her relative. No family ties with a grudge to bear there, then.

The FA stated that the official reason for Powell's dismissal was the team's poor performance in the 2013 Euros, even though the FA at first supported her, accepting that she had only a squad of either ageing players past their best or inexperienced youngsters to work with. Their attitude towards her didn't change until Boanas went public with his criticisms.

The degree of influence that Boanas and his family connections were able to bring to influence the FA will never be known. The official line is that Powell was sacked because of the 2013 Euros and nobody can prove differently, but there is another connection involved..... Boanas was a long time friend of none other than Mark Sampson.

Add to this the disgruntlement among some players who didn't react well to criticism after England lost in a penalty shoot out to France in the 2011 World Cup. Powell accused senior players of cowardice for refusing to step up, leaving the job to inexperienced players who buckled under the pressure. Were those senior players getting revenge on her for her part in their mate, Pauline Cope's career ending..? Who knows.

Nobody can prove that the FA buckled under pressure from a Boanas led cabal of family members and a hostile dressing room..? It's all speculation but the connections are there for all to see.

I believe that had Powell continued to introduce and manage the crop of new young players that she nurtured through the junior ranks replaced the old guard, England women's football would have progressed at least as well as it did under Sampson, probably better and would be a much more stable set up. Certainly, there wouldn't have been the allegations of racism and inappropriate behaviour for the FA to deal with because of Sampson. The Eniola Aluko scandal would never have happened.

And now, they're saddled with a man who has no managerial experience, has never worked with female players and has a history of sexist misconduct following him as unwelcome baggage. Neville is only one tweet or unguarded comment too close to an open mic away from another damaging scandal. You couldn't make it up.

Make your own minds up what you think of the situation, but I think it's a bloody mess.

 

[Roque Santa Cruz]

One thing's for sure: Phil Neville is definitely an open-minded person, and anyting but a macho man. Interesting career move!

 

[Super_horns]

They said the other candidates pulled out due to the fact the FA said they were doing background searches on them all.

Goodness knows what they found then!

Clearly somebody else decided to go back all the way to 2011 to find these comments by Phil Neville though which the FA didn't do.

The real issue is the lack of experience and will he get the respect of the squad?

 

[St. Juste]

The BBC trying to make a desperate positive spin on this with a laughably sycophantic article.

The best thing about it was on Breakfast when they described one of, admittedly few, positives about Phil Neville was a big time international star with plenty of experience at the very highest level.

Yes, that's right, Phil Neville. The budget version of John O'Shea. Makes him sound like Zidane.

It is good that womens football is getting more coverage, however, the BBC should consider the following EPL Coverage - Scottish football coverage - English womens football coverage. There is absolutely no legitimate reason Englands womens football should be covered more than Scottish football.

 

[Stevencc]

The BBC trying to make a desperate positive spin on this with a laughably sycophantic article.

The best thing about it was on Breakfast when they described one of, admittedly few, positives about Phil Neville was a big time international star with plenty of experience at the very highest level.

Yes, that's right, Phil Neville. The budget version of John O'Shea. Makes him sound like Zidane.

It is good that womens football is getting more coverage, however, the BBC should consider the following EPL Coverage - Scottish football coverage - English womens football coverage. There is absolutely no legitimate reason Englands womens football should be covered more than Scottish football.

Someone one say it.

 

[St. Juste]

Someone one say it.

A simple delivered uh....good?

 

[Leo]

Someone one say it.

Apart from him being overly generous with self adulation ? Anyway, I wasn't aware that English women's football received more coverage than Scotland's more competitive top league.....

 

[mistermagic]

The point is, he's in a completely alien environment. He has to learn to build a team in a sporting world he knows nothing about.

Women's football is played at a slower pace, mostly on the floor and by players with significantly different physiques to males. How can he coach players who play a game he has never experienced..?

The best England manager was Hope Powell, but she was undermined by a determined campaign against her within and without the team. Sampson did well, that is true, but he took over at a point when a lot of players that were brought on by Powell (Lucy Bronze, Steph Houghton, etc) were maturing and other, younger rising players were ready to slot into the places vacated by those who were past their best.

During her time in charge of the England set up, as well as managing the England senior team she completely structured the England women's set up from Under-15s to the Under-23s, implemented a coach mentoring scheme and organised The FA’s National Player Development Centre at Loughborough University.

In 2009 she implemented central contracts, which enabled players to focus on full-time training and playing, without having to fit it around full-time work. In 2003 she became the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro Licence—the highest coaching qualification available.

Hope Powell created the England Women's set up from scratch AND managed the team at the same time. Every young female player coming through the England set up at every level owes her development to Hope Powell. And yet this is completely ignored.

Powell was undermined by a campaign led by another coach, Keith Boanas who made an outspoken attack on Powell and publicly called on her to resign. He had applied for the job in 1998, but was not granted an interview. He blamed Powell for the retirement from international football of his wife, former England women's goalkeeper Pauline Cope-Boanas, who herself is related to the man Powell replaced as England women's manager.

Powell removed the goalkeeper, got the job ahead of her husband and replaced her relative. No family ties with a grudge to bear there, then.

The FA stated that the official reason for Powell's dismissal was the team's poor performance in the 2013 Euros, even though the FA at first supported her, accepting that she had only a squad of either ageing players past their best or inexperienced youngsters to work with. Their attitude towards her didn't change until Boanas went public with his criticisms.

The degree of influence that Boanas and his family connections were able to bring to influence the FA will never be known. The official line is that Powell was sacked because of the 2013 Euros and nobody can prove differently, but there is another connection involved..... Boanas was a long time friend of none other than Mark Sampson.

Add to this the disgruntlement among some players who didn't react well to criticism after England lost in a penalty shoot out to France in the 2011 World Cup. Powell accused senior players of cowardice for refusing to step up, leaving the job to inexperienced players who buckled under the pressure. Were those senior players getting revenge on her for her part in their mate, Pauline Cope's career ending..? Who knows.

Nobody can prove that the FA buckled under pressure from a Boanas led cabal of family members and a hostile dressing room..? It's all speculation but the connections are there for all to see.

I believe that had Powell continued to introduce and manage the crop of new young players that she nurtured through the junior ranks replaced the old guard, England women's football would have progressed at least as well as it did under Sampson, probably better and would be a much more stable set up. Certainly, there wouldn't have been the allegations of racism and inappropriate behaviour for the FA to deal with because of Sampson. The Eniola Aluko scandal would never have happened.

And now, they're saddled with a man who has no managerial experience, has never worked with female players and has a history of sexist misconduct following him as unwelcome baggage. Neville is only one tweet or unguarded comment too close to an open mic away from another damaging scandal. You couldn't make it up.

Make your own minds up what you think of the situation, but I think it's a bloody mess.

Quite an interesting take, CP. However, England did break their quarter-final jinx under Sampson while never really getting anywhere under Powell. I do believe you're not giving Sampson enough credit for what he did. Those ties still needed to be won. I know that Powell did more behind the scenes though as you rightfully mentionned.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Casey Stoney retires from playing to take up a role in Phil Neville's backroom staff. 130 caps of experience, quite a career. She says:

"Although I am sad to be hanging up my boots, I do so proud of what I have achieved and with great optimism about what the future holds for the women's game.

"With that in mind, I am hugely excited about starting my next chapter as part of Phil Neville's backroom team.

"I am thoroughly looking forward to working with Phil, who is an excellent choice to take the women's game forward.

"I talked to him at length before accepting the job and was hugely impressed with his vision, passion and eagerness to learn. I will be doing everything possible to support him alongside finishing my coaching badges."

 

[mistermagic]

Well she's hardly going to say that he's a sexist prick now is she?!

 

[JimJams]

Why not? You saying she's not got the bollocks for it?

 

[mistermagic]

England currently 2-0 up against France in the SheBelievesCup. We have most of the ball but are shocking technically. Control, ball retention, dribble, shooting ability. We are very, very shit. England on the other hand took their goals well and don't need to do much to see this through.

We're hosting the World Cup in 15 months. Just sayin'.

 

[Super_horns]

Well we are ranked higher ..



Is it full teams ?

 

[JimJams]

Nah mate, 5-a-side.

 

[Benji]

England held 0-0 by Wales. Don't know much about the Welsh Women's side but I think that's considered a bad result for Philip and a very good result for Wales.

 

[Stevencc]

Welsh women are basically men though, so they are cheating.

 

[Benji]

Well it's never helped us before!

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

England held 0-0 by Wales. Don't know much about the Welsh Women's side but I think that's considered a bad result for Philip and a very good result for Wales.

Yeah. England are fully professional and all on central contracts issued by the FA. That means that they have a lot of time together as a team (especially during the long off-season). Half the team play for the same club side too (Man City). They're ranked second in the world for a reason.

Most of Wales' players are semi-pro. Our one full-professional plays in a league in the states, then in the off-season plays in a league in Australia. Pretty much the only time they have together as a team is short training camps before each international, and these are often disrupted due to work commitments, or travel. Our goalkeeper (who made a string of great saves) is an amateur who took up football aged 19 and only switched to playing in goal in 2014.

England rarely drop points in qualifying - the last time they failed to score at home in a competitive match was 2008 - before professionalisation. And this was a huge occasion for them - one they'd have been pumped for; Phil Neville's first home game; the largest crowd England have ever seen for a qualifier. Going into the game, England were 50/1 on to win the game (you could have got 70/1 on a Welsh win and 14/1 for the draw).

The one regret for Wales is that we didn't win. Although we only had a couple of shots on target, one of them did appear to cross the line before it was hooked clear. But the point puts leaves us in an incredibly strong position. Take four points from our next two games (at home to Bosnia and Russia) and we'll guarantee ourselves second place; take six and we host England in a top-spot decider. Exciting times...

 

[Benji]

If Wales beat Russia tonight it sets up a Wales v England winner takes all in August to qualify for the World Cup. The second goal was absolutely lovely, from the great tackle to the chipped finish.