His excitement is contagious.
The FA’s decision to hire Phil Neville as the new manager of the women’s national team was controversial to say the least. He has no experience in women’s football, let alone as a first team manager. His two spells as an assistant manager came firstly at Manchester United during their worst spell in recent history and then at Valencia during one of the worst seasons the Spanish club has endured since the turn of the century.
But it wasn’t just his lack of experience that elicited criticism; he has also tweeted some questionable jokes in which women were the butt of the joke.
Such is the way of the modern world, your social media history can come back to bite you, and Neville no doubt regrets tweeting what he did. When speaking to Dan Roan of the BBC, he explained that in isolation the tweets appear awful, but there was context that wasn’t shown when they were dug up.
His enthusiasm for the job seems to have perished since the tweets were brought back into the public eye. That is not the face of a man who is excited about the challenge that lies ahead.
“Any job after this will be a step down, not a step up”. Here’s what Neville told me about whether he sees the England women’s gig as a mere stepping stone in his management career pic.twitter.com/G89ROxsWi1
— Dan Roan (@danroan) January 29, 2018
The England women’s team are one of the favourites to win the World Cup in the summer of 2019 which will be held in France, but this saga is likely to have soured the atmosphere in the dressing room before he’s even started. And behind his eyes, if you look close enough, you can see that he is well aware of that.
