Phil Neville insists healing process is under way for ‘fractured’ England

Phil Neville was preparing for his first press conference as manager of England Women when he heard a familiar voice in his head. He knew the briefings would be dominated by the furore over his apparently sexist tweets, and his suitability for the job, and the voice was that of Sir Alex Ferguson.

“I wasn’t going to wear a tie because it’s modern day, you know,” Neville says. “I remember just packing my bag at my mum’s and I had Sir Alex’s voice in my ear, ‘Get a tie on, son’. It’s the standards that stick with you.”

Similarly, when Neville arrived at St George’s Park. “The first letter in my office was from Sir Alex wishing me all the best. First one, without fail,” he says. “It was ‘Good luck, work hard, remember the things that got you there, remember the sacrifices you made, all the learning you’ve done. You’ve earned this opportunity, you’re where you want to be so enjoy it’.”

Except that opportunity could have been over before it began. Historical tweets were raised, one appearing to make light of domestic violence, while it emerged that the 41-year-old had not applied for the job in the first place. He regrets that but did not expect to be in the running.

As for the scrutiny. “You know what? It actually excited me, the size of it,” he argues. “I thought, ‘Wow. Imagine if we win a World Cup’.

“We have got people who care about the women’s game. During it all, there were one or two people who said, ‘Phil, is it really worth it?’ It fuelled me to think I was actually doing the right thing even more because there was so much interest.”

It has not changed his thoughts on equality, he insists, because “as I said at the time, it [the tweet] is not a true reflection of what I was… It was wrong in 2018. It was wrong in 2011, so there have been no excuses.”

Neville is embarking on the SheBelieves Cup, a chance to measure his players against the best, with France, Germany and the United States his first three opponents. He has not discussed his social-media post with the players.

“Will I do? Probably not,” Neville says. “I said to them in La Manga that if anyone has any problems, they have my number. Come and speak to me. It’s a case of just moving on.”

He met the players at a training camp in La Manga, taken by Mo Marley, now one of his assistants. After the sacking of his predecessor, Mark Sampson, Eni Aluko’s  allegations over the way she was treated and the tensions involved, Neville acknowledges Marley had “difficult conversations” in Spain but found  “closure” on a number of issues.

“For the last 12 months, it has not been great, but I go back to Mo. She had the most difficult job as she was the transition between Mark and me coming in and had to deal with a lot of the disappointment,” Neville says.

“The foundations of this squad, regardless of what people think on the outside, are very strong. They’re probably just a little bit fractured at this moment in time.”

And so to the job. As you would expect given his competitiveness, the former Manchester United defender has thrown himself into his new role, immersing himself in the mechanics of the women’s game, where he has found fewer “cynics” than in men’s football.

The target is  simple. Raising England from “third to first” – a slogan he will use – and winning next year’s World Cup. For a sportsman who has won the Champions League, six Premier League titles and three FA Cups as well as 59 England caps, Neville says: “Now we are in a position where I have to turn hope into expectation. I see this as the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on.”

Given that the Neville family, including Phil’s parents, are so ingrained in sport and creating sporting opportunities for men and women, some of the criticism he faced does appear harsh. He offers an impassioned explanation of why his twin sister Tracey’s success as player and coach with the England women’s netball team is so important to the family.

“She has a bronze medal in the house which dwarfs our Champions League medals. It’s a beautiful bronze medallion and my dad had them all put in a case,” Neville says. “Me and [brother] Gary would give our right arm to have that kind of bronze medal, silver medal. It’s a Commonwealth Games medal. And she goes to the Commonwealth Games in Adelaide in April and she’s going for a gold medal. That’s better than pounds in the bank.

“I look at my sister and the sacrifices she’s made – getting up at 3.30 in the morning on Sunday with my mum to go to East Grinstead for a training session. This was at 14 all the way to 18, earning £14,000, £15,000 a year, every bit of that money had to be accounted for – expenses, training gear, and you know, me and Gary at Man United getting company cars.

On England’s women footballers, he says: “I’m not so sure their motivation is money, their motivation is success.”

He spoke to Tracey about whether coaching women was different. “She says ‘Phil. Just treat them the same. That’s all they want,’” Neville says. “I’d say that they probably asked more questions than a man would do. ‘Why? What can I do better?’ And that’s the most impressive thing.”

It is what Neville wants, also, having been determined to become a manager and not an assistant, as he has been at United and Valencia. “When I left Valencia, I turned down many a job to go back in as an assistant because it was ‘No. No 1 or nothing’.” For him and for England.