NEVILLE HANGS ON... FOR NOW
Ending the year on a winning note must have been in Phil neville’s mind when he scheduled the lionesses’ final friendly of the year against the Czech Republic, ranked 28th in the world.
scraping through unconvincingly will have done little to alleviate the pressure on his job, although he maintains he is confident he has done enough to keep it.
He said: ‘I never felt pressure on me personally. I have had unbelievable backing from the Fa, they are going to throw their weight behind the next push we are going to make, that’s been the message I have had.’
Katerina svitkova, a rare star in the slavia Prague side who lost 13-2 on aggregate to arsenal in the last 16 of the Champions league, threaded a perfectly weighted through-ball for the waiting Tereza szewieczkova after 15 minutes.
luckily for neville the lionesses responded quickly. Within two minutes Czech keeper and YouTube sensation Barbora Votikova was picking the ball out of her net. Bethany England, one of five changes, stabbed home nikita Parris’ pass from close range.
Beth Mead put England ahead with a curling effort five minutes later, but neville’s sigh of relief was to be short lived. szewieczkova, 21, hit her second from 25 yards when Keira Walsh gave away possession and the defence again failed to clear the danger just before the half hour mark.
But arsenal youngster leah Williamson broke the part-timers’ hearts four minutes from time — with Votikova’s hand not quite strong enough to keep the wildly deflected winner out.
‘It’s good to hear criticism but we want to make sure we silence all of you,’ said Williamson. ‘Tonight was about fighting for England and trying to take the pressure off a little bit.
‘We don’t want to go backwards, we are not going to fall down the world rankings. We are up there to stay. We will fix what has been going wrong on the pitch and tonight was the first step.’
neville added: ‘We’ve got massive improvements to make. We’re conceding too many goals, we let goals in easily and we’re giving teams a sniff that they can get at us and win.’
England must wait until March 2020 for their next test — the small matter of defending the sheBelieves Cup.