Women’s World Cup news: Phil Neville vows England will keep playing out from the back

There will have been plenty of old pros and parks players among the record 6.1 million who tuned into England’s 2-1 Women’s World Cup victory over Scotland on Sunday who will have thought, for the second time in four days, “why do the centre-halves keep playing themselves into trouble? Why don’t they just get rid of it?”.

Steph Houghton’s error in Nice was not quite as glaring as the one by John Stones in Guimaraes on Thursday, but it was another example of an England centre-half giving the ball away in a dangerous area and being punished.

Fortunately for England’s women, they were already 2-0 up and Claire Emslie’s goal, which directly followed Houghton’s pass being intercepted, did not cost England the match.

Another time, however, it might. This was the second time in recent months England’s usually reliable skipper had cost the team a goal by gifting the ball away trying to pass into midfield. It also happened in the 2-1 win over Brazil in the She Believes Cup in February.

‘It’s the right way to play’

However, like Gareth Southgate with Stones, Phil Neville backed his skipper – and her motives. “There’s only one way we are going to play,” he said. “We have to develop this system and it’s the right way to play.

“We are going to make mistakes because we are that open. In the first half, we had both full-backs in wide positions, the whole centre of midfield was open. Yes, we gave the ball away for the goal but we were trying to do the right thing.”

Houghton accepted responsibility and said the team needed to pass the ball better. “My job is to be brave and play out from the back and I do that every single week, so it’s not going to stop me from doing that. There’s going to be wrong decision-making sometimes.”

Many will wonder why Southgate and Neville are so firm but the need to keep possession was underlined by the warm conditions. The key is better execution, in Houghton’s case, and better decision-making by Stones. When it works, as it did for Jesse Lingard’s disallowed goal against the Netherlands, it is effective and sublime to watch.

England now head for Le Havre for Friday’s match against Argentina which they will be expected to win comfortably.