There were surprises galore as Phil Neville presided over surely the most controversial, not to mention radically innovative, announcement of an England squad in Football Association history on Wednesday.
Never before has a member of the royal family joined assorted celebrities in drip-feeding to the public the names of 23 World Cup-bound players through a set of individual social media announcements made across the course of a morning.
Yet here was Prince William announcing that Steph Houghton would captain England’s France 2019 squad and David Beckham tweeting his pleasure at Nikita Parris’s inclusion. To traditionalists the world had turned upside down; whatever had happened to old ideas about letting “the football do the talking” and there being “no I in team”?
That though was about as contentious as things got. Once the very 21st-century reveal was over, the names on the list represented safe, conservative, predictable and, above all, eminently sensible choices on Neville’s part.
This is a reliable, dependable squad staffed with excellent characters and solid on-pitch performers offering sufficient stylistic diversity and energetic young blood to allow a manager experiencing his first World Cup scope to switch tactics and formations when circumstances demand.
Granted the squad include 11 players who will be making their World Cup debuts but every one has appeared under Neville and developed a constructive working relationship with a manager who will lean heavily on the nucleus of the Lionesses squad who won the bronze medal at Canada 2015.
Then Karen Carney, now appearing in her seventh major tournament, was the only player in the England ranks rated in the world’s top 40; four years on the Chelsea winger is no longer alone.
While the Lyon right-back Lucy Bronze and the Chelsea playmaker Fran Kirby look potential candidates for player of the tournament, the establishment of England’s all-professional domestic league, the WSL, dictates that the technical bar has risen appreciably and failure to reach the semi-finals will be regarded as a disappointment.
Neville could have done without the loss of the gifted Arsenal attacking midfielder Jordan Nobbs to an ACL rupture but he can rely on a nucleus of the vastly experienced players who began their careers alongside Nobbs at Sunderland Ladies.
Manchester City’s Jill Scott, preparing for her fourth World Cup, remains very much the team’s central midfield dynamo, while Houghton, Bronze and Demi Stokes should once again prove important defenders.
Houghton’s central defensive partnership with Chelsea’s Mille Bright is one of England’s strengths but the emergence of the young, ball-playing Arsenal defender Leah Williamson suggests Neville could switch to a back three without too many problems.
Further forward he has tended to alternate between versions of 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. The latter formation arguably makes the most of Kirby’s talents as a No 10 but the former configuration seems particularly suited to wingers-cum-forwards such as the apparently Lyon-bound Parris, Toni Duggan and Beth Mead.
The 23-year-old Mead – yet another, albeit younger, Sunderland old girl in a squad born predominantly in the northern half of England – has excelled in a wide attacking role for Arsenal this season. Her presence should certainly keep Barcelona’s Duggan on her toes – and possibly on the bench.
Jodie Taylor, the Golden Boot winner when England reached the semi-finals of Euro 2017 in the Netherlands, faces intense competition from Birmingham’s Ellen White for the central striking role and Neville also has the resources to rotate in midfield.
Jade Moore’s recovery from a serious ankle injury offers invaluable vision and precision from an engine room in which Birmingham’s impressive Lucy Staniforth has pipped the veteran Fara Williams and Lyon’s Izzy Christiansen for the final place.
23-woman squad for World Cup in France
Goalkeepers Karen Bardsley (Manchester City), Mary Earps (Wolfsburg), Carly Telford (Chelsea)
Defenders Millie Bright (Chelsea), Lucy Bronze (Lyon), Rachel Daly (Houston Dash), Alex Greenwood (Manchester United), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Abbie McManus (Manchester City), Demi Stokes (Manchester City), Leah Williamson (Arsenal)
Midfielders Karen Carney (Chelsea), Jade Moore (Reading), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Lucy Staniforth (Birmingham City), Georgia Stanway (Manchester City), Keira Walsh (Manchester City)
Forwards Toni Duggan (Barcelona), Fran Kirby (Chelsea), Beth Mead (Arsenal), Nikita Parris (Manchester City), Jodie Taylor (Seattle Reign), Ellen White (Birmingham City) -
So far, so balanced, but there are a few caveats.
If much could hinge on Kirby being untroubled by the knee problem that has disrupted her domestic campaign with Chelsea, it should also be remembered England remain in transition from a more pragmatic counterattacking style to the slick-passing, possession-dominating, very attacking approach demanded by Neville.
As recent friendly defeats to Sweden and Canada highlighted, England are not yet the finished article and doubts linger as to how they may fare against the world’s best sides, most notably France, Germany and the United States.
England should qualify from an initial group in which Scotland and Japan could prove tricky opponents but Argentina are surely the tournament’s weakest team. Progressing further may necessitate Neville thinking a little more like a cagily calculating manager than a sometimes gung-ho tactical anarchist in the mould of his former Manchester United mentor, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Sometimes substance really is more important than style.
