Phil Neville insists he has no concerns over fitness of Lucy Bronze
Phil Neville has allayed concerns about Lucy Bronze’s fitness insisting England’s best player has trained all week and is looking sharp despite an injury plagued return to the Women’s Super League.
Bronze has not played for England this year because of injury, missing the SheBelieves Cup back in March and pulling out of the last international training camp in September to stay in Manchester to work on her fitness.
The 28-year-old has not been at her best for Manchester City since returning to England and was once again looking a little off the pace in a behind closed doors inter squad game on Friday night.
But Neville is confident there are no lingering injury problems and feels England will see the best of their best player against Germany on Tuesday night.
“Lucy has trained all week and she has looked sharp,” said Neville.
“There are no problems with Lucy. She has worked really hard all week. I don’t have any concerns about Lucy.
“She’s had a real good week of training. I think since coming back from France and signing for Manchester City she probably hasn’t had that rhythm of playing games [because of injuries] which is difficult.
"But she has played the last two games for her club and has come here and done everything that’s been asked of her.
“She’s been sharp in training, she’s been doing a lot of extras this week. I'm really looking forward to seeing her back in an England shirt because we have missed her, there is no doubt about that.
“It’s been great having her back in the England squad, for where we want to get to, you need you best players available and Lucy is certainly one of those.
“I’ve been happy with everything this week. We trained well, with intensity. There was a competitive edge tonight, that's been taken from the training sessions
“I’ve been really pleased with how this week has gone and you can tell there is a game coming up. We want to be testing ourselves against the best teams in the world and Germany are number two in the rankings.”
