News: Sunderland’s Neve Herron is called up to Lionesses Development Squad - here’s why!

It was announced today that Sunderland Ladies player, Neve Herron, has received a call up to the Lionesses Development Phase Squad. Herron will link up with similar young prospects for the international tournament in Marbella and be facing Finland and Denmark in the tournament.

The tournament is set to get underway on Sunday 13th February until Wednesday 23rd February, with the first fixture being against Finland at the Estadio Municipa Ciudad de La Linea, before playing against Denmark at the Marbella Football Center.

Photo by Lynne Cameron/Getty Images

This will be the first time Herron has been called up for the Lionesses, since she participated in England U19’s 4-1 win over Czechia in what was a friendly back in July 2021. Whilst she didn’t start the game, Herron got some minutes towards the end of the game when she came on as a sub in the 83rd minute.

Herron joins a long list of Sunderland players who have been called up to the national team over the years and hopefully, she can follow in the footsteps of the likes of Beth Mead, Jill Scott, Steph Houghton, Lucy Bronze, and many more

Neve has been in fantastic form Sunderland this season, despite the results and despite having to play out of position as well. But she has adapted accordingly to the changes and shown just how flexible and quick she is to learn a new position and role. Herron has been a name spoken positively by many Sunderland fans and has quickly become one of the marquee players in the team.

This is incredibly impressive given her age and short footballing career thus far. Fortunately for Sunderland, Herron just put pen to paper last week to sign a new contract, which sees her remain with the club until the end of the 2022/2023 season. A fantastic coup for the Lasses.

Photo by Nigel Roddis - The FA/The FA via Getty Images

---

Why has Herron been selected?

When we say Herron is workhorse for Sunderland Ladies, we really mean it. She’s an incredible talent for someone so young; flexible, adaptive, committed, and technically gifted. Her heat map for this season shows how, mainly playing in the centre of defence, she covers so much ground across the park. When we look deep into the Wyscout stats we see that Herron is amongst the best in the league for defensive duels, aerial duels, dribbles, progressive runs, and deep crosses.

Data from Wyscout

Whilst undoubtedly, we are all happy for Herron in what is another call-up to the England camp, she will definitely be a miss for the lasses this Sunday when they play away against league leaders Liverpool.

However, Neve will thankfully be back for Sunderland’s home fixture against Charlton on 6th March. Regardless though, all of us at Roker Reports and fans of the lasses wish Neve all the best and hopefully this is the start of many caps for her.