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Former England star Fran Kirby has poured cold water on suggestions that the Lionesses are entering their European Championship title defence with a leadership vacuum.
Kirby, who has represented England at four major tournaments, announced her retirement from international football earlier this month. She joined Mary Earps and Millie Bright in the pre-Euros exodus, raising concerns that the England squad will be without some of their key leaders, particularly given the three have a combined total of 218 caps.
Speaking for the first time since announcing her retirement, Kirby said that she had ‘no idea’ about Earps and Bright’s respective decisions to withdraw from the Euros squad.
She added: ‘I think there’s been a lot of talk about leadership in the team and obviously you’ve lost three players who do bring that. But when I look in the squad, I don’t see a lack of leaders. For you guys from the outside, you maybe don’t see what we see on the inside in terms of leadership, and it might be a younger player who actually steps up and takes that leadership role.
‘So, yes, of course, you’ve lost something in terms of numbers of caps, in terms of tournaments. But I look at the likes of Lucy Bronze, Alex Greenwood, Keira Walsh, Georgia Stanway, Beth Mead – there’s still a lot of leaders in that team.
‘And I know being in the camp last time, how people took on the information that was given to us about Mary and Millie, there was no panic. It was a case of, “OK, these girls have made the decision. We need to carry on moving forward and we need to get ourselves in a position that we’re ready to go to the Euros”.’
Kirby, who made her international debut for England in August 2014, was speaking at an event hosted by leading ticketing marketplace viagogo.
After amassing 77 caps for the Lionesses over an 11-year period, Kirby decided to hang up her boots after she had been told by Sarina Wiegman that she was not going to make this summer’s squad – and opted against joining the standby squad.
Kirby described how England head coach Sarina Wiegman was ‘emotional’ to tell her after they had worked together for such a long period of time, adding: ‘She (Wiegman) really respected the way that I wanted to tell people and how I wanted to tell people.
‘She was great for me in that period, but I can imagine it was tough for her to tell me, and there were moments of emotion from both of us, which is normal.’
Kirby described how despite not knowing, she was ‘not surprised’ that Earps and Bright had chosen not to join up with the team.
‘Football has taught me to never be surprised, to be honest,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t say it was a surprise, I would just say it was a case of “OK, like they’ve made that decision and I respect it” because I was also in the same path.
‘So maybe another player would say differently, because if they’re going to their first tournament, or they’re doing X, Y and Z. And obviously I will never know the ins and outs of conversations that have been had, I only know about my own situation.
‘But I think when someone makes that decision, it’s for a reason. You don’t just wake up one day and go, “right, okay, that’s it I’ve had enough”. Obviously, Millie’s come out and spoken about her mental health, which I think is really brave to make that decision, to put that first.
‘Now she’s had the knee surgery as well to make sure that she’s ready for next year. Obviously Mary has her reasons. For me, I will just respect everything that they’ve done when they put on an England shirt.’
England play Jamaica in Leicester on Sunday in their final friendly before travelling to Switzerland to begin their Euros campaign against Group D rivals France next Saturday evening.
