Phil Neville has a photograph in his office showing the heartache of defeat by USA in the World Cup semi-finals and the image is driving his “dream” to stay beyond his 2021 contract and lead England to the 2023 tournament.

“Coaching hasn’t given me that feeling before so to go to 2023 would be another dream,” the England manager said, quashing speculation over his long-term commitment. “This summer gave me everything and more that I wanted in my career.

“The players need to be excited and challenged. I’ve got to make sure after the Euros that my players are still listening to my messages, that they’re still challenged by me and that the FA look at me as the right person to take this team forward.

“It’s a two-way thing. My contract is up to 2021; at this time the FA are happy with the job I’m doing. I’ve fallen in love with the job and I don’t see any reason why it can’t continue.”

England play Belgium next Thursday and Norway the following Tuesday in their first friendlies since their World Cup exit in France. Neville, reflecting on the semi-final defeat by the world champions, said: “USA were the better team. We just fell a little bit short – that’s the realism and the honesty we need to accept. We could come back and say we were a toenail or a penalty from going through but really the feeling we all had was we were just a bit short. That is the pain and the frustration but also the challenge in front of us.”

Of the World Cup squad, the goalkeeper Karen Bardsley and the striker Ellen White will “probably be out for a couple of camps”, said Neville, delivering a blow to Manchester City fans eager for the pair to be fit for the start of the Women’s Super League season.

“We’re hoping, saying our prayers, they’re both going to be back for the Wembley game in November but we’re not going to take any risks,” Neville said.

He is also cautious about the potential returns of the long-term absentees Jordan Nobbs (ACL) and Izzy Christiansen (ankle). “Izzy is back in full training. She’s done pre-season with Lyon, we’ve been in contact with her, she knows she needs game time – she’s not played since the Japan game at the SheBelieves [in March]. She’s probably played a practice game and a couple of training games, so she needs to build up her match fitness,” he said.

“We’re going to take the long road with Jordan. We’re going to make sure we don’t rush her back. She’s a big player for us. Hopefully she’ll start the season for Arsenal. We’ve got to make sure we protect her that she gets her strength fitness and durability back.”

With Karen Carney having retired and Jill Scott being rested, the new Manchester City signing Aoife Mannion and Chelsea’s 2018-19 top scorer Beth England have been called into the fold for the first time. They are joined by two graduates from the under-20 squad who finished third in the World Cup last year.

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The Clemson University goalkeeper Sandy MacIver and the former Arsenal defender Anna Patten, who plays for the University of South Carolina, make the leap at the age of 21 and 20 respectively.

The difficulty, with a home Euros meaning automatic qualification for 2021, is finding top-level teams to face in friendlies. “I think come October when the qualifiers are over we’ll have more nations who will want to sample playing in England,” Neville said.

“It’s up until that point that we’re really struggling to find the top opposition. France, the Netherlands, they’re all in qualifying games, so it’s hard to sort these games.”

England secured qualification for Team GB at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by finishing in the top three European teams at the World Cup. Getting into the smaller squad, which will also likely include players from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, is a useful incentive for players.

“We can take only 18 players and we took 24 to the World Cup,” Neville said. “In our meeting on Monday we’ll be under no illusions that the bar is going to have to be raised by everybody, so that for me is a great carrot to dangle in front of them. It’s great we have the Olympics in the programme this year. If we didn’t I think it would have been a really difficult year.”