Phil Neville deleted his Twitter account within hours of being named the new head coach of the England women’s team after controversial comments he posted in 2012 emerged.

The former Manchester United and Everton player was officially appointed as the successor to Mark Sampson by the Football Association. But the 41-year-old attracted criticism on social media for his tweets from six years ago.

“Morning men couple of hours cricket be4 work sets me up nicely for the day,” Neville wrote at the time.

When asked why he referred only to men in his post, Neville replied: “When I said morning men I thought the women would of been busy preparing breakfast/getting kids ready/making the beds-sorry morning women!”

The former England international last night deleted the post and then appeared to remove his Twitter account, @fizzer18, which was unavailable to users.