Lianne Sanderson reveals she received abusive messages as new season began

Retired England forward Lianne Sanderson has revealed she received abusive messages following the start of the new Premier League season.

Sanderson, who won 50 caps for the Lionesses before turning to punditry, took to Twitter to express her frustration.

She wrote: “I spoke to [sic] soon. I said the abuse had calmed down. But the football season must be back because it only took a day to be called a token gesture, for people to bring up race and speaking about my culture.

“You don’t have to agree with me by all means. It’s an opinion. Some are gross.

“I do [love] social media and interacting but now I understand why people become robots on here. When I realise all people want to sometimes do is get a reaction from you. Then delete their tweets.”

Sanderson was also the target of abuse during lockdown, writing on Instagram last April: “Some days the trolls affect you more than others. It’s easy for some to say just ignore them. But why should we have to? You can’t unsee things and more needs to be done to stop people being able to be so nasty.”