Wilshere swearing on the bus was the best thing I’ve seen in years!
GARY NEVILLE IN HIS MOST REVEALING INTERVIEW
GARY NEVILLE is a man of many talents: musician, hotelier, England coach and football pundit.
The 40-year-old former right back was interviewed by Sport magazine a few days after he accompanied The Charlatans on guitar at a gig on the rooftop five-a-side pitch of a hotel he co- owns with other members of Manchester United’s all-conquering Class of ’92.
You’ve picked Kevin Keegan’s meltdown as one of your three biggest Premier League moments. Does coverage of the game focus more on characters now than it used to?
Football has always been about characters. If you think back to Brian Clough and Bill Shankly, and all those great characters and managers, I don’t think it’s just been since the Premier League. What happens now is that the big moments are always captured, so there is no escape for any player on the pitch doing anything; there is no escape after the game for managers.
Is there too much scrutiny on players now? Take Jack Wilshere being fined for swearing on Arsenal’s FA Cup trophy parade…
When Jack Wilshere swore on a bus ride, I actually thought it was one of the best things I’ve seen from a football player in the past five or 10 years. If I was a manager of players that all had that passion . . . all right, they’d obviously been out the night before. But the reality of it is we cry out for players to have passion and yet we are quite critical of them when they display passion.
You were no stranger to that kind of passion.
There were moments in my career where I . . . overstepped the mark. I actually challenged every FA charge I had, so that’s the difference. Jack apologised and took the punishment!
Do you think Raheem Sterling is worth £50million?
If you asked me, “Is any player worth £50m?” I’d say no. But the reality of it is every player is worth what someone is willing to pay. Do you think your fillet steak is worth 25 quid when you go to a restaurant in London? No! I can get one for five quid in a supermarket! Is anything worth anything? The whole world has gone mad, but people never complain about motor racing or baseball or basketball, tennis, golf. But football, maybe because it’s seen as a working-class sport…
Has money been the biggest change in the past 20 years?
No. It’s a big change, but other changes are as big: sport science, fitness, the increased presence of agents, the changing of the way players learn and how managers have to approach them, boots, the science behind football kits . . .
Would you support more technology to help referees?
I would be in favour of more. I like the idea of a challenge rule. Not every decision, but a captain being able to challenge — it would have to be the captain, because the manager could have a member of staff in the stands coming down to him. I like tennis, I like cricket (where players can ask for a television review) — I think it works, it adds drama and I like the idea of adding a bit more drama.
What are the tactical trends of recent years?
We’ve seen a lot of teams trying different systems, all the time. The biggest trend in the Premier League is a lot of clubs copying Barcelona by splitting their centre backs to a ludicrous degree — five yards off the touchline. I’m watching players who can’t pass it five yards dropping five yards off the touchline and thinking they can play it out from the back, with goalkeepers who aren’t capable. When you have Marc-Andre Ter Stegen in goal, or Victor Valdes, with Gerard Pique and Javier Mascherano and Sergio Busquets, I get it. But you do it with some of the players I’ve watched do it and it’s an absolute nonsense. That’s my little dig.
Has that contributed to higher scorelines?
Managers, players, coaches, teams and fans all want more risk, and I genuinely believe that the standard of Premier League defending in the past three or four years has been reflected through the performances of our teams in Europe.
This is not just an old defender who’s retired, whinging. We have a massive problem at the moment with our game — it’s a different level in some European teams than at Premier League level. But we’re going through a really poor period.
That’s coming out of quite a defensive era, probably kick-started by Jose Mourinho . . .
And Rafa Benitez. The reality of it is, if you don’t defend well you’re going to find it very difficult to win the European Cup. I think Jose Mourinho is starting to bring it back, to a level. Him being in the league is a big positive and Louis van Gaal being in the league is a big positive because they’ll push each other.
Your biggest Premier League moments?
Steve Bruce’s header (in added time, giving Manchester United a crucial win in the 1993 title run-in) against Sheffield Wednesday — that will live in my memory forever because that’s the year United won the league for the first time in 26 years, and it was the first Premier League season.
I think of that Kevin Keegan interview in 1996 as being the beginning of mind games — manager versus manager. That was a huge moment for Sky, for television, for football.
Then I would say the Sergio Aguero goal, last minute at the Etihad (to beat QPR to claim Manchester City’s first Premier League title, in 2012). Horrific moment for me. I was at the Etihad, standing at the window with about 5,000 City fans to my right screaming, veins popping out of their necks, jumping on top of each other. It went from the best place in the world d to be, with United d winning thee league, to possi- bly the worst.
Those three moments are the ones that stand out — one good one, one dramatic one, and the third one was traumatic.