Neville is in turmoil – he needs to be put out of Solskjaer’s misery
Known for forthright views is making a King Cnut of himself by refusing to admit his former team-mate must go
Gary Neville has made a TV career out of forthright views, being unafraid to say what he thinks, but has got himself locked into a story about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He will not criticise his pal overmuch, he will not call for him to get the sack. Something once admirable has become something absurd. The stubbornness that made him such a formidable opponent as a full-back, and in TV debates, now means that he cannot bring himself to say the obvious: Solskjaer must go.
It makes for very funny, squirming television.
On Sunday afternoon Neville managed to slate the tactics, the formation, the coaching of his hapless side, but danced on the head of a pin to avoid admitting that the manager was not up to it. Somebody needs to put Gary out of Ole’s misery.
Neville has enjoyed huge exposure and acclaim for his trenchant opposition to the European Super League in particular and the commodification of football in general. Demand for the Neville take on any footballing matter – breakaway leagues, ownership, Manchester United’s defence, Saudi Arabia and geopolitics – is so strong that Sky Sports has made his opinions a product in their own right.
The TV channel’s social media accounts clip up juicy or controversial viewpoints, particularly if Neville is in conflict with another reliable provocateur such as Graeme Souness or Roy Keane.
Neville has become less a former footballer who talks about football than a spectacle in his own right, a media commodity.
Few people should really be taken this seriously this often, it is not good for the self-image, for the sanity. Neville now inhabits the rare and dangerous stratosphere of the star, where anything he cares to sound off about is news. This is the former right-back equivalent of a
Few people should really be taken this seriously this often, it is not good for self-image, for sanity
pop diva wanting all the blue M&MS taken out of the packet, of a North Korean dictator shooting a 38-under-par 34. One notes with dismay that there have been recent instances of Gary Neville referring to Gary Neville in the third person. Manchester United is a club in crisis. Gary Neville is a club in crisis.
Take his take on Saudi Arabia: “There has been more of a light shone on Saudi Arabia’s human rights issues in the last months than in the last 10 years, through sport.” This is a classic bias: because you have just noticed something, you assume it is new, that everyone else is only this moment noticing it as well.
Also on the Saudis: “I would rather have them round the table, to challenge them.” But it’s not really about you, is it?
Or is it? Neville is on a psychologically challenging journey, because it must be very strange having people listen to you all the time: in an attention economy, he is a billionaire.
“I want to see a structured, organised performance and I want to see it next Saturday because I am going to White Hart Lane,” he said after the Liverpool match. It is like Solskjaer being rubbish at organising a midfield press is happening personally to Neville. He is going to watch the Spurs match, you know! Come on Ole, do it for Gary.
If your feelings about events are widely sought, naturally you then come to think that events are happening to some degree under your influence, that you can turn the tide through your words alone. Gary, sorry to say, is making a King Cnut of himself. And for Gary’s sake, Ole has to go.