I feel sorry for Gary Neville. He’s passionate, articulate,
clearly a forward thinking bloke. Maybe the ideal football management candidate
of all the ex-pro pundits that grace our television screens every week. It’s
not working for him though. No wins in the league (I think they lost to
Sporting Heehaw* on Saturday); then there was that result in midweek.
That’s when all the haters came out. The knives were
sharpened, the funny memes were photoshopped. As were the not so funny ones,
you know the Kermit the Frog drinking the iced tea, Kevin Hart and Bill Cosby
pulling faces. They were all out.
The justification for it all? Well it was the notion that,
as per my favourite quote/song of the moment, Gary Neville is guilty of
“Chatting sh*t”. And those that “Chat sh*t” as we know, “Get banged” or memed!
And this is why I feel sorry for Neville. Firstly he has
never “Chatted sh*t”. Well not in my opinion anyway. Like I said before, he has
been refreshingly articulate, honest and erudite in his analysis on Sky Sports,
and is a far cry from some of the other dross that we’ve had to endure over the
years.
Secondly, I’m not sure who’s been following what at
Valencia, but they’re in a bit of a mess this year. There’s a reason why there
was an open position at Valencia in the first place. Why Valencia a club only
behind Real, Barca, Atleti and Athletic Club in terms of success, the Spanish
equivalent of Aston Villa in terms of history (and don’t be fooled by their
recent displays Villa have a great history) have appointed an Englishman, with
no previous managerial experience, the manage their team. The club is a joke at
the moment!
I mean I’m not even sure Neville speaks Spanish, for my own
amusement in my head he doesn’t. In my head he a Phil roam Valencia speaking
really sloooooowly but loudly in their Mancunian accents trying to get the
locals to understand what they want. Searching for a place where they can get a
beer, eat some good old English food (none of that “foreign stuff”), watch the
football (Premier League of course) and maybe do a bit of Karaoke in the
evening. You know, the sort of place that has pictures of the food on a sign
outside. And a menu in 4 different languages. And of course they’re doing all
of this whilst incredibly sunburnt.
Anyway I massively digress. The point is, Valencia are a
mess and have been a mess for a while now, before Neville came along. And this
was Barca, not Stoke. They didn’t just get outfought or outthought in a tough midweek
battle at the Britannia they got ripped to shreds by the best players that 3 of
the 4 best nations in South America have to offer. By what could be argued to
be the 3 best players in the world. It’s not like Barca have never done this to
anyone before, it happens. It happened to Roma a couple of months ago. Madrid
were shown up at home in El Classico. So what I’m saying is. Is Neville that
bad, we don’t know. We won’t know until he manages a team that’s not in
turmoil. Until he has a go in a country where he can speak the language
fluently. If he takes a good side or a side with potential and makes them worse/doesn’t
perform. Then yes he’s probably not a good manager.
For now, leave him alone. Stop banging him for “chatting
sh*t”. And PLEASE stop posting that Sky Sports pic with that quote, it’s been
proven he didn’t actually say that!
*I KNOW IT’S NOT SPELT “HEEHAW”!!!
