A few years ago, Sky TV invited Dominic Calvert-Lewin onto their Monday night football show to help Gary Neville with his analysis of that night’s Everton game. Without their injured centre-forward to help them, Everton lost.
It was good television, but I subsequently suggested to Neville that, back then, Sir Alex Ferguson and the big beasts in the Manchester United dressing room would never have tolerated something like that. United’s injured players would have been expected to rest at home rather than remain in the television studios in their best designer clothes.
“Yeah, you’re right, it wouldn’t have happened,” Neville said. But that was fifteen years ago. Times change.’
Maybe I was right, but I wasn’t sure then and I’m not sure now. However, one thing that does not change in football is the sanctity and privacy of the locker room. Neville was perhaps the fiercest protector of that during his playing days that I have ever met. He did what he thought was right for his team and his club and to hell with everyone else. It might have been annoying to someone like me at the time, but now that we’ve gone a few years, there’s something understandable about all of this.
This is one of the reasons why it was interesting to hear Neville claim with apparent confidence on Sky last weekend that Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had a personal problem with his midfielder Kevin de Bruyne. “There’s definitely something going on in the locker room,” Neville said.
Jamie Carragher was also part of that conversation, while Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards also discussed the topic on the Rest is Football podcast. “It seems to me there’s some kind of rift,” Richards said.
Gary Neville suggested Pep Guardiola had fallen out with Kevin De Bruyne after the Belgian was left out of Manchester City’s starting XI against Liverpool.
De Bruyne has returned to the starting lineup after a series of serious injuries.
A football coach can suffer many humiliations, setbacks and disappointments. Bad results, bad decisions, imperfect expressions and behaviors. But once he starts fighting with his big players, his problems take on a completely different dimension. Very often it is the first step on the way to the door.
It is no surprise, then, that Guardiola refuted Neville’s comments as quickly as possible. The city was upset. Something like that couldn’t be allowed to take root in the truth. De Bruyne also addressed the issue after City finally won a football match against Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.
“I don’t know where people get this question from,” said the Belgian. “There has never been one between Pep and me.”
Once upon a time, journalists and TV companies used to get kicked out of United for things like this. It happened to me. Fortunately, we’ve all grown up a little since then, but the responsibility of journalists to get things right remains the same and that extends to the former players who sit in the television studios before and after games.
Neville has been part of advancing standards at Sky over the last decade, which has seen television coverage of national sport break new ground. He remains the most listenable and watchable expert in the country.
But here he has walked on the wrong side of the line and others have followed him relentlessly. Strong opinion, knowledge and analysis are one thing, but when that is fused and muddled into assumed fact, it is something else entirely.
For all that illegal streams and YouTube clips have done to its audience, Sky’s direct and indirect reach remains enormous. In some ways, players like Neville, Carragher and Roy Keane are as much a part of the Premier League landscape now as they were when they played. The things they say go around the world in an instant.
And Sky’s relationship with the top 20 clubs is key to much of this. Sky pays a portion of the money that partly underpins our game and, in return, demands access to players and coaches who allow their own financial wheels to turn.
The former Premier League stars are as much a part of the league’s landscape as they were during their playing days.
Returning to Neville once again, he recently criticized Marcus Rashford’s decision to spend some time in the United States on his own Stick to Football podcast. Then, when Sky chose him as their man to interview new United manager Ruben Amorim for the first time upon his arrival at Old Trafford, he was able to follow up and ask him about it. And so the news cycle changes.
Neville thinks of his experts and hopefully others do too. To this day he remains uncomfortable about something he once said about former Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius. “I went too far,” he said.
As for De Bruyne and the state of his relationship with his coach, he may also have to pause for thought. One thing is certain. If something similar had happened across the city a decade or so ago, we would all have been choked with red fog for weeks.
Mo Salah no longer needs to remind us
Watching Mo Salah score twice and hit another shot off the post after one of those unfathomable runs at Newcastle on Wednesday was a reminder of his value to Liverpool.
And its value is really obvious. It couldn’t be more obvious if you were taking it around Merseyside on one of those old sandwich boards.
So you don’t need to remind us anymore. Salah has made his point clear three times in interviews after games this season. Once at Manchester United, once at Southampton and once at Anfield after last Sunday’s victory over Manchester City.
It’s been great for TV stations, websites and newspapers. Great quotes never get old. But how much does Salah’s constant comments about his contractual frustrations benefit Liverpool? How much does this help your new coach, Arne Slot, in his bid to win a league title in his first season? How much are you helping your teammates?
Even as Salah continues to drive Liverpool forward on the pitch, his sudden and not casual fondness for media interviews may yet reach a point where he starts to do the opposite.
In every disagreement there are two sides. If Liverpool feel provoked by Salah’s persistent push to give up theirs, then we will have a small war on our hands. And that could blow up in everyone’s faces. Chelsea and Arsenal can only watch and hope.
Mo Salah continued his magnificent run with a brace and an assist in Liverpool’s 3-3 draw against Newcastle on Wednesday night.
The winner stays in the London stadium
West Ham’s home game against Wolves on Monday has a “lose and you’re sacked” feel to it and having seen the latter lose to Everton on Wednesday, I fear for Gary O’Neill.
Julen Lopetegui’s job at West Ham hangs in the balance after his side lost 3-1 to newly promoted Leicester on Tuesday night.
Gary O’Neil could also be sacked imminently after his Wolves team dropped to 19th place following a 4-0 defeat to Everton.
The statistics suggest that your Wolves team cannot defend: they have conceded six more than Southampton!! – and now I have seen it with my own eyes.
As for Julen Lopetegui at West Ham, the situation seems more nuanced. In the 3-1 loss to Leicester on Monday, they took 31 shots, but the guy they brought in to score goals in the summer has just returned from injury.
West Ham paid £27m to sign Niclas Fullkrug from Borussia Dortmund. He is a German international who played in the Champions League final last season. He is also a traditional nine, a target man, which suggests that Lopetegui has a certain way of playing in mind.
Injuries mean Fullkrug has only played 74 minutes in the league so far. But now he is fit. So surely we should see how all that plays out before rushing Lopetegui out the door?