Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Valencia have announced the sacking of Gary Neville today with the former Manchester United player only lasting less than 4 months in the position.
It was always felt that Neville wasn’t going to stay on any later than the end of the season but the decision has certainly been made for him now as news broke of the sacking earlier Today.
It hasn’t been a particularly memorable foray into club management for Neville who took the position back in December as primarily a favour to owner Peter Lim. Lim who also part owns English Non-League Club Salford City looked to Neville as a stop gap until the end of the season after the resignation of Nuno Espirito Santo but it seems as if they stop gap hasn’t done what was required with Neville being shown The Mestalla exit door.
It will be interesting to see the status of Phil Neville. Phil the younger of the two Neville Brothers was bought in previous to Gary’s appointment to work as Assistant to Espirito Santo. Phil then continued to stay on in that role once Gary took the managerial reigns, so has Gary’s sacking also spelled the end of his Brother’s Valencia employment. This hasn’t been clarified but I would imagine the situation doesn’t look too promising for him.
Valencia currently find themselves 14th in La Liga and only 6 points clear of the drop zone. With Neville only winning 3 of the 16 league games that he was in charge for it was felt by Peter Lim that although the season was all but a write off anyway they can’t afford to take anymore chances as the slide down the table continues.
Much will be said of Neville’s reign of Valencia, it will ultimately be deemed a failure as to be honest how can you rate it as anything else. Yes he took a punt and taking a top managerial post in a foreign country but was it too big of a leap too soon
Questions will be asked as to whether this will damage his future managerial credentials. Will he even have the appetite to try management again. I think for now he will probably look for the safety of the Sky Studios who will no doubt be delighted at his return.
Does this damage his stock in terms of potentially being the next England Manager. I don’t think you can say he is top of a small list of possible candidates but it’s quite apparent that the F.A. still have a high perception of him
It does enforce another point though which is, for Gary Neville to give it out week in and week out it’s obviously far easier to criticise while using the touchscreens then it is actually coaching players from the touchline.
