Gary Neville

Repeatedly crying about how shocked he is that Rashford was subbed, how it was a strange/bad decision (even though Rashford spent the half completely selling out his teammates out of possession) while claiming he was 'by far' our most dangerous player second half (a half where he broke down nearly every attack, slowed the play down and passed backwards when 1v1 with a full-back on a booking).

He's way too invested in the relationships he needs to maintain in order to get access to certain players. Completely incapable of calling things accurately.

This. I thought it was strange how he kept on waffling about Rashford being subbed out.
 
There may be other pretenders that crop up every now and then, but this still has the crown of weirdest thread on the caf for my money.
 
There may be other pretenders that crop up every now and then, but this still has the crown of weirdest thread on the caf for my money.

I hardly ever listen to his commentary, but from what I can read here, lot of people here are with the same opinion on him.
 
There may be other pretenders that crop up every now and then, but this still has the crown of weirdest thread on the caf for my money.

Ah cmon man it's blatantly obvious he's paranoid about coming across as biased so goes well over the top in the other direction.

It normally doesn't bother me but yesterday (especially when the Cash dive was called and he just responded "you can't blame him") he embarrassed himself.
 
He admitted that he doesn’t choose man of the match based on what he’s looking at but asks the production team to through him some stats.
He comes across as such a soulless robot at times
 
Ah cmon man it's blatantly obvious he's paranoid about coming across as biased so goes well over the top in the other direction.

It normally doesn't bother me but yesterday (especially when the Cash dive was called and he just responded "you can't blame him") he embarrassed himself.

I mean, you can't blame him - he wasn't getting the ball and dived, its what loads of other players would have done in that scenario and it worked. Thats on the ref for not seeing it.

I mean, someone in here complained about him giving Harry Maguire man of the match! Someone else called him a bellend 'cos he said Luiz was doing his dance for the home fans.. I mean, come on now...
 
I mean, you can't blame him - he wasn't getting the ball and dived, its what loads of other players would have done in that scenario and it worked. Thats on the ref for not seeing it.

I mean, someone in here complained about him giving Harry Maguire man of the match! Someone else called him a bellend 'cos he said Luiz was doing his dance for the home fans.. I mean, come on now...

Honestly do you think he says the same thing if a United player dives there? Not a chance.

What's wrong with just calling it as it is..."ref got that one wrong." What's he scared of?
 
Honestly do you think he says the same thing if a United player dives there? Not a chance.

What's wrong with just calling it as it is..."ref got that one wrong." What's he scared of?

Probably yeah? Or maybe not because he expets more/better from United players? Either way, its not a crazy -anti-united statment to state that a player is likely to go down in that scenario.

I can't remember what he said in full, but I'm pretty sure at no point did he say it was a booking. (Happy to be correct if wrong though)

Someone else said he sounded delighted by Villa's equalizer... How else would people want him to commentate on that goal? Cry?
 
He's awful, but I've recently started watching our games on mute / with arabic commentary and it's miles better.
 
I can see how people might judged some of Gary’s comments as going a bit far but I’ve no doubts he loves United more than is probably rational! I still think he wants to be as unbiased as possible and maybe struggles at times with this but maybe he just sees it as he does. I do think it’s based on his high expectations to a degree too.
 
Probably yeah? Or maybe not because he expets more/better from United players? Either way, its not a crazy -anti-united statment to state that a player is likely to go down in that scenario.

I can't remember what he said in full, but I'm pretty sure at no point did he say it was a booking. (Happy to be correct if wrong though)

Someone else said he sounded delighted by Villa's equalizer... How else would people want him to commentate on that goal? Cry?
He didn’t say he’s likely to go down, he said you couldn’t blame Cash for diving which is a ridiculous statement.
plus there’s an in between from sounding delighted to crying about their equaliser. Just compare him to Carragher commentating on Liverpool when they concede, nobody had a problem with Jamie so there’s no need to go so far the other way.
Alan Smith was basically pulling himself off commentating on West Ham v Arsenal earlier
 
He didn’t say he’s likely to go down, he said you couldn’t blame Cash for diving which is a ridiculous statement.
plus there’s an in between from sounding delighted to crying about their equaliser. Just compare him to Carragher commentating on Liverpool when they concede, nobody had a problem with Jamie so there’s no need to go so far the other way.
Alan Smith was basically pulling himself off commentating on West Ham v Arsenal earlier

I mean same thing isn't it? You can't really blame him for diving - he had kicked the ball too far and would have lost possession if he didn't chance it and take a dive.. and players dive literally all the time - and until Football/Refs/VAR actually give proper punishments/deterrents from doing so I would never blame a player for taking a dive. Hell we see players punished in instances where they don't take a dive!

"Well its been coming that goal for Aston Villa, he just helps it on into the back of the net, and gives that little jig in front of the Holt End" - Again, how is that anything but normal commentary?

And the funny thing about Carra is that Liverpool fans have this exact same discussion about him!
 
I mean same thing isn't it? You can't really blame him for diving - he had kicked the ball too far and would have lost possession if he didn't chance it and take a dive.. and players dive literally all the time - and until Football/Refs/VAR actually give proper punishments/deterrents from doing so I would never blame a player for taking a dive. Hell we see players punished in instances where they don't take a dive!
Fair enough if going forward we don't hear him having a go at players for diving or going down easily. Think we can safely guess that won't be the case though.
 
Fair enough if going forward we don't hear him having a go at players for diving or going down easily. Think we can safely guess that won't be the case though.

I don't think Neville ever really does to be fair? He seems to trot out the "gone down easily" line a lot.

Maybe for the more egrigous dives he does/will, but then I don't think the Cash one was overly egrigous (in that Casemiro was miles away from him) - he saw Casemiro coming across, knew they'd be close together and took a chance.
 
I mean same thing isn't it? You can't really blame him for diving - he had kicked the ball too far and would have lost possession if he didn't chance it and take a dive.. and players dive literally all the time.

"Well its been coming that goal for Aston Villa, he just helps it on into the back of the net, and gives that little jig in front of the Holt End" - Again, how is that anything but normal commentary?

And the funny thing about Carra is that Liverpool fans have this exact same discussion about him!
I dont think it’s the same thing at all. I don’t think diving without contact is excusable for anybody but when it’s so blatant it’s doubled so.
It’s not as if there’s slight contact and he goes down, it’s a blatant dive and I’ve never heard anybody say it’s ok to dive without contact or even that excuse of expecting contact to come.
But against United? Yeah, why not Gary.
I have a problem with Sky constantly using ex players to commentate on their teams for a long time now. Soccer Saturday doesn’t allow that to happen on their show because they know it’s come through as biased but the actual broadcast doesn’t fall under the same standards. Maybe that’s a different discussion but this is so avoidable. Say what you want about Gary but it must be so tiring to try and walk that line, especially when the channel he works for is constantly to trying to take lines to create United controversy .
 
I don't think Neville ever really does to be fair? He seems to trot out the "gone down easily" line a lot.

Maybe for the more egrigous dives he does/will, but then I don't think the Cash one was overly egrigous (in that Casemiro was miles away from him) - he saw Casemiro coming across, knew they'd be close together and took a chance.
Yea, he tends to use the "gone down easy" line, as most commentators tend to now. I suppose we will see now if other commentators follow him in absolving the diving party of blame going forward.

I found the Cash one more egregious than you did, just because a player is coming across to you shouldn't make it an opportunity to flop to the ground. But happy to agree to disagree on that.
 
I have noticed Neville's at pains to appear unbiased, I don't think that's even up for debate. I think it's understandable how he's got himself into a bit of a tangle, and I don't think it points to anything particularly egregious about his character. The worst thing about Sky/Talk/News Corp pundits generally is when they buy into the 'shock jock' tendency of saying controversial things and contriving arguments for clicks and views. Neville has become an absolute company man and that's on the whole more irritating to me than anything he says about United. But again it's understandable, he's there to do the job they've hired him to do.

There's an interesting broader discussion to be had about the different jobs in football, and the levels of partisanship therein. Neville and Carragher have managed to rein their love for their clubs in, to the extent that parts of those fanbases now actively hate them, whereas the likes of Paddy Crerand and Mike Summerbee would be or have been sickening to listen to on a matchday broadcaster like Sky or TNT and are only really at home on in-house channels like MUTV where they can pretty much be propagandists for their club.

He didn’t say he’s likely to go down, he said you couldn’t blame Cash for diving which is a ridiculous statement.
plus there’s an in between from sounding delighted to crying about their equaliser. Just compare him to Carragher commentating on Liverpool when they concede, nobody had a problem with Jamie so there’s no need to go so far the other way.
Alan Smith was basically pulling himself off commentating on West Ham v Arsenal earlier

:lol: But who wants to hear that? And plenty of scousers have precisely the same issue with Carragher.
 
Surely he knew we were dallying on the ball for tactical reasons? It's to draw them onto us and play through the spaces, but at that point in the game we were on the ropes a bit and needed to take the sting out of it.
 
Surely he knew we were dallying on the ball for tactical reasons? It's to draw them onto us and play through the spaces, but at that point in the game we were on the ropes a bit and needed to take the sting out of it.
And the best thing it worked. The game completely dived after that, it’s why think Villa made the changes. We were clearly baiting them out so Emery made the change to sit back a bit and let us have it until we brought the ball further forward
 
Last week he wanted our first goal disallowed for a potential offside 2 minutes before the goal. Every big social media outlet was milking that situation throughout the week, forming a narrative that we won because of the ref. Liverpool scored the exact same goal a couple of games ago and literally no one bat an eyelid.

This week he's focusing on the ref seemingly obstructing Luton players in the build up to the first goal. And now he's accusing Højlund of diving. He's a spiteful wanker.
 
I dont understand ohhhhhhing Casemiro not going for a tackle as if it was a close to being a red
Casemiro has hardly made a foul in this game
 
No matter what the score is, you will always think United are 2-0 down if you listen to his commentary.
 
There is no doubt that media and even officials take on board what Neville says when he says negative stuff about United and goes ‘Oooooooohh’.
He’s a top red so United must be punished if even Neville says so.
Stick up for your team more Gary, all ex Liverpool do it
 
Last week he wanted our first goal disallowed for a potential offside 2 minutes before the goal. Every big social media outlet was milking that situation throughout the week, forming a narrative that we won because of the ref. Liverpool scored the exact same goal a couple of games ago and literally no one bat an eyelid.

This week he's focusing on the ref seemingly obstructing Luton players in the build up to the first goal. And now he's accusing Højlund of diving. He's a spiteful wanker.

He literally didn't do either of these things.
 
Kept his mouth shut when Woodrow, on a booking, went in on Maguire.

But with Casemiro, he’s straight away saying he’s lucky, almost begging for the red card.

It’s really tiring.
 
How is Carragher encouraged to be a giddy Liverpool fan when he's on commentary but Neville has to be unnecessarily negative towards United?
 
Neville is extremely negative off his own back, I don’t think anyone’s telling him to hide his loyalties to Utd. Bizarre guy.

I'd say at least 75% of fans on here are negative about United, so it's not really that bizarre

After the goals (which he was very positive about by the way) there wasn't that much to be positive about in the first half anyway - second half he constantly said how we should have put the game to bed.
 
The way he was telling casemiro to stop complaining/looking bewildered after that pathetic first booking was a wind up Neville should take a back seat more on united games as his constant over magnifying things brings attention to our play constantly and all the abu's lap it up as some authority or a green light to show twenty replays at half time.