Gary Neville has again slammed the Premier League after they reveal that clubs have to assign a coach to supervise their close contact training.
The Premier League has moved to phase two of their restart plan which allows teams to start contact-training, but there are still restrictions to be followed as the teams prepare their players to be as match fit as possible before the games get underway.
He claimed that the plan for teams to monitor how their players make contact with each other didn’t make sense because football is a game that is played with instinct.
He used himself and some players as examples for players having different styles of play which come to them naturally as they play the game.
He talked about players like Jamie Redknapp not wanting contact, while he enjoyed being close to his opponents when he played for Manchester United.
Neville said as quoted in the Sun: “We saw Jadon Sancho over the weekend go and celebrate with his team-mates. A lot of football is around instinct.
“I would say it’s player by player. The way Jamie Redknapp used to play, he would always be looking for space, he didn’t want player contact because he was trying to move into space to receive the ball.
“Whereas I was constantly mauling my opponent, even off the ball. I wanted to know where he was all the time and my hands would be all over him.
“I would be touching him, elbowing him. I wanted that contact.
“If you were playing against a Michael Owen he wouldn’t want contact, he’d want to spin off your shoulder and play away from you.
“But if you were playing against Emile Heskey he would bump into you, he would shove into you, he’d grab you, he’d hold you.
“It depends on player by player, position by position. So the idea that you can have Covid coaches is a bit of a nonsense.
“We’ve seen the games in Germany in the last couple of weeks and defenders are still marking at corners very tightly.
“We’ve seen players trying to win space by putting their arms on people – that’s just football, it’s natural. I don’t get this.”
This guy is so tiresome, he has been wrong every single step of the way with his scaremongering and no doubt he will still be against Football returning in the year 2030.
He may very well be wrong about a lot of things, but I’d much rather listen to him than that utter disgrace – aka Jamie Carragher!
OT.. Not long until Der Klassiker!! 👍
Haaland, Sancho and Hazard (yes, the in-form one 😂) up against Gnabry, Lewandowski and, er….Muller 😳
Reckon a tight game or one side will run away with it?? Looking forward to it! Come on Dortmund..