Man Utd lack 'energy, spirit and effort' in Fulham draw as Neville slams 'worst 15 mins in 40 years!'
The Gary Neville Podcast
Gary Neville provides a scathing critique of Manchester United's lethargic 1-1 draw against Fulham, specifically targeting a fifteen-minute period of
Key takeaways
- Gary Neville described the start of the second half in the Fulham vs Manchester United match as 'an absolute disgrace.'
- Manchester United players were criticized for a lack of running and alertness, with Neville noting they were outrun by Fulham.
Main topics
- Manchester United vs Fulham analysis
- Brighton's tactical resilience
Notable quotes
I've never seen a team in deep defence walking as much in my life.
Conclusion
The episode serves as a passionate commentary on the necessity of effo
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello everybody, it's a beautiful bright evening in West London. Craven Cottage is gradually emptying beneath us as we bring you another Gary Neville podcast. Off the back of a game here which finished Fulham 1, Manchester United 1. Manchester United were within a couple of minutes of what may have been a pretty grim defeat. They got away with it Gary and there were times in that game sitting next to you when you were getting a little bit angry. Speaker 1 (0:26) Yeah, I'm actually angry with both teams. I think if both... sets of fans, if both managers, both sets of players watch that game back, I've never seen a team in deep defence walking as much in my life. And both of them. And you can't walk on a football pitch. I'm sorry. That's why I sort of got angry 15 minutes into the second half because I'm not going to watch a group of players walk around. Particularly not in that shirt, I'm not. And... I actually think at times I understand confidence, I understand belief, I understand that things maybe aren't going well and it's been a difficult week, but you can run. And they weren't running, I'm sorry. My eyes weren't sort of kidding me. In possession, started to look a little bit bright, but then we're really awful in possession in the first 15, 20 minutes of the second half. But as a football player... You're alert, you're on your toes, you're always thinking, your head's moving, the body language is sort of being in defence and you can be deep. I love defences being deep, I love teams being deep and compact and closing it up and then sort of going on the counter-attack. And that we've seen many, many times. But what you ordinarily see is teams shuffling across when the ball gets passed back for them, you shift up two or three yards, you see that alertness, you see the centre-backs talking to each other. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. And you watched that 15 minutes back at the start of that second half was an absolute disgrace. I don't usually get this angry, but my eyes are not kidding me. My eyes are not kidding me. And then the stats come in that Manchester United have been outrun by 6k, 60 minutes in or 65 minutes in. Speaker 1 (2:03) I think I've softened in the last 15 years since I've left Manchester United. Sometimes you can some depress your standards and I'm all for the fact that, you know, quite early into Michael Carrick's managerial career and coaching career, but that they will cause him a big problem if they carry on doing that. They will cause him a big problem if they carry on doing that. Speaker 1 (2:26) Because it was so easy to play against. Fulham had a chance in the first part of the game where they had 46 passes. I don't know how many times Fulham have kept the ball today, more than 10 passes. It felt like so many times. So if you're going to let the other team continually keep passing, this is a team at the bottom of the league. This is not Manchester City. This is not Arsenal. This is not Real Madrid or Barcelona or a big Champions League game where you're up against it and you sort of, what would be compact, you're 30 % possession. This is Fulham away and Fulham, to be fair, decent on the ball. But really? Honestly, the game 15 minutes into the second half was a shocker for both teams. They were both walking around. I said they were like mannequins. And like I say, alertness, energy, enthusiasm, work ethic, everything. in your life, everything in your life. If you don't have that, you're finished. Nearly said something else then. You're done, absolutely done. If you don't have energy, enthusiasm and the spirit to sort of go and make it difficult for people. I'm not saying that you have to sort of be amazing at football, but there are basics that you have to get right. And for 15 minutes, I think what we saw out there, didn't only let down both teams and both sets of fans, the fans weren't engaged. I mean, Manchester United fans, I think, started to try and get the team going. They're an amazing away sport and the best you'll ever see. And even they were struggling with it a little bit. Sort of like the lethargy just everywhere. And that is just not right. And I think it was zero shots. Zero shots, zero goals, zero touches in the box after 15, 20 minutes. 15 minutes in the second Speaker 2 (4:05) half, Speaker 1 (4:05) yeah. Speaker 2 (4:05) Nothing. Nothing. And Speaker 1 (4:06) you can't play football like that. That's the opposite of football. And I'm not saying that basically, if it was brilliant defending, you were seeing teams urgently getting to people. But yeah, it made me really angry that. And then when Fulham scored, I mean, the goal was an embarrassing goal, really. Speaker 1 (4:21) But that can happen. But it sort of typified the game. It actually livened up a little bit after that. But both these teams are going to have big problems. Big, big problems if they carry on defending like that. They can see chances. They're easy to play against. They don't work hard. They don't run as hard as they should do. Fulham were better than United in the running department. But yeah, I'm not withdrawing my statement. I think that was as bad a 15 minutes as I've seen in 40-odd years. Speaker 1 (4:51) Lack of anything. There wasn't anything. Nothing. No fight, there wasn't a tackle, there wasn't a booking. There wasn't anything. There was nothing that you could say. And Michael Carrick must have gone in at half-time and said, lads, we need more urgency. That must have been the message. We've got to get up the pitch quicker. We've got to shift up quicker. We've got to be more aggressive in our defending. We've got to make sure we try and win the ball back quicker off Fulham. That must have been the message at half-time and obviously then be ruthless with the finishes because we have created some chances. And I suspect Arbeloa was saying something similar. Because they were like mannequins out there on the pitch. But yeah, I just didn't think that was representative of a Premier League game at all that today. I thought it was a bizarre match. Strange. It then sort of spilled over into the crowd because the crowd, to be fair, buzzed off the actual energy of the players and the crowd tried to get the game going. But yeah, really poor quality. Two teams coming into the game with struggles and question marks and scrutiny. So I get that. But you've got to work your way out of it and I didn't see that today. So at the end, 1-1 is probably a fair result. I mean, all hell would have broken loose, I think, around United if they'd have lost that game 1-0. I think the Cunha goal at the end, which is deflection, both goals a little bit scruffy and fortunate either way, has probably meant that going into the international break, there will be questions, but there'll be an element of neutrality and let's just see what happens after. But it's a good time for the international break to come, I think. for those Manchester United players to get away, different environment for Michael Carrick to reset, look at what they can do, you know, basically, because that's his best team out on the pitch. Maybe Beliba would come in, some would argue, Sesco over Cunha, maybe, but that's Michael Carrick's best team, and that's the team he's been picking. Speaker 1 (6:38) And yeah, it is what it is. How do you, trying to Speaker 2 (6:42) be positive and put a kind of spin on it, how, if it's going to be a line in the sand game, because we've got this big break now and maybe in your words that it's perhaps as poor as it can get, how, when they all return from their various places around the world, how do you, how will he go about turning that into a line in the sand game and as it were, kicking on and going again? Speaker 1 (7:06) Well, Look, it's been a difficult start to the season, hasn't it? And every game has been slightly different in some ways. You know, the Everton game