Man Utd lack 'energy, spirit and effort' in Fulham draw as Neville slams 'worst 15 mins in 40 years!'

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Craven Cottage is gradually emptying beneath us, as we bring you another Gary Neville podcast. Off the back of the game here, which finished a full-on-one Manchester United one, 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. Yeah, that's angry. 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, I. 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. 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, it started to look a little bit bright, but then we're really awful in possession in the first 15, 20 minutes to the second half. But as a football player, you're on your toes. You're always thinking you're your head's moving. You sort of the body language is sort of being in defence. And you can be deep. I love defence is being deep. I love teams being deep and compact and you know, 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 full. You shift up to a three yard. You see that alertness. You see the centre backs talking to each other. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. And you watch that 15 minutes back at the start. That second half was an absolute disgrace. I don't usually get this angry. But my eyes not kidding me. My eyes are not kidding me. You know, people. And then the stats come in that Manchester United have been outrun by 60 minutes in or 65 minutes in. So, I think I've softened in the last 15 years since I've left Manchester United. And sometimes you can some deep, deep precious 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. Because it was so easy to play against. Full amount of chance in the first part of the game where they had 46 passes. I don't know how many times full of them 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 the 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 want to be compact, you're 30% possession. This is full of my way and full of them to be fair decent on the ball. But really? Honestly, the game, 15 minutes into the second half, was a shock of a ball teams. They were both walking around. I said they were like mannequins. And like I say, alertness, energy, enthusiasm, work ethic, that everything in your life, everything in your life. If you don't have that, you're finished. Then they said something else then. You've 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 were in amazing a way to put on the best you'll ever see. And even they were struggling with it a little bit. Sort of like the. 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 to the second half, yeah. Nothing, nothing. And you can't play football like that. That's the opposite of football. I'm not saying that basically. If it was brilliant defending, you've seen 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. But that can happen. But it was sort of typified the game. It actually livened up a little bit after that. But, you know, both these teams are going to have big problems. Big, big problems. If they carry on defending like that. They can see chances that easy to play against. They don't work hard. They don't run as hard as they should do. Fulham were better than the 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. Just the lack of anything. There wasn't anything. Nothing. No fight. There was a tackle. There was a booking. There was nothing that you could say. And Michael Carrick must have gone in at half time. He said, "Ladies, we need more urgency." That must have been the message. You know, 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, they'll be ruthless with the finishes. Because we have created some chances. And I suspect our blow 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, buzz 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, one was probably a fair result. I mean, all hell would have broken loose. I think around United, if they'd lost that game one day. I think the couldn't you go at the end, which is deflection. Both goals are a little bit scruffy and fortunate either way. I was 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 you know, it's 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 with, you know, basically. Because that's his best team out on the pitch. Maybe believe it would come in. Some would argue, Sesh, go over, couldn't you. Maybe that's Michael Carrick's best team. And that's the one that's the team he's been picking. And yeah, it is what it is. How do you, but trying to 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 do you, how will he go about turning that into a line in the sand game and, and as it were, kicking on and going again? 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 was not managing the game late on when they were in front. The managed to sit a game is not managing the game when you're chasing a goal. Or, you know, when you get against ten men. So there's a different circumstance in that match and they didn't handle it particularly well. Accepting that they should have drawn the game because they get the goal shouldn't have stood. The Brighton game in midweek, outplayed in every department. Just brightened head and shoulders above Manchester United. A whole out for because I think the whole were a bit more gritty, a bit more determined, a bit more aggressive. So in every single game, there's been a different problem really. Even hip switch, a chance is to score in the first half. So there's a lot to look at in all. There's not a pattern that I see. And today, I don't know what I've seen today. I have to say what I've seen today is a mixture of not good enough quality in the final third. Walking around the pitch, defensively, no urgency whatsoever. No enthusiasm to make it difficult for Fulham to play. Fulham must have had a million passes in that match. You know, it's funny, difficult at all. And yeah, he's got to try and find the balance. I think there is a question about the physicality of the team. And maybe believe is definitely going to come in after the international break. He's got three weeks, which will be three weeks of work in his legs. And he's going to have to come in because they need more force out there. They need more power, they need more aggression. They're too nice, too easy to play against. There's not enough players who think about playing without the ball. And a lot of them are playing with the ball and they want to get on it and sort of look good. That's fine because you want players who can light up a game at all traffic and in a red shirt or a blue shirt as it was today, but you've got to do the dirty bit, the ugly bit, the horrible bit of the game and you need players who are going to dig in and fight for you and scrap for you and you need the balance and that team's not got the balance. And I think that maybe, maybe, did they have to go to a 4-3-3? You know, you think about Rashford's on the left, you've got Embermo on the right, you've got Cun you're up top and then you've got Bruno, so you've got four players. Are any of them really good defensively? And I'm talking about putting a real shifting, no. You think that Telemann's a main enemy midfield or I think you're a little bit one paced? So is there a case here for playing Belieber here? You know, and having come in main you and Bruno in front as a 2 and having a 3 in midfield and maybe then you just play the 3 up top, whoever that 3 would be. Rashford, Ahmad Embermo, Cesco, Cun you, you could pick any 3 of those, but maybe, does he think about just slightly changing it to get a bit more something here, because they're too easy to play against Manchinari, they're going to concede goals every single week. Fulham could have scored 4-5 in Manchinari, he could have well, but if we talk about the defensive side of things, Manchinari could have conceded 4-5 in that game and better teams will just pull them apart. So there's a lot to think about for Michael Carrick, but I think what he's going to have to do is rebalance the 11, and I think the 4-2-3-1 currently, which I'd love to think we could play that way, because that's the way I like Manchinari to play, but we're too open. The 2-Y players are too wide, which means the 2 in midfield get exposed. If Bruno doesn't get back in, you've got a 4-2-4 effectively, and then you've got problems, particularly with Manu and Taylormans, who haven't got the legs to get across. So you might try it with Belieber and Manu and see how that goes, but eventually I think he'll have to go to the 3 more solid in midfield we're playing. I think in IT play, it's athletic home Madrid, don't, they play in Tottenham, play against me. Blood leads away. I think just getting a bit more physicality and experience in that team is going to be an necessity, and maybe going to a not 4-5-1, but 4-5-1 defending, and then 4-3-3 attacking, and you may have to consider that. You could argue it's 4-3-3 with Bruno in front, but I think people will know what I mean. Bruno just coming back a little bit and having the 3 there, and then the 2-Y players connect, so you've got a 5 in midfield when you're defending rather than a 4, and it's not really a 4 because Bruno and Rashford don't tuck in narrow, they don't do what Beckham and Giggs used to do, they just don't put the work in that them 2 used to do. I mean them 2 are better players and used to run back and get tucked in and double up everything that you would want. You know, I have to say Rashford and Bruno are different players as well, the more centre 4-1 would wingers than midfield or wingers, do you understand what I mean? Different type of wingers in the day, so yeah, there's a big re-think, it's the right time for a break. Michael Carrick will need to break mentally, I think just to be able to come away from things, just to have a, you know, come away from it, assess the games, sit down with his coaching team, he's been left short in defence, but he's got that now, and you know, he should have had other options in defence in positions, but he hasn't. So there's always going to be an issue there, Laman's made some good saves today. I think that now he's going to have to think about how he protects that defence and gets some more solid structure throughout the whole of the team, and I don't think it will be the system that we've currently got, or it will be the players that are currently playing in that system. It's going to have to be slightly different, and else they'll get beat a lot because teams now are organised, they're analysing the opposition with a meticulous level of detail, they work out your weaknesses, and they punish them. So yeah, he's going to have to, I think, interfere, he's going to have to interfere and do something slightly different, and he's obviously getting interviewed now. And I think, look, he'll be, what I would say about the positives, you said, Peter, didn't you? Yep. That they got something out of the game. You know that counts for something, you get something out of the game, you get a point, you don't lose the match, that does change in shift, thinking a little bit, because if it was one nil now, you know, I'm going in even harder, because it just was really bad that it was, it wasn't good, it really wasn't a good performance. And maybe in a few days time, you can put that down to lack of belief, the difficult week, the scrutiny, it's on the club, just generally things haven't been right at the start of the season, the ball not going their way with obviously the decision against City, just those things, and maybe there's some feeling sorry for themselves a little bit, and that's maybe in kind, but it doesn't excuse that first 15 minutes after the second half, I'm not letting them get away with that, because that will get a manager in massive trouble that will. It's a summarised full in a sentence or two, notwithstanding what you said about Manchester United, they did pass nicely, they've got some nice ball players, and interestingly they're the next three games after the international break, are the three promoted sides, they play Ipswich whole Coventry all in a row, so in that context, how do you read their situation? The moment of reckoning really for them isn't it, you know, they've had a start of the season where they played Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, they had a bad defeat here, didn't they against Crystal Palace? Yes, three, two, yeah, so I'm worried about full of them, I said after the first game of the season, I've seen a bit here today, use the word nicely and nice, I mean I never will be described as nicely and nice, but it's the last thing I would want to be described as a football player or as a football team, they play nice football, you're inherently just instinctively criticising them Peter, whether you like it or not, you know what I mean, because it is nice and they pass back to the goalkeeper and they're trying to start everything from deep, I just feel like that will cause them a problem if I was whole, I mean I know they call the tigers, but I would be literally like tigers, I'd be like aggressive, I'd be like animals waiting for them, and Manchester United today should have seen that full of them team in that first 20 minutes, they should have been like, there's none of that, you go, I think you do that against them, I think you'll get some joy, so I do fear for full of them, I think that the young players up front are talented, Oscar Bob, Josh King, Garcia, then the boy that came on Placios, they're talented, it will be does a good job, but he's not going to get them the goals, I'm not sure, and are they going to have enough at the back and are they going to concede goals, are they going to have teams that press against them better than Manchester United, 100%, so I think that whole Coventry Ipswich, they're big games for them, and I'm hoping they're competitive in those games, you see Abel always face at the end, couldn't you win, Walmart was a big moment for him to go to four points, wasn't it, particularly after Coventry winning last night, obviously Hulland Ipswich of one game, so that was a bad one for him at the end and he'll be devastated, but yeah, they've got a big chance, if they can get six points, five points, minimum out of those games, then he say okay, they've got a chance, but they need to win definitely, need to win one or two of them, don't they, I think really, and I also will be saying that Fulham will be in big, big trouble, and I think they are in trouble. There's two other headline games we want to cover in this week's edition of your podcast Gary and obviously the first of those is the Champions getting a whack down at Brighton. Well a proper whack, I watched Brighton play at Manchester United in midweek, I mean what team they are, they lose managers, they lose players, they replace them with players that you've sort of not heard of, you've got to check any sort of team sheet, who's that, I've seen him before, and then all of a sudden they're just playing, they have this system of playing it, and it actually sort of defies logic, because what we sometimes say don't worry when lots of the managers at the top clubs have changed this summer or in the last few months, and we say well they need time to embed a system, they need time to be able to, but Brighton seems to be able to continually do that, lose their best players, lose their culture, obviously who it's been there a bit now, and then just continually keep replenishing and playing great football and looking like they know what they're doing, and have a system of play, and a belief and a work ethic, and by goodness they give Arsenal a bloody nose, I mean it's very rare you see Arsenal, I've only seen the highlights, because the game wasn't on television, and very rare you see Arsenal with that level of space in front of the back four, the back four not pushing up and getting close to shots, Riot not saving them from distance, we've seen Leno and Lamens, they made good saves from distance, but the second one was a great hit wasn't they, but you just expect that Riot will save shots from distance, and there's an element of that Arsenal back four that we're thinking we're all in situ almost, we'll just let him shoot, that's the best thing we can do, and to score two from distance and then obviously can see the set peace goal, just so rare to see them so open and pulled apart, but I watched Brighton at all traffic on Wednesday night, sober Manchester United and humble them, and be far better and more intelligent in knowing what to do, and if you just not quite there against these teams, we would go in the dressing room sometimes, and because we were very, very experienced and we got some bloody noses, we didn't get bloody noses at times, you just knew if you get to certain grounds, if you weren't quite at it, you'd say to each other in the dressing room before again, if you're not quite at it today by the way, these will do yeah, by the way, don't think this is going to be, you know, they're the messages you send into yourself and Arsenal probably didn't do that enough before the match, you know, it's going to be a massive slog to get through that game for Arsenal and they didn't treat it in that way, they didn't get the details right that they're always doing, look, you can have a blip, Arsenal have been so reliable and consistent over this last 12 to 18 months that they're allowed a moment like that, but they're going to get back on the bike quickly when you're a top club and you've, and you're a champion team and you've had that, yeah, humbling that they've had yesterday. do you suspect that it's impossible? for you to know this, I appreciate, but do you suspect Brighton might be a little bit better than one of what you call these teams? As in could they genuinely win week on week and keep punching at that sort of level? Well, Peter, what we've seen in this first few weeks of the Premier League, we quite often don't with think maybe for 20, 30 years, everyone can beat everyone in the Premier League. The bottom can beat the top and it's that entertainment sort of what would be circus that festival every time it's a festival of football, but there's a few years when Pepp and Klopp, and it felt like there was inevitability every time he saw the top teams play, like there are no chance the teams near the bottom or in the half way up. I think because the top teams are not as good, they're not as good as they were five, six years ago, seven years ago when we had Jürgen Klopp, Merino United, I think Potatino at Tottenham, two-coloured Chelsea, and I'm probably not got the right years, but you all in those managers was, there was a real seriousness to the top of the Premier League and it was, you know, teams were getting to Champions League, football Champions League finals year on year. That's not, I know that Arsenal did last year, but that's not now, the top teams are not at the level that they were five, six years ago, so they've come down, and the other teams have come up by the fact they've got great investment, they well coached, they well organised, they recruit well, I'm talking about five or six teams in that middle, you're on your Bournemouth and Brighton, Brent Foods and teams of that ilk that you think, if you're not quite right against them, they will shock you, so I think there is an opportunity for Brighton to shock everybody and get into the top four, top five because United are not right, Liverpool are not right, even though they've won today, Tottenham are not right, Villa aren't right this year compared to what they were in the last couple of years, Chelsea, there's question marks, so all these teams that have spent hundreds and hundreds of millions over the last three, four years, are you would be kind, you'd say they're in transition, finding the way or not delivering if you're being unkind, and those teams are solid as a rock, they've got good managers, they've got good systems applied, they know what they're doing, they've got, each player knows where they're going to pass it next, I watch some of the top teams, haven't got a clue how they're going to pass it next, so almost like they're playing in moments, the lot of them, and yeah, that's what we're seeing at the moment are well done to Brighton, they deserve massive credit, and what a great start to the season. They're even coming to the castle to collect it, tonight we feast! An offer you can feast on, sell your car today, on Carvana, pick up fees, male five. Now this is in no sense meant to be at the expense of Nottingham Forest, but anyone who's a football fan and understands how it feels when your team wins, will have identified with Coventry City supporters yesterday evening at City Ground, because just purely as a human exercise, the joy they exuded in embracing that win was actually a kind of beautiful thing to behold, wasn't it? It was, I mean, I was, yeah, I mean, how good for you, because you were experiencing it. I was watching it with my daughter and wife at the kitchen table, and I get home from Solford, probably about quarter past five, so I've missed, no, I got home a quarter from Solford, actually stayed after the game for a little bit, so I got home just, it was 15 minutes into the game, and I was not half watching it a little bit, you know what I mean, because I thought Brandon Thomas Assanti's playing, he's playing up top, he's playing centre four, which I wanted to watch him, so I wanted to watch the game, but I sort of sound on a little bit, but I'm being told to sort of turn it down a little bit, I mean, one of those moments, and by the end of the game, we're all sat there 20 minutes, all the way, I mean, look to be fair, we love football, but absolutely amazing, you know, Brandon was jumping everywhere, he was getting fouled, and we were sort of willing him on, and he scored the great goal, obviously, which was fantastic, and those sort of commentary fans in that far corner, seeing them score that goal, and then obviously the goal, the disallowed one, the one that, what did you think of that? I thought it was a foul, did you, did you think it was a, I thought it was a foul, I thought if you were a defender going back into the box and you get your foot kicked, you are, you are going to sort of, it did just make him stumble, didn't it? I mean, if you're not even worried, you're going to complain, and you're going to think you had done to it, I did think it was a foul, I think that he definitely stumbled, and then he lost his footing along the way, but that added to the drama, didn't it? And everything that could go on was going on, and then just the line at the end, that it was Coventry's first winning the Premier League for 25 years, and I remember at the end of my first season playing at Highfield Road, what year would that have been? 1995, I got booked against Peter and Love, yeah, and I always had a really hard game at Coventry where it was Huckabee, whether it was on Love, whoever else it was, they were handful, and that Coventry were FA Cup winners back in the day, Coventry were in the Premier League, Coventry were a team you played against, and I played in my first season, so you're always at Coventry, the idea that this club's not been there for 25 years, it's their first top flight victory for 25 years, and maybe it's because Brandon was playing as well, and I just enjoyed the fact that you know ultimately someone who I've seen and got a great relationship with, and he's playing up top in a game like that, and he went to the left in the last 10-15 minutes, yeah, but I really enjoyed it, I thought it was a in terms of a comparison between today, and watching full and versus Manchester United, and then watching Nottingham Forest versus Coventry yesterday, that is just night and day that, what we saw yesterday is what Premier League football is all about, and was it Luminium Al said earlier on in the week, that he loved watching Premier League football, and he watched as many games he possibly cooked, he loved the entertainment of it, and the thrill of it, and that made me feel quite proud, you know, that one of the greatest players in the world that's sort of like up here, he loves watching Premier League football, and I thought just something, he's watching Nottingham Forest and Coventry City, which is not the most sort of glamorous game on paper, he's right, he's absolutely right, and even the Tottenham Villa game earlier on that day, which was three, two, he's sort of, there's a, there's a drama about it, so when you see a game like today, it really just sort of just pull you back a little bit and make you think that's not what, that's not what we do, we don't not sprint out, we don't not challenge each other, we don't all, we don't not put energy and enthusiasm into the games, and if there's a lack of quality maybe we'll live with that, football fans in the stadium, those United fans and those full and fans will live with a lack of quality at times, but they won't live with a lack of endeavor and effort, fight and scurrying and harassing and tenacity and all those things that make the English game great, so yeah, I thought that, that had it all yesterday in abundance and I really enjoyed it. Lovely, I'm talking of Luminium L, it's England against the World Championship. Yes, next Saturday, yeah, next Saturday I'll be interesting, then two games against Chep, what do you think of this, they seem satchelpakes a bit, where's that three weeks? First time we've had this, yeah, so four fixtures, and then there's another one in November is there, one, just a regular, a regular one, yes, they've always taken the October one away, I mean look, I have to say the breaking up of the Premier League in September, October, November, and I'm to be fair, Pulitzer term gamekeeper here, aren't I, because I used to play international football and be obviously part of the international coaching team and you think you used to love it when the international games came around, but yeah, there must be a better way of doing it whereby, because the Premier League has become such an important thing, hasn't it? When you take it out of the calendar, it's, you miss it, yeah, yeah, we debated forever, wouldn't we? It used to be two, two week breaks, now it's one, three week breaks, so the argument is that there's lost a week, they lost a week, maybe let's let's try, I mean, I remember sitting on a call a few years ago and they said that they were going to put all the international games into January, you know, like sort of January 10th to February 10th, and it would all be like seven or eight games, would all be in that period, could that work, and then you used to have a clean Premier League run up to Christmas, and then you have a break, winter break almost, and then you sort of come back in February, that may, I like the idea, but the thinking was at the time, was that if you were a, a one player country, and I imagine you say he's Latin for Sweden, or who else, you know, that you think so, if he was injured for that month, then that would damage that country, get into a tournament because obviously he would be, so there was almost an element of could it become unfair if there was a player missing that was so important, like a bail to Wales as an example, yeah, that type of example is sort of player, like a one player country type thing, so yeah, that was, I was on a call that a few years ago, and I wondered whether that could come in, but it was pushed back in the end. Anyhow, take a break, Gary. Take a break three weeks, and if you don't know, listen to the Gary Neville podcast, you can listen to the Jamie County podcast, yeah, the cheating on us aren't they? They are. Stick Gary, stick everybody to the first and the original and the best. Thank you. Take care. Hey man, you hungry? Yeah, I was thinking. Italian burgers. ♪ Game night, just got tense, two bros on different sides of the fence, burgers were pasta tonight ♪ ♪ Why can't we have food without the power? ♪ With wonder, you can combine 20 restaurants in one delivery, so no one has to settle. Use code MealTime for 50% off your first wonder order, terms apply, cwonder.com/newcustomer.