On Match of the Day Two on Sunday night, Phil Neville claimed he would ‘two-foot’ Tomas Rosicky for doing his ‘look-away’ passes.
The former Manchetser United and England man-turned-pundit was commenting after the Brighton v Arsenal highlights on the BBC.
Rosicky, who put in a man-of-the-match performance that included umpteen ‘look-away’ passes, had been praised by the more useless Neville brother before he went on to highlight a more extreme version on which he commented
“If that was a training session and somebody did that I’d be first over there and I’d probably look to two-foot him or take him out of the game.
“If somebody did that in training to me, winding me up, I would be straight in there. I’d smash them.'”
His comments caused a stir on MOTD2 but Twitter went crazy with insults from Arsenal fans being fired at Neville’s account.
So it’s hardly surprising that this morning there is a fair bit of backtracking going on.
Using Twitter, Neville said
“The Rosicky ‘look one way pass the other’ piece was tongue in cheek by someone who wasn’t capable of doing such!!!”
His comments at the time certainly didn’t seem as if they were said in a tongue-in-cheek manner and reeked of everything that is wrong with the English game – if you’re not skilful enough to deal with talented players, then smash them!
It is the same logic used by teams like Stoke who ‘get amongst them’ often leaving players with battered, bruised, and broken limbs.
Phil Neville gets paid (using our licence fees) to impart his ‘wisdom’ on national TV.
LOLS.