Gary Neville 'feels bad' for "billion pound bottle job" jibe at Chelsea
Gary Neville has given an impassioned explanation of his already-infamous “billion pound bottle job” line about Chelsea following their defeat in the Carabao Cup final.
Neville was on co-commentary for Sky Sports after the Blues were stunned by Virgil van Dijk’s header late in injury time to lose 1-0. His catchy summation of Chelsea proved to be a major talking point, with Mauricio Pochettino describing it as “unfair”.
Speaking on Monday Night Football, Jamie Carragher compared it to the Liverpool team of the 1990s, who were labelled “the Spice Boys” by the media. He suggested that was harsh and invited Neville to explain his reasoning for the Chelsea jibe. The former Manchester United defender did so in a lengthy manner.
“I feel bad now,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and say it was an instinctive commentary moment. It was instinctive because I didn’t know what was going to happen in extra-time. But Peter [Drury] did about 35 seconds after the goal, Carra did about 25 seconds and I was getting angrier. If you hear my commentary during the extra-time, I was getting angrier with Chelsea from the first minute of extra-time to two minutes to go because I could smell the fear in Chelsea, from the very first minute of extra-time when I said ‘why are they sitting off them? Why are they letting these young lads grow?’ Carra’s just mentioned it.
“Then Jurgen Klopp started to grow. I remember there was a chorus, a song, that Liverpool fans were singing for about five minutes because they could smell the blood and the fear in those blue shirts. And I got to half-time of extra-time and I said that somehow Mauricio Pochettino or those players have got to work out that if they got into this position at the start of the season and told themselves they’ve got 15 minutes against a Liverpool side who’ve only got two players who would make their starting XI normally, which are [Luis] Diaz and [Virgil] van Dijk, that they would snap their hand off, grab this opportunity, don’t have regrets.
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“I was just [coming from] a playing point of view, not to have regrets of a team not seizing the day and the moment, grabbing the opportunity. Chelsea shrunk – and I use the word shrunk – and maybe ‘bottle’ is a very strong word. But playing with absolute fear, froze, whatever you want to call it, that’s what we saw in extra-time yesterday.
“Ultimately, I don’t want that tag to stick with them because the reality is there are a lot of talented young players there. I know there have been people today who have talked about Chelsea’s team being younger than Liverpool’s – the idea of ‘Klopp’s kids’ wasn’t actually something that made us say Liverpool’s team was younger. Carra will tell you this. When they made those substitutions, I actually pulled my headphones off, put my mic down and said to Carra: ‘I haven’t got a clue who is playing for Liverpool here’.
Mauricio Pochettino was not happy with Gary Neville's comments (Getty Images)HAVE YOUR SAY! What is your take on Gary Neville's comments? Let us know below.
“There were three or four players, who I didn’t even know who they were. Honestly, no word of a lie, they were playing against Liverpool’s reserves and they didn’t seize the moment and that’s when I got angry with them and I just thought ‘I’ve got to say this’.”
Sky Sports presenter Dave Jones then put it to Neville that the phrase “bottling it” suggests cowardice. Neville rejected that statement and mentioned his own experience at United when Alan Hansen famously said Sir Alex Ferguson ’s side wouldn’t win anything with kids.
He then added: “I’m not going to say words like ‘man up’. But there’s an element here of this is football at the highest level, where you’ve got to perform under scrutiny. And actually, Dave, I was in a position at the end of the game where I thought ‘it is a harsh word, bottled, and I was only referring to the last 30 minutes of the match, because I thought Chelsea did quite well in the first 90 minutes.
“But then I heard afterwards that Mauricio Pochettino said he felt like his team were playing for penalties, it almost cemented the thought in my mind that they did freeze. Because whoever, in a team that is playing against such a weakened Liverpool side, with three kids on the pitch who to be fair found things very difficult in the final minutes of normal time, why did they do what they did? Look, does it make it more difficult? That’s not the purpose of why I said that yesterday.
Virgil van Dijk's late header won it for injury-ravaged Liverpool (Getty Images)“I’m here, basically, to work for Sky Sports and deliver lines that I feel instinctively passionate about. I’m passionate about football – and make no mistake: I didn’t want Liverpool to lift that trophy yesterday, so I’m not saying it from a point of view of bias against anyone.
“But what I couldn’t deny yesterday was the admiration in the second half, because to see those young lads out on that pitch for Liverpool and the manager galvanise them and the spirit. Before the game – and I said this to Carra in the car on the way to the game – I’m not quite sure I can see Jurgen Klopp stood on the pitch at the end of the game watching Chelsea going to lift the trophy. I had it at Manchester United – some managers carry a spirit that’s special that you can’t beat sometimes, it’s that sort of immovable object and that was it yesterday.”
Before finally being cut off, he concluded: “I hope Chelsea do well. I love Mauricio Pochettino – he’s probably one of the managers I admire most in the game and like most. It’s not a reflection upon him at all.”
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