Neville's Valencia spell featured Ferguson advice, horror run and 'naive' errors
Gary Neville's forgettable stint as Valencia manager finished almost as suddenly as it started, with the Spanish club pulling the plug on his stint after just four months.
Many who followed football at the time will recall their surprise at seeing the Sky Sports pundit given the top job at the Mestalla in December 2015. While his brother Phil was part of the coaching staff, having served under recently-departed manager Nuno Espirito Santo, Gary's experience was just as thin.
The new boss had worked with the England team under Roy Hodgson, but was already better known for his punditry work. He would return to that work after leaving Spain, to the point that his four months at the helm might be easy to forget had he not owned up to the mistakes he made when finding his feet at one of Europe's top clubs.
"I would like to thank Valencia, the fans, staff and the players," Neville said in a statement after his March 2016 dismissal. He won 10 of his 28 games, drawing seven and losing 11, though only three of the victories came in LaLiga.
“I would have liked to have continued the work I started," he continued. "But I understand that we are in a results business and in the 28 games they have not been to my standards or to those which are required by this club.”
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Seven years on, Neville's spell at the Mestalla is just one of a number of tough spells for Valencia managers, with Los Che on their eighth permanent boss since his exit. Here, Mirror Football looks back at a curious few months for the former England defender.
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Gary Neville joined his brother Phil in Valencia (Getty Images)Neville wasn't owner Peter Lim's first choice. That was Nuno, the former Porto goalkeeper whose only previous managerial experience had come in the Primeira Liga with Rio Ave.
There were questions over the potential influence of agent Jorge Mendes - Nuno had been his first ever client - but results in the first season under the new man were good. Valencia finished fourth, having come eighth under Juan Antonio Pizzi the previous season, to set up a Champions League play-off.
It was only in Nuno's second season that things went south. They finished third in a relatively welcoming Champions League group, behind Zenit St Petersburg and Gent, and their Portuguese manager was sacked with the team down in ninth. What they didn't realise at the time is that things can always get worse - especially if you're not prepared for what is to come, and the appointment of one of Lim's business partners didn't have the desired impact.
Neville took over from Nuno at the Mestalla (Getty Images)Equally, Valencia wasn't Neville's first choice. In fact, management wasn't his first choice full stop, and he would later own up to his "naive" decision to come on board.
“I had a four-year plan and four-year contracts with England and Sky," Neville told the Blank podcast in 2019. "I was six months away from the end of that plan when my business partner who owns Valencia Football Club, who were having a really bad season, said, ‘can you just take it for me until the end of the season’.
“It’s the only thing I’ve never planned... and I said yes. I kick myself to this day, not for saying yes, but for the mistakes that I made. They were stupid mistakes.
“Not taking over an experienced staff with me that spoke English and Spanish was a bad mistake, it was naive.”
The former England defender was unveiled in December 2015 (AFP/Getty Images)Perhaps Lim saw Neville as an able stop-gap; someone who could steady the ship for the remainder of a season which could more or less be written off when it came to European qualification. If so, he is unlikely to have been prepared for the need to pull the plug with relegation a real possibility.
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“There were two main thought processes upon Neville’s arrival," journalist Paco Polit told Mirror Football in 2021. "On the one hand, he was a big name within the football world, and there were even some fans who pointed to his 2.1m followers on Twitter and argued that this exposure to the media would be good for Valencia. Others had serious doubts - we had never seen Neville perform as a manager and suddenly he decided to cut his teeth at one of the trickiest clubs in Europe."
There was, if not outright positivity, at least some optimism around Neville's appointment. However, that was all but wiped away by a poor start, with home and away cup victories over third-tier Barakaldo his only victories before the turn of the year.
Nine winless league games is the kind of run which can see a manager dismissed years into their tenure. In Neville's case, that's how his spell at the Mestalla began , and yet he retained the backing of the board.
There were occasional positives in the Europa League and Copa del Rey (NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)“There was a couple of players there I should have moved out of the club, which would have established a bit of authority to them," the Englishman said on the Blank Podcast when reflecting on his time in charge. "‘Hang on he has got some power to do something here. He’s in for five months but if we don’t play ball he can damage us’.
The comments evoke some of those made more recently by Arsenal chief Edu, who has been open about allowing players to leave without the club receiving any payment. Edu identified "problem" elements who could be more damaging if allowed to remain on the books, even if it meant foregoing a transfer fee.
Neville took this as a learning experience, rather than using it to shift blame entirely. “What I tried to do was pick up a rocky ship and just drift into shore rather than really grab the reins, have a strong leadership with me and also make sure that I got rid of what would be people who were making it choppy," he added. "I made some mistakes and they were all mine.
"I knew I couldn’t communicate with the players and I knew the club was difficult, I knew the dressing room was divided, I knew it was a difficult time in the club, I knew they’d sacked 15 managers in 13 years. I knew I was going to get criticised.”
Valencia were hammered 7-0 by Barcelona in the cup (Getty Images)There were some positive moments amid all the chaos. The 7-0 aggregate victory over Granada in the cup springs to mind, as does the 10-0 triumph over two legs against Rapid Wien in the Europa League.
Three wins in four games around February and March even lifted Los Che back up to ninth, the position they occupied when Nuno was sacked, but that simply put off the inevitable.
A horrific 7-0 defeat at Barcelona in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semis ended one of Valencia's shots at a trophy, while domestic rivals Athletic Bilbao knocked them out of Europe on away goals a few weeks later. All that was left was the league, and three straight defeats were all she wrote for the short-lived manager.
Neville has made no secret of his regrets, telling Sky Sports' Off Script podcast he should have followed the advice of others. He made reference to his brother Phil - who had insight into Valencia's "struggling" dressing room - but also to his own old boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
Neville has since reflected on his mistakes (Getty Images)"Early on, it was clear that some players were unhappy", Neville recalled. "I should have made big decisions on players that weren't committed to club at that point.
"I remember speaking to Sir Alex Ferguson quite early on and his advice was: 'Just get rid of them, son. Protect yourself. Only have people in the dressing room that are facing the same direction as you.'
"But I didn't listen. I tried to talk some players round to staying until the end of the season. But they weren't happy. I ignored Sir Alex Ferguson's advice."
Neville's spell is a lesson in how tough it can be to establish yourself as a manager. Early mistakes can prove to be your downfall, but even doing some of the right things - and taking advice from some of the most successful people around - isn't always enough.
Valencia, meanwhile, have had an up-and-down few years since Neville's departure. Neville's successor Pako Ayesteran took over with the team six points clear of the drop and kept them afloat, but lasted less than a year, while the next man up - Cesare Prandelli - also only had a few months at the helm.
There were shoots of recovery under Marcelino, including qualification for the Champions League in 2019-20, but the ex-midfielder was gone long before an 8-4 aggregate exit at the hands of Atalanta in the round of 16. Ruben Baraja is the fifth permanent manager to take the reins since, while erstwhile caretaker Voro has had multiple stints in the dugout, and the situation this season might feel familiar.
With 12 games of the season remaining, Baraja - a member of the team which reached the Champions League final in 2001 - has been tasked with dragging Valencia away from danger. They sit in the bottom three going into Monday's game against Rayo Vallecano, and will want to have dragged themselves clear before a tough final weekend trip to Real Betis.
None of this is to absolve Neville, who has been the first to admit to his own naivety and mistakes. All it does is reiterate the idea that this was perhaps not the job for a rookie to use to cut his managerial teeth.
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