Gary Neville’s Post

Transcript

Body all. I'm just walking through Berlin, it's 48 hours now to my next match and that's England against Slovenia on Tuesday night. There was just thinking back over the last two games and. Watching the England team sort of maybe get a goal in front and then sit back at the edge of their own box and go look, you know, deeper, quite passive. And everybody's commented on it. And maybe questions have been asked, like you have the players been asked to do that, you know, as Gareth instructed them to do that, of the players taking it upon themselves to do that. And the answer to both questions is absolutely not. And the reason I know that is that I had a lot of experience of it playing for England and coaching with England. And I'll take you back to my first tournament, Terry Venables, the best England coach that I ever played with by a mile. I play there's a traditional right back in the first game, in the back four in the second game. I played against Scotland and I played as right over back three, but I was able to move forward when we were on the ball into that right channel. In the third game against Holland, if you look at my position when the goalkeeper's got the ball, you'll see me way out a shot. I'm on the right wing high up the pitch. Then in the fourth game against Spain in the quarterfinal, I didn't play. In the semifinal in Germany, I was suspended. I've got two bookings. I played as a right wing back in the back 524 games. I had four different positions when we were on the ball and Terry Venables, he had different ideas. Solutions A collection of thoughts about how we played out from the back against different teams, whether they played with two upfront, whether they played with one up front, whether they played with one up front and one off me. Obviously coached at Barcelona, coached at an incredibly high level internationally and was a brilliant, innovative coach that knew that the importance of controlling the football match was absolutely critical and that he had to give his players. A series of ideas about how to actually play out from the back. And then after that, when I went into the other tournaments moving forward, I found myself in this team that would go in front, that would have a burst of energy, maybe in parts of games, but predominantly would sag back towards the edge of their own box. You know, these were teams that had, you know, Sol Campbell in and John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Lampard Cole, Joe Cole, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, Michael and great players. So they weren't players that played on the back foot. They weren't players that played for clubs. Sort of didn't go forward or control football matches and which then the police back at the edge of our own box. We always end up defending deep and we always ended up out of possession. Probably 6535 against and I could never quite work it out how it happened. Our coach never told us to. Whoever the cultures were never told us to sit back. The players in the dressing room never once said come on lads, let's get in front and sit back or let's go out there and play deep and try and counter attack. That's not how we played. But it just happens and it happens because of one thing and that's because the players haven't got a series of drills that have been worked on repetitively that enable them to know how to get out against different types of presses. You may add to that slightly player type and technical ability of players, but I believe we've always had that and in this next 48 hours that's the one thing that. As the change and it's the one thing that brings me to the conclusion that it doesn't end well if we carry on like this and the very best teams that I ever played in, whether it be for club and country, were able to go in front. And keep the ball in the attacking half. It's a very difficult thing to do, but the best teams do it. You know, I'd like to see on Tuesday against Slovenia, maybe it's like tactical tweak, maybe a couple of player changes so that we can build some sort of what would be performance ahead of the second round game, which then maybe can take us into the tournament. And we can grow into this tournament because there's no doubt we're in a really good position from the games that we've had so far. We're not in the hardest of groups, but there are some alarm bells there and some questions that need answering and if they don't get answered. It will cause a problem. I've seen it before, we've all seen it before. That's my thoughts had Tuesday. I'm wishing the lads all the very best. They built up a lot of favour and credibility in this last few years. They were good bunch of lads. We've got a fantastic manager who has done a great job and surpassed all expectations that we ever would have imagined from him. But this is probably one of his toughest tests. You know, this would be a great fitting moment for them to go and sort of. Start slowly in the tournament, everyone groaning a little bit, but kick on and sort of just find those ideas and solutions that are needed to be able to get us to the point whereby we get confident again. Because those players are just naturally by their nature, very confident young lads and have done well for England.