Gary Neville has now shared the immediate feedback he got after describing Chelsea as ‘Billion-Pound Bottlejobs’ during the League Cup final on Sunday.
He told ‘Stick to Football’ that he had actually felt at the time like he may have gone a bit overboard with his criticism of the Blues after their emotional defeat at Wembley.
Neville wrote himself into commentary folklore this season as he responded to Virgil van Dijk scoring the only goal of the EFL Cup final at the weekend.
A number of pundits and figures have come out since the game and questioned whether the wording of what he said is harsh, and can have negative consequences on the young Chelsea players.
One of those was Mauricio Pochettino, however he admitted he respected the pundit’s opinion.
Neville has now admitted that he believed his words were harsh, however was convinced by a producer at Sky that it made for seriously entertaining television.
Neville on ‘Billion-Pound Bottlejob’ comments
He said: “After the game I went to the producer and said was that harsh. He said it might be a touch harsh but we are on television and in entertainment. It’s one of the biggest moments of the season, a last minute goal, and secondly did you think they bottled it?
“I said they froze in the second half, there is no doubt they were playing in fear and froze.
“I was actually going to do a throw back on my podcast on Sky and say that I probably shouldn’t have used that word bottle because it’s an emotive word but then when I heard that Mauricio thought the team were playing for penalties I thought that was the epitome of freezing.”
It would be unfortunate for a team of young players to be brandished with that lazy nickname for a considerable amount of time, and they can get it off their backs with a strong end to the season in the FA Cup.
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