When Gary Neville left these shores to coach Valencia, almost everyone wished him well. He was far from universally beloved as a player, but a few years as the nation’s undisputed king of punditry had seen him gain popularity far beyond the confines of his former fanbase at Manchester United. In his time on Monday Night Football, he came across as sensible, level-headed and uncompromising in his honesty and pragmatism. These seemed like traits that would serve him well in management.
Unfortunately, once the initial well-wishing was over, it soon became clear that there was nothing pragmatic about Gary’s choice of club.
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Neville has just been sacked by Els Taronges after less than four months in charge. He leaves them 14th in La Liga, a mere six points away from the relegation zone, after presiding over three victories in 16 league matches. He’s seen the team crash out of the Champions League, Europa League and Copa del Rey in that time. As far as left-field Mancunian appointments go, Bez from the Happy Mondays would probably have done a similar job.
So how could Gary have got his first step in management so badly wrong? It was certainly a convenient move: Valencia’s owner, Peter Lim, is a business partner and friend of Neville’s. The two know each other well from their joint ownership of Salford City, the non-league side in which Lim is a 50% shareholder alongside Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Phil Neville and Gary himself. Lim claimed that hiring Gary had nothing to do with their personal association, but it’s hard to imagine another owner appointing a first-time manager to take over a club with regular Champions League aspirations.
Lim claimed to have hired Neville purely on merit, yet it’s now abundantly clear that he wasn’t the right man for the job. Still, when Gary was first offered the position, it must have seemed like too big an opportunity to pass up.
However, had Gary reflected on the situation and put his obvious powers of perception to work, he’d have quickly realised that the Mestalla was anything but his managerial promised land. It’s been somewhat obscured by the melodrama of the last few months, but Valencia were showing signs of a long-term slump in La Liga well before he took over. They had slipped to ninth place in the league under his predecessor, Nuno Espírito Santo. Turning their form around was never going to be a straightforward assignment.
Gary might – might – have been able to cope had he only been faced with the task of coaching the team out of their malaise. Of course, that wasn’t even the half of it.
The most fundamental obstacle standing in Neville’s way was the fact that, when he joined the club, he hardly spoke any Spanish. The significance of a direct language barrier with the majority of the players cannot be overstated. Reverse the circumstances: imagine a situation in which a young Spanish coach with only a basic grasp of English is put in charge of a huge Premier League club. Would anyone expect that to work out well? No, they would not.
In addition to this, Neville sacrificed much of his personal influence when he moved overseas. A man used to inherent respect in this country after a successful playing career both domestic and international, his natural aura was dissipated in Spain. Much like his more nuanced instructions to the players, his personal prestige just didn’t translate.
While it’s understandable that Neville saw an opportunity in Valencia, backed his own abilities and took the leap, it’s hard not to feel like he’d have been far better served taking his first steps in management on familiar soil. Had he bided his time, a chance to manage a rising English club may well have surfaced.
Thankfully, his coaching career is far from finished. Perhaps that chance is still to come.
