Gary Neville has asked Sky Sports for a break from covering Manchester City games as “a huge cloud is hanging over the whole league” since their guilty verdict
Gary Neville has told Sky Sports he doesn’t want to cover Manchester City games until a verdict is returned in their appeal over breaching the Premier League’s financial rules.
A visit to an angry Anfield marked City’s first Premier League encounter since being found guilty of 114 charges of breaching the regulations by an independent panel. The pre-match discussion was dominated by speculation surrounding City’s ongoing legal battle with the Premier League, after they were found to have cheated over a nine-year period from 2009 to 2018. City maintain they are innocent and have appealed against the findings.
Liverpool dominated the first hour of the contest but the game was changed by Ryan Gravenberch’s controversial sending off for a second yellow card dished out by referee Chris Kavanagh. City then ruthlessly exploited their numerical advantage as goals from Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki secured a 3-0 win for Enzo Maresca’s side.
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Neville was particularly taken by the performance of City’s £116million midfielder Elliot Anderson, whom he named man of the match. Nevertheless, he admitted struggling to lavish them with compliments while proceedings continue.
“This is the first Manchester City game that I have done today since the charges or guilty verdicts were handed out a few weeks ago,” he said on Sky Sports.
“We were just doing the podcast then and said if you could take me off Manchester City games moving forward for the next few months until the verdicts have been heard, I would be absolutely delighted.
“To come and win at Anfield is really difficult, we should be eulogising over them without a but or any hesitation, but there is that thing in the back of your mind.
“They have done a brilliant job here today. They have dominated the game in the last 20 minutes, from the red card onwards. They have dug in and I think players like [Gianluigi] Donnarumma, [Ruben] Dias and Anderson, in that first-half were excellent. They stood strong as a group.”
He continued: “At the end of the game it is quite hard because you are imagining basically if these guilty verdicts are confirmed in January or February then Manchester City are not going to be in the position they are in and there is going to be a huge cloud hanging over the whole league, which is not good for the Premier League right now and that is what I have just recognised today. Really bad for the Premier League and it is going to continue for a few months.”
The appeals procedure has already begun, though it may be considerable time before a definitive result emerges. The sanctions hearing is also ongoing, with their potential penalty potentially being revealed first.
While praise might prove challenging to offer, both Neville and Jamie Carragher made their position crystal clear that the players are undeserving of such hostile treatment.
Neville said: “That’s the problem for the Man City staff, players and supporters, they are blameless in all of this. The stain, stigma, reputational damage that hits them, it’s nothing to do with them but they have to face it on the pitch, in the stadium, week after week.”
Carragher said: “The players on that pitch they’ve had to face the criticism. All eyes on this game, you almost look at the director’s box thinking they should be on the pitch facing the barrage of criticism.”