Gary Neville's Valencia (as they shall be known henceforth) lost badly at home to Lyon last night. Gent's win over Zenit St. Petersburg meant the result was immaterial.
In his post-match interview, Neville demonstrated he is picking up some of the key skills of the modern manager. He directed the audience's attention towards Valencia intimidatingly large injury list.
Roy Keane has never believed that honeymoon periods should be overly long. He jokingly noted that Gaz was making excuses up already.
You look at afterwards, he's talking about fixture pile-ups and injuries... He's making up excuses already.
As a veteran of both the technical area and the pundit's chair, Roy is well placed to know the multitude of differences between the two roles. Needless to say, there are plenty.
Few pundits have been fitted with pacemakers as a result of their post-match analysis.
It's completely different. I think Gary's head will be spinning tonight after the game, after the defeat. The emotions of it. It's chalk and cheese being a pundit to managing on the sideline, to working with players, man-management skills and he'll have the problem with the language, although I'm sure Phil will help him out with that.
Keane is uneasy about the fact that Neville has only been given a six month contract.
I know he's keeping his options open because he's still working in England but if you're sitting down with an owner and he's talking about committing to the club and he's saying, 'you're the man for us, here's a six month deal', it seems a bit strange.
