Gary Neville has appeared as a guest on his own Sky Sports interview show, The Overlap, with Geoff Shreeves taking up Neville's usual role as the interviewer.
Neville spoke about his transition into punditry after retirement, and his early struggles as a co-commentator. He also told an intriguing story of a time when Alex Ferguson rang him up to berate him over his criticism of David de Gea.
"Sir Alex rang me once on my comments about David de Gea, once. It was in the second season of my punditry so he let the first season go. But when David, you remember his first season was a massive struggle wasn't it. And the second season he started to improve to the point where he became one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
At the point where he was starting to [improve], Sir Alex rang me and said 'you know I got it last year but now I think you're being fucking unfair son, and I think you're being fucking unfair.'
Gary Neville On The Overlap
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Gary Neville went on to explain his internal bias against smaller goalkeepers, and admitted that Alex Ferguson may have been correct in his view on de Gea.
I said 'boss to be honest with you, he's too slight.' See my experience with United was I had two giant goalkeepers, van der Sar and Schmeichel. When we had goalkeepers that were smaller, that could be Roy Carroll or Tim Howard, or that could be Fabien Barthez.
"So I've got this thing about a goalkeeper needing to be six foot three, six foot four. It's wrong because obviously I've seen great goalkeepers. And to be fair, Roy Carroll, Tim Howard, and Fabien Barthez were great goalkeepers.
"They probably would survive more today with the ball at their feet than they would do sort of back then, when it was more physical still. So I've got this thing about slight goalkeepers that they get pushed around a little bit. So he was probably right, I'd made my mind up on de Gea, then wasn't seeing the transition he was making into a far better goalkeeper."
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