Poor old Gary Neville has endured a difficult time in Spain since swapping the Sky Sports touchscreen for the Valencia bench.
Without a win in eight La Liga games, Neville took his side to the Nou Camp on Wednesday night for a semi-final first-leg Copa Del Rey clash with Barcelona, and it didn’t end well for the former Manchester United man.
Ex-Liverpool striker Luis Suarez bagged four goals in the game while Lionel Messi chipped in with three more (including his 500th career goal) to consign Los Che to an embarrassing 7-0 defeat.
The visitors’ cause wasn’t helped by the sending off of German defender Shkodran Mustafi on the stroke of half-time, with the score already 3-0.
It’s all a far cry from the 1999 Champions League final when Neville and United produced a dramatic comeback to beat Bayern 2-1 on the very same pitch.
Not surprisingly, this 2015 quote from Neville has been doing the rounds once again on Twitter…
However, After the game, the 40-year-old was defiant, responding to a question concerning if he would quit or not, he simply said “no”.
He then added:
I won’t sleep well tonight. I didn’t like what I saw.
It was one of the most painful experiences I’ve had in football. I’ve had some as a player and now I’ve had some as a manager. We have made so many silly errors that you can’t make at any level, let alone against this team.
Still, one wonders how long it’ll be before he’s back on Monday Night Football again.
And if he does eventually return to punditry, will he be taken as seriously?