Wilshere: Arsenal Breakthrough, Wenger’s Influence & Management Future | Stick to Football EP 152

0:00Gary Neville: Stick to Football is brought to you by our title partner, Disney+. Watch a lifetime of great stories on Disney+.

0:10Mod.com is changing the way people battle excessive fatigue. Ever hit a wall in the middle of the day and a third coffee just doesn't do it anymore? Here's what's actually happening. Coffee only briefly blocks adenosine, the chemical that tires you out. When it stops working, your system is flooded and you crash. Modafinil is a prescription treatment that works in a completely different way. Modafinil works by stimulating multiple receptors in the brain associated with wakefulness, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine, glutamate, and orexin. It's a more complete solution that gives you 10 to 12 hours of steady focus and energy.

0:53To learn more, go to mod.com. Fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, ModAlert ships straight to your door. Go to mod.com to get started. That's M-O-D dot com. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for.

1:35Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com.

2:16slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

2:31Gary Neville: Are you going shooting this afternoon? No, it's just this is... He's going shooting? Yeah. He's going... He's going... Thank you, my love. Gary does... Yeah, but Gary's just... That's what you do. It's bullying, really. That man wants pheasant. Yes, Jack. My guy. You're something. The greatest. Jack. Jay Wolf. I thought... Hello, Gary. Hello, Gary. How are you, mate? Hello, Gary. I'm great for seeing you. I miss working with you. Do you? Yeah. What did you work with him for? Worked with him for a few years. That's it. Was it England? That one there. With England, eh? This is weird. How'd that go?

3:11Gary Neville: And I'm not just saying... No, no. Do you watch it? I'm not just saying this. Do you watch it, Jack? Yeah. I'm not just saying this right, we got on well didn't we? We did, yeah. We got on well. What did you like about him Jack? Was he just like, cos he's honestly... You know what? Straight with each other. At that point, and listen, I love Roy and the way he was. Cheers, thanks. Oh, Roy Hudson. I love Roy Hudson. I love Roy Hudson. I love Roy Hudson. And Gary was... He was modern. He was detailed. We changed, do you remember what we did? We went from like Gerrard left, Lampard left, and we went to 4 Diamond 2.

3:41And I was playing at the base. The base of Diamond, yeah. I was like, fuck it, I've never played there before. I remember going through clips of Pirlo.

3:48Gary Neville: Yeah, remember? Yeah. So we did, we got on well. And you used to... Because your range of passing was quite short, wasn't it? I enjoyed playing there. And then you just played a little bit, opened it up a little bit. And it was good. Down to you? No, it wasn't down to me, but it was down to him. Whose idea was that, to put me there? Erm... I think it would have been you, because Roy wouldn't have... I think, to be fair, Roy was, I think, open to changing. and to be fair, I think we just said that it was what we had really, wasn't it? If you think about it, we had Jordan and... You had runners on the side, didn't you?

4:17Gary Neville: Yeah, and we had like sort of... I enjoyed that. We went to Switzerland. Do you remember? That was a good performance. Very good. That was the first time we played it. We had to win that game. Stevie had gone. Lamps had gone. Were you one of them ones that jumped in that river at night? No, you're talking about... We're drinking. I do. Jump in a river. Right, so no word of a lie, right? We win in Switzerland. No, this is mad and this is a true story. Surely, was it a lake in Switzerland? Yeah, no. Hi, Jack. No, Roy, I'm telling you, right, we were playing in Basel. Is it Basel? There's a river in Basel where every other Swiss jump on and they go down the river.

4:52Gary Neville: Oh, that's the one I've seen that bridge, yeah. They jump off the bridge and they go down the river, right? We let them have a drink after the game because we have to stay. You're not able to fly back. Swiss sort of air traffic control close at 10 o 'clock. So we had to stay over and we let the lads have a drink because it was a big win. It was, to be fair... I know, but it's not professional, is it? Let them have a drink. It always ends up in tears. We were on the terrace. It's never, ever not ended in tears. It never came out this story, did it? We were on the terrace. Until now. Until now. We were on the terrace and basically we went in, the coaches, we went to bed.

5:23Gary Neville: Anyway, I find out the morning after, the lads have jumped off the bridge, into the river and they've gone this thing down the river at night. It's like a floating river, wasn't it? I did that last year. They go in and just go down to work, that's brilliant. And the England team are floating down the river at basically two o 'clock in the morning. Jesus. No, obviously not. Who jumped? Who jumped with you? I can't name names. However, it was... You were there, weren't you? I was watching. I was never jumping off that. It was high. It was quite high. It was Joe Hart's idea. Slim Joe Hart. So you're not naming anyone, you're just throwing Joe Hart under.

5:59You know what? Everyone from Munchies, he just kept going. Yeah, yeah, throw it. I always remember. He was thinking of them challenges at the time. There was one who didn't do it. Who? You would never have guessed who it was. Noonie. Wazza. Wazza sat on the balcony with a glass of wine. Did you watch that? LAUGHTER Take that way of it.

6:23Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Disney+. Did I read somewhere that you're in at, like, quarter past six in the morning? Yeah, but that's pretty standard, right? Yeah, but I was shocked at that. Oi! People have said all they have to say about you and you get to a point where it's kind of like you can deal with it, you build resilience to it and yeah I got to that point quite early I would say. Wenger wouldn't come in at all. In the dressing room? No, no. He'd be in that little doctor room when was Iber in that room? They were beating us and they didn't even have a coach. He just went, and you, I brought you here to keep the ball, not give it away.

6:58Then just moved on. He played in my team at 13. I stood next to him on the sideline and I said, look, don't get into a duel. Like one or two touch, move it around, picked up the ball. I promise you, he dribbled around five players, he squared it and we're 3-0 up. I just looked at my assistant like...

7:19Gary Neville: Jack, talk to us about... I want to start with management. I want to start with the end. Sometimes we go back to the beginning, but I want to start at the very end of the management. How that's going for you, you've obviously stepped in. How's it going? It's going well. Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing that I've learned, you have to love it. You have to love it. It consumes you. You have to have a real deep love for the game, which I do. I loved it. Probably because my career, I suffered with injuries and probably didn't have the career I wanted. And I've always felt like I need to give something back.

7:51And yeah, from day one, so I retired on a Sunday. On Monday morning, I was in at Arsenal with the 18s and I quickly realised that this is something that I need to get better at and work at. but I've enjoyed every step of that.

8:07Gary Neville: Speaking to every young manager that comes on, and obviously we've had experience from us around the table, you've just come off back-to-back defeats. Yeah. And you've also had a postponed fixture. What are you like? I mean, everybody else is an absolute nightmare. No, that's something that hit me hard when I first started. Not necessarily with the 18s, because results doesn't really come into it. But then I went to Norwich and I was an assistant and we lost a lot. And then last season, when I first took the step of being a manager, that hit me a lot. That hit me a lot. And it was something that I had to quickly get over.

8:41What was it that hit you know, Jeremy? The loss. The losses. They last longer. You feel like a big responsibility. Yeah, and I always, I think we might have said it, I can't remember what he said it, Thomas Frank saying about the 24-hour rule. And I remember thinking about that and it was never 24 hours for me. It lasted longer. So what did he say? Just clever. It was like a win or a loss. Like if 24 hours, you're never too high or 24 hours, you're never too low. And after that 24 hours, you're done. You review it and whatever and you move on. And it weren't like that. And there was some context as well because of the club and what it'd been through the last two years of losing, losing, losing.

9:16And then when you lost a game, you know, the feeling probably was going into League One that we're going to win every game here and we're going to get out of this league. And that wasn't the reality. And yeah, I felt that a lot. That's something that I worked on in the summer. I'm better now. I'm better now. I think if you're really clear on why and you review everything, I think that helps. I think the people around you help as well. And we've been fortunate enough that there's not been many times where we've lost two in a row. You have to bring people back down as well because, you know, you work really hard to get to a place and you win games, win games, win games, and then all of a sudden you lose two and it's like you go back and you've got to reassure people that, no, it's fine, we're going to lose games.

9:57like Jamie watches a lot of League One it's crazy there's a lot of chaos like some things you can't control and yeah so I'm better at that I would say

10:06Gary Neville: just thinking about when obviously coaching you and watching you play as a football player you were like complete football take the ball is that your style now as a manager well when I first went in to the 18s that was probably the idea I had what I really loved about the 18s is yeah you got to work with some really good players but it's probably the other ones the ones that now are on loan in League Two, on loan in League One. Because the good ones, they're kind of, you know, it's like they find their way. Like Miles. Miles, and yeah, you're just giving them the right challenge at the right time rather than actually coaching them how much better you're going to make Miles at taking the ball and beating someone.

10:45So that was probably my idea then, but then I quickly understood that the job is, yeah, first of all, give players to Mikel, but then to give players a career, and I had to understand the other levels. And yeah, I like, I want to ideally have a team that can take the ball and dominate the ball because I think that's the best way to win games. However, that's not the reality, especially in League One. We try, but yeah, you have to be able to adapt. You have to have variety 100 % at that level because yeah, ultimately as well, what I think is in League One, like we've got some really different players.

11:21We've got some good players. We've got some really good players that can take the ball. We've got some really good players that are aggressive and you have to find the right balance for them all. What do you think? You said I watch a lot of league, I have done for the last few years. And when you come from a Premier League background where you play and where you watch probably four or five games over a weekend.

11:43It's almost like a shock to me where you can almost, you're not quite sure if you go and watch a game who the good team is or supposedly the bad. That's what I find really strange, whereas when I'm in the Premier League, even if a smaller team can beat a big team, you almost feel like you know how they're going to beat them. They're going to maybe a set piece or the top team have got a lot of possession. When I'm watching games in League One, well, basically, I watch a lot of Wigan. Some players from Wigan were bottom of the league a couple of weeks ago, went to Sheffield, went to a top of the league, away from home, and should have won the game.

12:16But not in a way of sort of hanging on for dear life. And that probably just summed up. Yeah, I think Wigan, in my opinion, one of the best teams in the league in terms of how they play and what they want to do. I think you have to get the balance right in that league of playing because, yeah, you play against some teams. We played against Bradford a couple of weeks ago and they had 0.2 expected goals. They beat us 1-0, but they don't care. They don't care if we had 70 % possession. or what you have to do is, I think against that, so we played Stevenage, we lost to Stevenage, we lost to Bradford.

12:54Stevenage want absolute chaos. They want to play long balls. So then you have to go... Cal Piaziano is still playing for Stevenage. Yeah, and he wins at every duel. You put a ball up in there. So I feel like with my team, and I feel we're going to seem like they want to play, but I feel with my team, if we go there and we start playing long balls and we start being aggressive, we're going to lose that game. So actually when I when I review that game and I look at it and I go right We lost the game and if you take them two goals out which one is a foul on the and Walsh and one is offside We win the game one nil and actually like one a great game this league one like sometimes the game's gonna feel like that and Yeah, like there was some frustration around from from from from our fans as well that we didn't have enough threat in the game and My argument to that would be well if we go there and we turn it into that type of game same with Bradford and you have to get the balance right because if you don't win that game it looks terrible and it's like oh you just want to play play play it's not the way and yeah i just feel like the league is like that it is like that where i'm i'm i'm standing on the side i'm watching a game and i feel like we're in complete control here bradford score after five minutes and i'm thinking these don't concede like we're gonna have the ball we're gonna play around but they're completely fine with that so yeah you have to get game management is really really important in that league and Probably like in any league, trying to find some consistency of performances, but especially in that league, I think.

14:15Do you have to change your principles a little bit, Jack, now, obviously going forward? Because even at your young age and you're new to it, it is still about survival, isn't it, for the manager? Because otherwise managers will be losing their jobs. I know you've come from a good background with Arsenal, where it's about coaching and development, but now you're in that game after a couple of defeats and it is survival, isn't it? Do you feel that even already at this stage of the season? 100%, 100 % because people would have said before I got the job, people say what's your philosophy and i would be go bang bang bang it's that well it's not it's winning like because if you don't win you don't get time um you become under pressure people make strange decisions and change under pressure players change under pressure so you have to win you have to survive and then it's about for me is principles and philosophies is developing the individual within a playing style so you have to have a really clear idea and principles are important but for example if we're building up Roy a principle that I would say and we have is play off the highest possible line now sometimes the highest possible line might be have to go back to your goalie if they close everything up and they're in a block sometimes it might be that they've got a really high line and you can get behind them straight away but yeah having a clear idea and then developing players towards that because also the other side of it Roy as well is that you know where we are as a club we also have to develop players to sell to be able to make money and survive.

15:34Yeah, but the main thing, principles, philosophy, is winning games. But are the clubs still a bit hungover even from the Premier League? Would there still be a few hang-ups with that? Yeah, there definitely was. When I first went in, I actually started at Lewin, so I had an idea about the club. And I obviously watched their journey through the years and how high they got after being so low. And then probably for the first time in a lot of years, the first time where they had face a little bit of adversity and double relegation all of a sudden they find themselves in League One and yeah so going into it I was I had my eyes open and I remember standing in front of the players the first day and I'm thinking my you seem like their eyes are open they're listening they seem like they want to go on a journey and then the first game was Mansfield at home and yeah I walk out in the stadium and clap the fans and get a nice reception and And then straight away when the game starts, I feel like an energy in the stadium.

16:32And there was some frustration. And I think, you know, from my point of view, from the players' point of view, they probably understood it. They probably understood that two years ago, Chelsea were coming there, Arsenal were coming there. And now all of a sudden, we're in League One and we're in a place where we're losing games in League One. And we lost that game. We lost that game 2-0. And, yeah, it taught me a lot because the players, they needed a direction. they needed belief and then I feel like they needed someone that is just going to stand by that no matter what and be consistent with the messages and yeah we went up, down, up, down and then we found a little bit of consistency at the end of the season but we're still in that place where we have to find that again and we have to fight that So what's the expectation this year then?

17:16Is it simple to be in the mix to go up? Yeah The expectation from the outside is that and from the inside as well you know We finished on 72 points last year and we missed out by one point in the playoffs on the last day. So from my point of view and how I coach and how we work is to, I feel like we can get 10 more points than we got last year, which then puts us in a place where we're there or thereabouts. But yeah, we need to work at that because League One is crazy. There's so much uncertainty and chaos in the game. that, yeah, it's not because we've got good players.

17:56Gary Neville: Don't get relegated. It's at League Two. Yeah. Can I just ask what do you enjoy the most about it? Is it managing the players? Is it being out on the grass? I've played a soccer raid with you and you could still play. You could still play. Do you join in training or...? Er, sometimes. Yeah. Only in small areas, once the pitch opens. LAUGHTER I'm done. What do I enjoy the most? Yeah, it changes, Gilles. It changes. I love the players and generally I do. I feel like that is an important thing for any coach, any manager, that you do have to love your players and enjoy their company and enjoy spending time with them because the demands and the schedule is so much that you don't want them to feel like, don't get me wrong, you have high standards and when you're in the meeting room and you can challenge them, but when you're outside and you're speaking to the press and the media to protect them and show them that you love them.

18:53So I do love the players and I enjoy spending time with them. Probably then, yeah, winning, but also I like planning a game. I do enjoy that part of it and looking at an opposition. Sometimes I'm watching four games before we play them, but I feel like I really enjoy that part of it. And that's why it's so intense, isn't it? Did I read somewhere that you're in at like quarter past six in the morning? Is that what time you get in at? Yeah, but that's pretty standard, right? Yeah, but I was shocked at that. No. What was ten?

19:27Gary Neville: Easy, Jamie. I don't know, pal. But it's a long day. No, it is, absolutely. But not if you're going two days a week. Yeah, just... This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Disney+.

19:43Mod.com is changing the way people battle excessive fatigue. Ever hit a wall in the middle of the day and a third coffee just doesn't do it anymore? Here's what's actually happening. Coffee only briefly blocks adenosine, the chemical that tires you out. When it stops working, your system is flooded and you crash. Modafinil is a prescription treatment that works in a completely different way. Modafinil works by stimulating multiple receptors in the brain associated with wakefulness, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine, glutamate, and orexin. It's a more complete solution that gives you 10 to 12 hours of steady focus and energy.

20:26To learn more, go to mod.com. Fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, ModAlert ships straight to your door. Go to mod.com to get started. That's mod.com. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for.

21:08Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now.

21:50That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

22:06Gary Neville: Has anybody watched The Real Roonies on Disney Plus? Yes. Oh, mate. What do you think? The Real Roonies on Disney Plus? Have you watched the Roy? It's brilliant. You know what? I want to binge watch it and then... Wayne and his wife, they must get fed up of each other.

22:23How many interviews can you do? Wow! Can I just tell you? He's one of our family. I'll tell you how I get it because I just love Colleen. I just adore her and the way the boys are, I just love it. I love the way Wayne's just like, yeah, all right, yeah. It's just, you're literally like a fly on the wall. It doesn't feel like there's any, like, acting up or anything. We're going to get the real keen soon, aren't we?

22:48Gary Neville: We've got to get them. Would you let a company be a host? I've done a documentary. I need to document it. But why do people get dressed up in their host?

22:58And the host is spotless, new and normal, where people argue and the dog's hairs are everywhere. There's food everywhere. You can't find your shoes. Do it normal stuff. Everyone dressed up, make-up, teams behind them. This is us, we're just normal people. No, it's not normal. You have 12 holidays a year.

23:14Gary Neville: Jon made me laugh when I went to Waza's house. He's got a boxing ring in his house. I've seen them. The two kids fighting. Smashing each other. He basically just says, right, if they're having an... Get in there. LAUGHTER

23:27Gary Neville: Go behind the scenes with Wayne Rooney. Watch The Real Roonies, a Hulu original series, new and exclusive on Disney+. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to Skybet and SkyVegas for supporting our brand new show, Overlap Daily. From Friday the 9th of October, we'll be on every weekday at 4pm with the day's biggest football stories. You'll hear the likes of Stephen Gerrard, Joe Hart, Kelly Cates, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Young, Gary Neville, Duncan Ferguson and Becky Ives across the week. Thanks for being part of it and I hope you enjoy the show. There's too many Mancunians on this show. Football Football Football It's all we talk about Every day So Starting Friday Come and join us On Overlap Daily I like that This is easy Every week Monday to Friday From 4pm Watch on YouTube And listen Wherever you get your podcasts It's just laughing It's Football Football Football In that order.

24:31Gary Neville: Overlap Daily. We'll see you soon.

24:38Gary Neville: Would you class yourself as a coach or a manager? Well, when I got the job, Gary Sweet, who's the CEO, who has been really good to me, he looked me in my eyes deeply and said, you're the manager of this football club. And I've obviously never experienced that. What does that mean compared to coach, then, in terms of your sort of scope? Are you into recruitment and other things? So I'm heavily involved in recruitment. Yeah, I think, and yeah, what he meant by that is, so how Luton is, is you've got a training ground here where it's just football really and then you've got headquarters over like a three-minute drive around the corner where it's, yeah, it's all like the management team and the exec team are there.

25:21So what he meant is you're going to manage this environment, you're going to manage this training ground, which I've actually really enjoyed as well and I had to learn pretty quickly which I feel like you do I think ex-players just because you played and you're maybe a good player doesn't mean you're going to be a good coach but what I think it does give you is an idea of how you want an environment gives you an empathy for the players and what they're going through but yeah, I like coaching as well I do like being on the grass and trying to help the players and put them in, given my experience on the pitch, because I feel like that's probably where my strength is at the moment.

26:00Gary Neville: I've always thought, and we've talked about this before on here, about the fact of the dynamic between the CEO, the owner, the sporting director, the manager, and then the head of recruitment. It's usually those four people generally that would have a say in sort of what comes into the football club. How's that process work with you in terms of, obviously you would probably have a veto if you don't want to bring them in, they won't bring them in but you're also you won't be the encyclopedia on League 1 players or League 2 players you know being at Arsenal as an under 18s coach so how much do you delegate to the rest and how much do you trust the rest of that team yeah so how it works at Lewin is CEO Gary Sweet I've got Director of Operations James Mooney and then me and then of course we've got Head of Recruitment we actually changed the Head of Recruitment in the summer we brought the guy from Hearts in who's obviously got a good track record slightly different and there's data involved and stuff and we've got data that we use.

26:56But, yeah, I feel like, actually, when I talk about, and when Roy asked about what the club was missing and what we tried to do when we come in, the main thing was an identity and we want to play like this and we're going to recruit to this.

27:08Gary Neville: Do you not think he had one, though? I remember when Luton came into the Premier League, I actually thought they had an identity. I thought, I mean, I went to watch a few games. I thought they were physical. They had the two strikers up top that were big lads. I thought, what you mean is the identity that they had, you wanted to change me. No, no. No, I don't think that. I think, well... My argument to that as well would be that it probably didn't work as well then, right? They got relegated, they got relegated again. They lost a lot of them players. You're talking about Colton Morris, Adebayo, who was there when I got there but was injured.

27:37And they lost that sort of, yeah, that identity and that spirit, right? And then, and listen, don't get me wrong, this is really hard. When you get double relegation and you've still got parachute payments and you've probably got a lot of money going into League One to get that right once you've lost all of that and once you've got players there, then some want to be there, some want to help the club, some are thinking, well, we've got double relegation, there's relegation clause in my contract, I want to go. There was a few players like that when I walked in. We had a really good January, I thought, where we got some of them out.

28:10But yeah, then we had to find an identity because it was lost. I don't think changing it because if I went in and, well, I mean, they'd obviously lost something because I was going in. Two relegations. Yeah, the manager was let go. So, yeah, we had to build an identity because that one had gone. So, yeah, I think if you're really clear with that and the club back you and support you like they have done, and I'm really grateful for that, I'm grateful for the opportunity as well because, like you said, coming from academy football, then I spent six months at Norwich in the Championship. But I didn't have that experience.

28:44And when I left Norwich, I was sat there thinking, well, how am I going to get an opportunity? You kind of know sacking season is around now at this time. But if someone sacked someone in League One where realistically it was going to be the level I was going to go in at, what are they going to be looking for? Are they going to be looking for someone probably to help them to survive, not a first-time manager? So I was really grateful for that. But then, yeah, I had to be brave and I had to be strong at saying, well, this is what I believe is the right way to do it. And we're going to have to recruit to this to see if it's going to work.

29:14and we're still in that process. We recruited eight new players in the summer. We got some really important players to stay. Jordan Clarke stayed and signed a new contract, who's a looting legend, he's been there for years. He actually went through on that journey to the Premier League. Liam Walsh was important for that as well. Casey Palmer came back. So we had a core of the team and then we had to add in players in and around that. We've done that and now they need time to sell. Is Liam Walsh the Jack Wilshere of your team? You know what? Like, the coaches call him Liam Wilshere. So I don't want to talk about him.

29:49What do the other players call him? Son of Jack. Son of, yeah. Son of. Yeah, no, he's excellent. He's a top player. He should. He's been injured through the years and that's probably why he's at that level. But his brain and... Yeah, he's a good player.

30:03Gary Neville: Does Arsene Wenger influence you and does he have any... Do you speak to him in terms of sort of like your managerial style and style of play? I wouldn't say he necessarily influences me with that. And I think that's really hard. Don't get me wrong. I work with some good coaches and all different. But Arsene had top players in England. And he would just almost put you on the pitch in sessions, in situations and say, go on, go and solve it. And the players would solve it. So I wouldn't say that. I think maybe with how we worked, always with the ball, I think that's important for players.

30:42especially, yeah, I think Arsene's way was, it's a game of making decisions, decision-making, and if you can be technically clean enough, you give yourself more time to make better decisions. So probably that is something that I think, but also I'm aware that we're in League One and there's a slightly different way of working. I think when I played under Arsene, we would have the ball for 75, 80 % of the game and it would be about breaking down a team and training would represent that. But in terms of his management and the responsibility he gave to players and the trust, yeah, probably a little bit of that.

31:20Gary Neville: Would he be your biggest influence, Jack, in terms of your football career? Yeah, I think so. I think so. And there's been loads, Gary. I think I've had really good influences. I've had some influences that weren't necessarily good for me in terms of the situation. I think David Moyes, when I was at West Ham, he came in. and I knew I wasn't going to play. He was pretty clear with that, but actually I loved it. I loved the way he set the environment, the training sessions he put on. You weren't going to play because of style? Style, situation that the club was in. Pellegrini brought me in for a certain style and then David Moyes come in to help the club survive.

31:56So, yeah, I knew that wasn't the case and I knew also that my time there was probably coming to an end. But he was really good with me. So, yeah, and then I went to Bournemouth in 2016 and worked with Eddie Howe and it was something I've never seen before. Coming from an Arsene Wenger environment to Eddie Howe on day one, he's screaming in the players' faces and Arsene would never do that. So, yeah, a lot of influences. Arsene, probably the biggest one.

32:26Gary Neville: Just take us back to Eddie Howe because people probably look at Eddie when he does his interviews and they see him as being quite calm, but you go and listen to people. going up to Newcastle to spend a few hours with him. His intensity and his obsession is huge, isn't it, in terms of what he wants from you? Yeah, I remember a few times, not clashing with him, but having, like, strong conversations with him and going to see him and that coming across, he used to say to me, yeah, but Jack, I brought these players from League Two. Now we're in the Premier League. Like, they have to compete at this level every single day.

32:57And what I liked about him as well, you know, for Bournemouth at the time, I'd come from Arsenal. That was the only place I'd ever been and I remember my first game it was Man City away and we lost 5-0. It was terrible, it was terrible and I remember coming in and dressing him after and him basically going to every player and saying what he thinks and I was thinking what was he going to say to me? He said, he just went, I knew I brought you here to keep the ball, not give it away and then just moved on. Are you happy with that or no? Is that just bread and butter? He was excellent Eddie. Actually, sometimes I speak to Arsene, but I speak to Eddie more now.

33:36Gary Neville: You speak to Eddie about the job and the experience? We took one of his players in the summer, Harrison Ashby, right back. We took him on loan and had a really good conversation with him there. He's always someone that reaches out when something happens in my life or I get the Luton job. He's always one of the first ones that takes me. Did you feel a big pressure going to Bournemouth? Because obviously from Arsenal, were you the one that was coming in to kind of set the standard and was it a lot of pressure? Yeah, a little bit, but it was kind of, yeah, it was strange the way it happened, Jill.

34:08So at that point, Roy had just left. It was 2016 after the Euros, after the Iceland game. And I went back to pre-season. I was in that England squad and maybe I shouldn't have been because I didn't play much that season. But that's why I love Roy because he always had that trust in me. But then I went back to pre-season and I knew this is a really important pre-season for me. Sam Allardyce got the England job. I had a full pre-season. And then I started the season on the bench for Arsenal. And the first England squad came out and I wasn't in it. So I went to see Arsene and I said to him, Boss, I need to get back in the team.

34:45Tell me what I need to do. Do I need to go out on loan? And he just went, yes. Weren't you ready for that? No, I weren't ready. I weren't ready. It was like the day before deadline day. So then I went, called my agent and said, look, this is the situation. He was just as shocked as I was and met a few coaches. Met Alan Pardew, he was at Palace. Spoke to David Moyes, he was at Sunderland at the time. And then Eddie and Jason Tindall came into my agent's office and sold me the dream. So there was a little bit of pressure, but I also knew the expectation and what he really wanted from me. and also I've got friends now at Bournemouth so there was a really good group of lads that I went into and they welcomed me straight away and you could see why they were successful because they were hard working, they were honest and yeah, they welcomed me in.

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38:44Gary Neville: Yeah, I was, yeah.

38:48You couldn't keep the ball, but you're a boy wonder. So my debut was Blackburn away. And, yeah, I was good, but I didn't think it would come that quick. you know that I remember that the preseason before that I was so I was 16 it would be my first year as a scholar and I remember Bakri Sanya was coming back from injury so the fitness coach Tony Colbert remember Colbs he wanted a few Academy players around Bakri to get a fit and ready for preseason so it was me and Henry Lansbury and I even remember after that first week Tony thanking us and saying to Henry R you'll be coming on preseason with us and I just like yeah fine i'm gonna my first one with the academy um that must have been 2008 and at that point there was a euro so a lot of the the first team players were away and a few academy players went over and um yeah i impressed and i was i was on the trip i was on the trip to austria and that was a lot that was intense um but again i impressed i played in the the emirates cup and it's funny when you're a young player like you you kind of go from like this this this young kid who's just happy to be there to really quickly then like well I need to play now I want to play in I always think that I always think that and I didn't I didn't probably learn or realize until after I came back from Bolton that I wasn't nowhere near ready at that point I think that was the season as well where it went from five subs to seven subs which done me a favor so I We were 4-0 up against Blackburn and he put me on for Van Persie and probably touched the ball twice, but no, it was a good day.

40:34But yeah, when I look back, I weren't ready to play in that team. Who were the midfielders you were competing with to get in at that? Diaby, who was a joke. He was a good player, wasn't he? So unfortunate. Wow, what a player. Cesc. Cesc was there. I think Flamini was there at that point as well. Right, too. Denilson.

40:59Gary Neville: They brought Aaron Ramsey in. Would Fabregas have been, at that time, the level that you were looking at in terms of a standard? I remember when I was 12 coming through and I was at Hale End in the academy and Cesc making his debut as a 16-year-old and thinking, wow. People ask me who my idol was and I played with Cesc. When I was really young, it was Joe Cole. but then when i was about 12 it was sesk and um yeah he was i always it also then gave me belief gary that right if you're if you're good enough it doesn't really matter how old you are like arson's going to give you a chance and you had to be good don't get me wrong um and yeah that's uh probably as well something that from my time coaching in the academy what there's a big difference now with the with the young players because i knew that when i was 15 16 and they did they brought in Aaron Ramsey.

41:50If you're not at the level, they're going to bring someone else in. From abroad, they brought in Fran Merida. And they don't have the ability to do that now, which gives the English players a little bit more power. But yeah, I knew that the level was really, really high. And if you weren't at that level, they're going to get someone else.

42:07Gary Neville: Do you feel if you've been at a different club, I mean, we'll come on to sort of how England treats skilful players. We'll talk about Cole Palmer, Morgan Gibbs-White, Foden, that type of player you fit into that sort of category of skilful player do you feel you were lucky that Arsenal was the manager at Arsenal around that time to bring you in because you would have been quite small at the time you'd have been not the quickest but technically you were exceptional yeah I think there wasn't many English players like that at that point and then people started having a conversation around well we need more we need players that can accept them and now we've got loads and there's too many to fit into one team probably at this current point.

42:53But yeah, probably Arsene was the manager, but also, yeah, and that was down to Arsene. Arsenal played the way they did. They wanted to dominate the ball at that point as well. I always think this when I think about Arsene and his time at Arsenal. During the early days, and certainly when I got into the team, that was probably later days for him, but early days for me, we wouldn't do any analysis. we wouldn't do any preparation for opposition it was about us, it was about we've got good players we're going to take the ball, we're going to have the ball for 75 % of the time and it's about breaking down the opposition, I always feel like then when teams started to analyse a little bit more and they got analysts in and they started doing better preparation I always felt like that was then where we sort of dropped out of the top four we didn't challenge as much because I felt like teams were preparing better than us and in the early days we probably made up that with the quality of players we had and probably against the the lesser teams in the league, we still probably made that up, but we would start, I felt, less prepared than the opposition.

43:50Gary Neville: It's interesting you say that because it's always said that Arsene Wenger changed the sort of dynamic of the game in sort of the late 90s, that he brought in sports science, you know, nutrition, sort of what would be fitness, the way in which obviously coaching programmes would work. But when you speak to people from Arsenal who played under, from Arsenal under Arsene Wenger, he didn't, he wasn't analytical, he wasn't someone who did the coaching on the pitch. I always imagined he was like the coach on the pitch, He's the name of the Professor. So you're just imagining a professor. He must be a real detail guy.

44:19Gary Neville: And what you're suggesting there is that actually Arsenal fell behind in the latter years on what would be development and new methodologies. That's what you sort of say. It just stuns me, right, from a point of view of Arsenal and how people view him. We viewed him externally, haven't we? Yeah. Yeah, I think he gave me a lot of help and a lot of detail, but it was more like individual stuff. it'll be individual chats and you wouldn't go into like positioning and stuff like that it would be more about like your decision making and your body shape to receive and and stuff like that but yeah in terms of you know we reviewed a game but it was i remember it was like tv put the video in and you basically just show the highlights of the goal and he would talk for it a little bit but there wasn't yeah much much yeah there wasn't like loads of meetings and stuff like that and he was big on the nutrition nutrition side and your sleep and everything like that and and that's obviously when people say he changed the game right and in the 90s it was like a drinking culture and he was people weren't sleeping and they were yeah yeah yeah but the stories about when he forced into the Arsenal we sent was a Pat races with him and he said yeah one of his first these are the stories that gone stop talking let them figure things out yeah he came in one time Roy we came I think we were we were one nil down or something chef I don't I was playing against and he came in and it was his first game or first or second game and Pat Rice and Tony they'd come in and he just started screaming and shouting at everyone and he just stopped him in his tracks to the point where we all went like that.

45:46Don't shout at the players. Don't shout at the players, that's all he said. Then he never spoke because we had to have that. Because he was the first manager that we had like 10 minutes, he'd come in, I remember it turned to 15 minutes, he wouldn't say anything. Julier was the same. No one was allowed to speak for the first two, five minutes when you come in the dressing room at half-time. It was really strange. Our session was like 12 minutes. 12 minutes, easily. 12 minutes. So you just took the last three minutes. Yeah. And no, half-time. Everyone would be sitting there saying that. Nothing.

46:13Talking to each other. Sometimes Tony would say something to somebody like, you need to push in this. But everyone's just sitting there.

46:20Gary Neville: I found it very, very strange. The first time I ever saw that was with England, because at United, obviously, when we came in the dressing room. I wouldn't have sat there talking. It wasn't just me, Jill. Players would be talking to each other. And sometimes the manager might say, sit the fuck down. You know, you get that and then he'd start talking. He wouldn't wait. But Sven said, I think Sven, when Sven came in, it was interesting because Steve McLaren was his number two. Sven's number two and Steve McLaren had worked at United and he was saying to us, what do you think of this new thing? And I thought, it makes a bit of sense, actually.

46:48Gary Neville: Because sometimes the manager comes in, physios are trying to treat people with ice packs and sort of drinks and people are going to the toilet and people are walking in subs that are late. So Sven had this thing that basically for two or three minutes, You'd basically leave the players, leave the physios to do the jobs, I'll come in three minutes when everything's settled down. Because the manager used to say, didn't he, that sometimes the physio, he would, didn't he? Yeah, but he wouldn't come in, Wenger wouldn't come in at all. Into the dressing room? No, he wouldn't. No, no. He'd be in that little doctor room when was Iber in that, or wherever he was in...

47:19They were beating us and they didn't even have a coach. But, like, we're sitting around, waiting for someone to come in, like... You know, texting each other, aren't we? I kind of disagree with that. I know every manager's different. I think it's nice to get hit players quickly as a sit and down with what's going on in the game. Sometimes you hit 10 or 15 minutes. That moment's gone, isn't it? I don't understand that sort of 10 minutes, but the thing with Julio, I did like it. It almost felt like everyone was waiting for him. It's almost everyone's done the things, bits and bobs. Maybe you're arguing with your mates or over a goal.

47:47Yeah, but you're chatting amongst yourselves, George and me. Are you saying you were sitting in silence? There was a little bit. Yeah, but the Kings course didn't talk like this, but it wasn't like... No-one would stand up. But now, though, Jack, because when we used to come in at half-time, the analysis would be playing clips. Yeah, so, bear in mind, my youth team coach was Steve Bolt. He would come in and he would go bang, bang, bang, and then all of a sudden, Arsene, and I'm sat there like... And Boldy was on the staff as well, so I'm thinking, like, Boldy must be going, what the fuck's going on here?

48:17But now, yeah, so, we actually played around with this a lot because last season, we conceded the most goals just after half-time. Your team? Yeah. I was like, what's going on? What are we doing wrong here? So we reviewed it all. And yeah, we've improved it definitely now. And what I would do is, yeah, three or four minutes I'd leave the players. Like Chris Powell was my assistant. He'd go in and he'd kind of get a feel for where they're at. The physio would then speak to Chris Powell. Chris Powell would come back to me. I'm sat with the analysts and saying like, show me this and this. And then I might go in and show them one or two things.

48:51But a lot of the time as well, I think, you know, when you have that available to you, I think coaches can just overuse it. And sometimes it's not a tactical thing. Sometimes they just need a little bit of belief or something like that. So, yeah, and then I'll speak to them probably for no longer than four minutes. So let's say I'll go in after five, four, and then they got this, there was this weird period last year, I didn't like it, where it was like, I'd stop speaking. As soon as I stopped speaking, the lad's like, yeah, come on, let's go. And then they got like this period where it's like five or six minutes.

49:19So yeah, we played around with it. Yeah, wasn't there a team talk that went viral recently. It was at Reading. The venues were getting big 2-0 and then it's just you like, and you won 3-2. We wouldn't have put it out if we lost.

49:34What were you snapping? No, but it was good. Have you not seen it again? It went viral? Good. No, no.

49:38Gary Neville: I was... Controlled. You were very controlled. Did you snap? I have done. You snapped as a player, when we had you as a coach, you snapped quite a bit. I think the reason, we'll talk about you, but the reason you got injured quite a bit was your enthusiasm and exuberance in your sort of... If your touch was bad, you'd almost follow after things. Yeah, and you'd go in and... Yeah, but I think there's real strength in snapping or being a little bit more to the point at times. I feel like you need to earn the players' trust and you can't do it too much because then the players will just go, oh, he's shouting again or moaning again.

50:17But there definitely is the right time, yeah. They're receptive to you. They're good, though, yeah. Not getting no, not sure about him. Do you know what? I've got a really, really good captain. His name's Cal Naismith. And he said to me on day one, like, if you need to, in his words, open me up in front of everyone, do it if it helps. Wow. Yeah, I've got a really good, like, senior group of players. I've got Naki Wells. I've got Cal Naismith, Jordan Clark, who throughout their career, like Jordan Clark played for Accrington Stanley. Like, he would have experienced all types of coaching. But then you think about the younger players, like the ones who have come through a Cat 1 Academy, and it's very much like, oh, you can't do this, you can't say that to them, so they need a different type.

50:59But you have to get the balance right with that. You've got good staff around you, obviously. Yeah, I've got Chris Powell. Right, OK. That's a bit of experience, yeah. Yeah, he helps a lot. I brought a guy with me from Arsenal, from Mikael's staff, Tim, his name is. I brought a guy with me who was actually on my A licence, like he was a tutor. and then I inherited Kevin Pilkington you know yeah yeah yeah yeah he's top he's top he talks about you all the time he's good and Kevin Foley so yeah I've got like he was a looting legend remember Kevin Foley so yeah that's improved yeah yeah it feels good Jack there you know have you got do you feel like this team can do something you look at them think yeah I feel like we can do something I I do and I look at the league as well, like Jamie said, and there definitely is an opportunity there.

51:49We have to improve in the final third. We get there all the time and we get there the second most in the league and RXG is really low, which is, yeah, we need to improve that, definitely. But there is an opportunity and I feel like with the group of players, they're all in. That's a nice feeling. That is a nice feeling and good staff around me as well.

52:12Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Disney+. Going back to your career and the feeling of you coming as a 16-year-old, so you're a boy wonder. It's not normal that a player comes in at such a young age. I always think of players who so much is expected of them because of that. I think of Theo Walcott sometimes, he gets put on a World Cup squad at 17. So everyone automatically thinks, oh my God, this is going to be off the scale. How difficult is it for you, sort of mentally, with that expectation, as a youngster, to sort of ever live up to being seen as he's going to be Arsenal's greatest player or as newly embraced or something like that?

52:55Yeah, to be honest, Jamie, I didn't ever really feel that. I didn't ever get there, right, because probably of injury. which also at the time when you're injured I never felt that I never felt like I'm not going to get back to the level whether I was a little bit naive at that time to think that yeah you can be injured and just come back which I probably learnt as I got a little bit older but also my career was done really early even I think about I signed for West Ham at 26 and yeah I wasn't the same player as I was at 24 or 23 at that point and yeah that was that was hard to take but I also it gives you an opportunity to like I started then if you'd have asked me when I was with Gary at 21 22 am I going to be a coach I would have said no but then at 26 and you're almost forced to think about other things but in terms of like pressure and stuff I never generally and you know when I think about the players that came that I coached at Arsenal that are now getting into the first team like I don't think they think about that they're so like we're all processing we need to do this to get to that point need to do this to get to that point you don't really think too far ahead it's almost about what do I need to do to get into the team when I'm in the team what do I need to do to stay in the team the media can bring pressure for a young English kid can't it yeah that was weird that was weird I remember when I was 16 playing in the it was a Carling Cup at the time against Sheffield United and I lived in the two up two down in Hitchin and the next day the Daily Mail were outside outside my house trying to speak to my mum and my dad and that was a bit a bit strange and probably as well the most pressure I probably did feel was when you're injured when you're injured you become a better player and you know all of a sudden Arsenal well they need Jack Wilshere and that wasn't the case so yeah and then probably coming back not to the same level but then I'll try and like say this to my players at the moment because there is you know there's so much now outside influence and expectation and a social media that you get to a point in your career and probably in your life where you've had everything you've been battered you've been caught out drinking you've been caught out getting into trouble and people have said all they have all they have to say about you and you get to a point where it's kind of like like you can deal with you build resilience to it and um yeah i got to that point quite early i would say and what was the injuries jack what was was it this what was the type of injuries you were getting was it yeah so the first one was my ankle and the main problem was that oh was that right yeah i remember i was playing um it was it was the end of my first season i played about 54 games it It was load related and people would say, oh, you shouldn't have played as much.

55:33You know, it's like you tried telling a young lad who's doing really well, playing for Arsenal, playing for England, that he's not going to play games. You just, yeah, I wouldn't listen to that. So I don't blame anyone, but I played a lot of games that year. And I remember playing, it was a World Cup qualifier against Switzerland at Wembley. And I remember after the game thinking, my ankles sore here and trying to think back into the game. Like, did someone tackle me? Was there a bad tackle? and I couldn't think about it. So then I went off in the off-season, came back, done a pre-season. I still had a little bit of discomfort in my ankle and ended up getting a scan and it was like, it was a small bone called a talus which no one had seen before.

56:12No one had seen, it was a snowboarder's injury where they locked in and they sort of rolled. And I ended up getting that pinned. And it wasn't until years later when I took the pins out when I went to West Ham at 26, 27 and James called at the surgeon. and he showed me the notes and he was looking through notes and said, let me see them. He didn't expect me to be playing at that point, which, yeah, which if I'd known at the time would have been probably a little bit different. But, yeah, that was the main issue and then there was things that went wrong from there. There were some impact injuries as well that I couldn't do anything about, but the main problem was my...

56:47Did they think you wouldn't play again? No, they thought I would play, but not for long. Oh, OK. Yeah, not for long. Yeah. Did they say that? No, I didn't say that at the time. It was a constant ankle problem. He'd done it, James Calder, fused the ankle. Is it worth it? Yeah, by the time I'd done mine, yeah. I couldn't move otherwise. Bone on bone, it was just a nightmare. But then do you get other injuries off? Yeah, well that's why I had to get my knee done. It just comes, it's just a chain reaction, isn't it?

57:16Gary Neville: It was a constant. In England, when we were picking the team, you were, without a shadow, without the most talented English midfield player by a mile from a technical perspective, you're the only player that to be fair we ever said could receive the ball on the back foot now you look at sort of the likes of the players we have we have more that can do that but there was no one every player that we had in midfield technically was sort of nowhere near the level of view but it was always a case of your injuries you were always injured and when how could how how long could we keep you how many minutes could we play you did you ever get low I mean you must have got because I got injured towards the end of my career where I had two or three years of effectively living in a gym it felt like did you ever get low because obviously you know yeah you're a younger player yeah i did and and yeah it's frustrating because it came at like that time you're talking about where like there was a tournament coming up or you know i played seven or eight games in a row for england um and then the next camp just before i'd get injured um did i get low yeah i think i did um but it probably goes back to what i said like at the start when you like really really love the game and it's your life like just that little bit of i need to get back and i want to run out on the emirates again like it keeps you going um and probably what helped you know that first that first injury that i was speaking about then i was out for 17 months 17.

58:36well that one with the pen with the ankle wow with the ankle and like then you know struggling and out here really that's yeah you're struggling but then if you get another injury that's two months or three months all of a sudden you think it's not that long like and be back soon. Yeah, I did get low. I did get low at times. But it also gives you an opportunity to focus on other things and it builds your resilience, definitely. Definitely because, yeah, by the end, I was okay. I was going to retire.

59:03Gary Neville: We used to think it was, weirdly, maybe it was ever said to you, we used to think it was your running style. No, you used to have this, like, you had that style of, like... Fat legs, I mean. No, you definitely built, like, a footballer. You had that running style whereby you thought, Do you know something? You're almost like, is that putting pressure on your ankle in different ways? Is that putting pressure on different parts of your body? We used to ask the question, you know, how can, how can we, because obviously we weren't just trying to sort of say, how can we keep you fit, basically, when you came with us?

59:29Gary Neville: Yeah. Yeah, I think that was probably a part of it. And I remember people trying to say that to me. It also probably made me the player that I was. And I remember at 18 or 19 going for like a running mechanics and some guy who's never kicked a ball in his life trying to say, right, no, you need to run like this. and I put my head on he's like no you need to keep your head down Carlos Keros tried that with me he needs to change the running style what's worrying is my son runs the same way as you I remember when I bumped into you didn't I think you were off for a coffee one morning when you were managing and I was miles away in the car and I could just see you walking and I was like that's Jack you can just tell he's just got a proper footballer's walk but I just wanted to say like in that period what kind of got you through because I know You were a young dad, weren't you?

1:00:1719, which is very young. But what kind of did get you through? Was it time? Yeah, that did help. He was 15 yesterday. Oh, wow. Wow. Taller than me. That helped. You know, people would say, was it a distraction? I actually think it helped me at that point. Not just because of the injuries, but because as well, you know, I was a young boy from a small town called Hitchin, And all of a sudden, I had a lot of money. And I was like, London can be a dangerous place, as we've seen over the years. So I think that helped me, having Arch. Yeah, and then I went through a lot, a young age in my life. I had two kids.

1:01:01Then I split up with the mum. All of a sudden, I was a single dad at 21 years old. And that teaches you a lot, life experiences. And then I met my wife now, and we've got two kids now. and yeah, I really had to learn, had to learn and during that time as well to chuck the injuries in. I think my wife now really did help with that. She gave me a different perspective. Yeah, all of a sudden, you know, my life and rightly so was football and I would get obsessed and beat myself up when I was injured to all of a sudden then, not accepting it, but in a way you have to accept that you're injured and yeah like before maybe i'd have tried to force myself back early um taught me a lot about about process as well like i remember when i first got injured and you know you go into rehab and you're like you're not going to do it you know you just feel like you're going to come back from it and everything will be okay um and then i was out for 17 months it was like shit no you actually need to do it and focus on that um so yeah loads of different things, Jill is the answer.

1:02:09My family as well. My family have always been close to me, still are. They come to every game and they give you a different outlook on everything. You know, when you're in, especially now in management and there's so many things and then you go to your dad or your mum or dad after the game and it's like, you weren't very good today, were you? What about the, we've got to talk about the Barcelona game, everybody talks about that Barcelona. Can you remember about going into that game and playing against them and the noise that they were making about our great barcelona were and you had arguably one of your best games ever what was you thinking about going into with a game i remember so the year before i was at bolton and they played they played them um at the same point in the champions league and messi scored four yeah um and i remember then the next year remember the the draw used to be on sky sports news and all the lads all the players were sat down watching it and barcelona came out everyone was like and i remember thinking maybe naively thinking like they can't be that good like they can't be that good like we've got a chance um and then i remember being in the tunnel and i remember messi being there in the s star uh busquets xavi and like these were players that yeah the ones that i'd idolized like only a few years before in world cups and they'd won the world cup and um all of a sudden then being on the pitch and i remember the game started and we did not touch the ball for the first 10 minutes and i remember and just being really close to each other and you thought right i'm gonna jump and press him and then he would just play it there and there was triangles all over the place and um then i remember a moment in the game where i think it was i tackled javi um and i sort of as i tackled and slid i got up and i pushed it past in the ester and i remember just a feeling in the crowd like yeah um and yeah and then you know i had other games where everything you do goes goes the way you want it to and you you're confident and probably because that was that team that everyone talks about it but even even that being said we won the game 2-1 probably shouldn't have we shouldn't have in the foot the first half they could have been three or four I'm messy I had a couple of one-on-ones and and then we lost the away leg which It was a disaster.

1:04:19Endless. You'd have scored at the last minute. Yes, I remember. Yeah. Still annoys me.

1:04:26Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Disney+. About young players, Jack. The young players that basically sort of come through now. What's the difference that you see with them?

1:04:41They want everything straight away.

1:04:44Gary Neville: You look at the JJ Gabriel case, say, for the last few weeks, looking at it like that. You've dealt with under-18s players at Arsenal. You've seen these players come through. You want everything. Well, the good ones don't. The good ones, like I said before, they're really focused. And they don't cause you any problems. And then it's about... Who are they at Arsenal? I'm talking about Ethan, Miles, Max, Dalman.

1:05:11I was fortunate that I was quite close to Mikel and Mikel would let me in his meetings and stuff. So all I would try and do with Max and Myles and Ethan is just try and give him what Mikel wants and try and teach him that, the terminology and all of that stuff. Whereas to try and coach him, you see Max down and dribble, I'm not going to help him with that. He does it naturally. And yeah, they were just really driven. Professional, hardworking. Professional, hardworking, a little bit arrogant. In a good way. In a good way. and then you have the next group of the ones now that are in League 1, League 2 they have the same attitude, mentality but not the same quality and then you have it's a generational thing I think Gary where I've got kids now and they want everything they want it now they go on Amazon, they go on Playstation the Playstation store, they buy it, they want it now it's the same it's the same with the young players you know how willing are they to really work and there's some context to that as well you know when I first went into the 18s I remember one of my first sessions like some guy tapping me on the back with an iPad saying he's got to come out he's got to come out he's got to come out he's done too much and of course that was my first

1:06:32Gary Neville: do you mean from a sports science perspective yeah from a sports science management yeah and it was like my first week in there and I didn't understand that and I'd also experienced bad load management. So I was like, yeah, yeah, come out, come out. And pretty quickly I realised that, oh, we're not training as much here. We're not training. I grew up listening to Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard talk about, yeah, the sessions were good, but actually after, that's where you make your career and that's where you practice shooting or whatever it is you need to work on. And they weren't allowed to do that.

1:07:00They weren't allowed to do that. So that's actually probably one of the...

1:07:02Gary Neville: Who's making that decision in a football club and in under-18s? Are you in charge of that as the academy coach or is that something that you say, the sports scientists will say, they're not to do that today and you have to listen to it? Is that how it works? You're in charge of that, but then that also makes you accountable. So to ignore them is dangerous because they're medical. Yeah, when you don't know. But that is actually probably when people ask me about my coaching career. And that's one of the things I'm most proud about is how we push that and we raise the bar. And yeah, that is, I get it.

1:07:33I get it. And academies are different now. I'd do a double session when I was coming through and if the session weren't right in the morning, Steve Bould would then take you out and he was running you. Not the fitness coach, Steve Bould was saying, you've got to run and you'd look at him thinking, there's no way I can run here. But you'd get through it and it creates something in you that you could get through that and, yeah, that weren't there. That weren't there. I always go back to something you said, it was probably when you were there, when you were with England and you were talking about, I don't know who it was, it wasn't one of the coaching staff someone above you's almost going through how many days you're actually trained the players because they turn up and say i played a game yesterday i've got a two day recovery yeah yeah and then you'd have the day before the game and then and you'd be like when

1:08:16Gary Neville: are they actually on the pitch well they play you play let's say you played on a sunday and then they're meeting up on the sunday evening and then you've got a game on a friday and this was roy used to go crazy at this because who was the fitness coach with england chris chris neville so you Effectively, if you're having a two-day recovery, they're not training with you till Wednesday. And then Thursday is the day before a game. And Roy used to have got 24 hours with him. So that was a real frustration, obviously. I mean, you've had it obviously with Ireland as well, Roy, where you have that. What is sort of right or wrong?

1:08:51Obviously, you go off data, you go off science, and you have to listen to it. And we're probably looking at certain... I think a Maresca or a Chelsea almost felt like one of the reasons why he lost his job was that sort of internal conflict with physios and sports scientists. And you go back to when we were younger, and I don't really like doing that, because, you know, the game moves on in different ways. But I remember one time where, when we were in the youth team, we were the reserve team as well. And we had a youth cup game on a Tuesday and a reserve game on the wedding. We just played both nights.

1:09:21Just played 90 minutes. But there was no ever thought that you wouldn't do it. The debate was though, yeah. Do you know what I mean? And it's just like, I think sometimes it's like, yes, you want to use the data and you don't want people to get injured, 100 % get that. But there's also that time of where it's... I don't know what the balance is. You probably know there aren't more being in the game. Where's that thing? Sometimes you've got to push on. Because in the game, you can't run on the game, can you?

1:09:42Gary Neville: And tap someone on the shoulder and say, he's going to have to come out. But it's that principle of taking your body and training to a place that basically is quite uncomfortable so that the game becomes... But are people getting to that place uncomfortable? That's what I'm saying. Not as much. I think you're right, you have to get the balance right. I think there's so many people now in academies. It was a big department, the performance department. And don't get me wrong, they had some really good things. My challenge and my question was, do we have enough people that understand the level that they're going into?

1:10:14So, yeah, fine, Max Dalman, Ethan, Myles, they're going to go on, they're going to play under Mikel. But what about the ones who go into League One? And you see the demands that Saturday, Tuesday, and you can't rotate. You don't have the ability to do that. So, yeah, that was my thing. And there were so many things within that, Jamie. I remember a story of Don Howe. I never worked with Don Howe, but I remember a physio, David Wales. He was my physio, and him telling me this story that he would wait for the players to come in from training and say, are you all right? Are you all right? Are you all right?

1:10:47And Don Howe grabbed him and said, don't you ever ask if they're all right? They need to go through that. Now, that's gone. The game's changed a little bit, but you have to get that balance right. There was. there would be physios when the players, the under-18s were coming in saying, are you all right? Are you all right? And I remember having conversations with them and saying, if someone would have asked me every day in my career if I was all right and if I was a little bit like insecure

1:11:08Gary Neville: and I would have said no. But they do ask you every morning now, don't they? How you feel. And you mark yourself out of whatever it is, 10 or whatever it might be. I mean, I love working with Don now. I mean, blessed. He was absolutely incredible. But how do you build that mental and physical toughness in young players if they are constantly being, I suppose managed is the wrong word, but if they're being protected against overwork, which the only way to get to a point of... It's getting the balance. You're obviously not going to do it the day before a game, are you? But if you've got a spare week or a few days, you do push them.

1:11:39And I remember one of our first games that I went in with Ireland with Martin, that was the night before the game when you got in the stadium. You have a little game at the end, I think we were having a game like seven, eight minutes each way. Just a small set. I think after three or four minutes, one of the fitness coaches came over to me, You know I'd manage at a decent level, played at a decent level. He's come over and he went, just to let you know, they've been out of four minutes now, go easy. Yeah, and I just, yeah, I've got it, yeah, no problem. I saw him after the training and went, never, ever, ever come up to me on the training pitch again.

1:12:08It was like six minutes each way, is that like, we want to do a half an hour each way. So it's just getting that balance. And boundaries with your staff. Sometimes it is that.

1:12:16Gary Neville: But if you've got, again, it's the day before the game, that's where you've got to be careful about two days. But when you have a free week, yeah, push the players, of course. Max Downman, where does that get to in terms of talent? Because obviously we've watched him, we see the sort of way in which he's developing, you've worked with him, where does that go? Honestly, Gary, Ethan and Miles were good and I love them. And they're both good at different things and they'll play at the top, top level. Max, I don't want to put too much pressure on him, but honestly, Gary, he played in my team at 13.

1:12:4913 he was playing in the 18s and we were playing in Southampton it was a good academy and we'd lost some players to the 21s so I was like I'm going to bring Max and everyone was a bit like I said no don't worry like I'm going to call his dad I'll meet him in the car park when I met him and like he got out of the car and he was like taller than me already he was 13 yeah like really confident kid he was on the bench and then we were winning 2-0 I said to my assistant and Birch said, come on, let's get Max on. And he was like, come on, let's get him on. So I stood next to him on the sideline and I said, look Max, you're playing against players that are five years older than you here.

1:13:26Don't get into a duel, like one or two touch, move it around. He's like, yeah, he picked up the ball, I promise you. He dribbled around five players, he squared it and we're 3-0 up. And I just looked at my assistant like, I've never seen anything like it going. And then, he obviously then went on with us and developed He developed a little bit more physically. Physically, his numbers were a joke. In terms of what? Just hitting sort of... Yeah, the metrics they use now are your high-speed running, your sprints, your total distance. They were Premier League level, he's 14. He's physically unbelievable.

1:13:58Yeah, he can be what he wants. He can be what he wants. He's got a good family around him as well. But yeah, he's obviously got stuff to do. He needs to get into the team. He needs to stay into the team.

1:14:11Gary Neville: Where's he going to play in the end? I think he plays inside. Like a 10, okay. Yeah. That Odegaard type position. Yeah. Yeah. When he played with me, we played him in all the positions in midfield. And don't get me wrong, he was under 18s football, but he was really young. And he can play in all of them. He obviously then got into the team, which is pretty normal with a young player. They get into the team on the wing. He'll probably have to do that if he wants to run in the team, play on the sides. but yeah, he's very, very good. And just talk to us about Mikel and Arsenal in terms of, you've talked about Arsene Wenger before, but Mikel feels the absolute polar opposite in terms of everything just feels like it's designed.

1:14:56Gary Neville: Obviously, he's built a brilliant team, a title-winning team. What's your thoughts in terms of how Mikel's done and the job he's done and what you've witnessed there when you've been with him? Yeah, so Mikel, I came back and I was a very good team. at a club and i trained i trained with with the first team i was trying to stay fit michael was a gaffer um and i was on my a license i was coaching in the 18s um and i was you know during that that early spell um i wasn't there when michael first came in he kept talking about process process process and he was for straight arsenal fans and i was probably the same as them like what what do you mean process process process and when i got there after a week i saw it i saw it straight away and what was he doing in training he was just you know what he taught me he taught me um that now so he was working with 30 35 year olds 28 year olds no matter what coach them they want to be coached and i'm talking about coaching about body position to receive first touch timing to move and that stuff that you'd have been taught when he was 14 15 but he would go into it all the time and then you'd arrive in the morning there'd be a meeting that he was highlighting that in the meeting um and you could see that he all of this little individual stuff was building up into like a team structure thing um yeah and he was then similar to eddie similar to eddie in terms of how like intense he was and um how he would drive and push the players um and then i was fortunate enough like to then sit in like his planning meetings um yeah how he would organize his staff the roles he would want from his staff um how he planned physically like okay we want to push the players but does he run them like that does he run them the brand of players he run the players yeah yeah that like how hard they worked was i was there i was training in it and i was like i can't do this i can't do this and um yeah like as as much as like there is loads and loads of details probably what he taught me was like don't don't miss the basics like you're receiving in your first touch and how hard you need to compete and how hard you need to run.

1:17:07I mean, yeah, he was...

1:17:09Gary Neville: Is he tough with the players in terms of team talks and things like that? He's seen the documentaries and stuff like that. He, yeah, he's got high standards. And what about the set pieces? Your mate, Nico.

1:17:25Gary Neville: To be fair, I said something about him two or three years. I just, yeah, I mean, look, he's done an incredible job and continues to do an incredible job yeah I think I just said that I didn't see the goalkeeping coach stand up every time the goalkeeper makes a save I mean I felt as though he was yeah hmm I think he's proven to be fair that he's done an unbelievable job yeah first of all Nico is a top top guy he was good to know yeah I remember when I was in the academy and I said to him, Niko, help me and my staff and do a meeting for us so we can sort of, I don't need to know everything, he's obviously not going to give his secrets away, but can you help us?

1:18:10And he was, he was. And it wasn't always like that, you know, it's like first team in the academy, first team always really, really focused and he gave us his time. And yeah, it's a culture, it's a culture thing. I remember, so they would use the academy players the Mikel and the first team but they would use them for indoors so they would use them when they went outdoors but they would use them for indoors to practice the set pieces they were going to do with the first team yeah so there would be on this pitch there would be like Mikel was taking the team through the structure thing with 10 under 18s in the shape of West Ham for example and then on the other side Nico was doing a walkthrough on set pieces and I was thinking like Imagine doing that in your day.

1:18:54The players would just go, no, we're not doing that. What's going on here? And of course, what helps is that they become really successful with it and they score loads of goals from it. But yeah, it was like a culture thing where it just changed completely. It's another level. How long did they spend on it, would you say? They'd do 10 minutes of that and then they'd flip. So they'd experience both the structure of the team and then the set pieces. So everyone knew their role. Have you taken some of those sort of set pieces that...

1:19:25The guy that I'd brought with me from Arsenal, actually his last role was Nico's assistant.

1:19:32Gary Neville: Okay. Yeah. So it's quite interesting. What's your set piece record like? Last year it was excellent. This year it's not great. Is that defending or attacking? Attacking. And defending both. Both, of course. But yeah, we scored a lot from attacking. Does that still go back to delivering people? People want to attack it. Delivery is the main thing. Yeah. And yeah, the other thing is these new rules. I think they have affected the refs. The holding. Yeah, the holding. And it affects the players a little bit because they don't want to then get into it. So I do think that's influenced it a little bit but we need to be better with delivery and stuff.

1:20:06I don't think Arsenal scored a goal for a set-piece this season. We're trying something else. We're trying other stuff. They play short a lot now. You've seen us play some short stuff. We're mixing it up, James.

1:20:18Gary Neville: Quick fire questions. Best player you ever played with? Wayne Rooney toughest opponent Moussa Dembele Wow remember best atmosphere you've ever had I've played in Anfield best manager you've ever played under Arsene favourite goal is it that one the favourite goals got over there no I don't know the England one I like that England left foot into the top corner but just from the Arsenal one way you yeah that was nice because That was what we worked on. That was the team one. Yeah, but the England one on the edge of the box. Yeah, the England one. And who's the biggest muller that you ever played with?

1:20:59Ooh, Alexis Sanchez. Is he?

1:21:01Gary Neville: Was he? Yeah. What, in what way? If... Just a muller? Yeah. If we were doing a light day, he'd want to do a hard day. If we were doing a hard day, he wouldn't do a...

1:21:14What happened, what happened, do you think, to him at United when he came? I don't know. He shouldn't have left, should he? Really. We got Mkhitaryan, didn't we, the other way. And he was good. I don't know. He went there with Mourinho, didn't he? Yeah. I don't know how Jose works, but what I would say is that someone like him would have to change for Mourinho. Yeah, he had a lot of freedom at Arsenal. Because he would win you a game and dribble past someone, we'd allow it a little bit. Whereas I'm not sure he got that there. Where will Luton be at the end of the season? Hopefully ten points more than last season.

1:21:52Nice, good answer.

1:21:53Gary Neville: Jack, great to see you. Well done. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Well done. Thanks, Jack. Thank you. Thank you. Brilliant, Jack.

1:22:29Thanks to our title sponsors, Disney+.

1:22:31Gary Neville: We'll see you next time.