'Amorim's most important week at Man Utd' | Why Liverpool's form is concerning | 'It's Arsenal's PL title to win'

0:00Peter Drury:Welcome to the Gary Neville podcast and it's freezing. Exactly that. Hello everybody, it's the Gary Neville podcast. Delivered to you for the first time ever today from the Hill Dickinson Stadium where Tottenham have created a very interesting look at the top of the Premier League after a really interesting weekend. Arsenal top, Bournemouth second, Tottenham third, Sunderland fourth and then Manchester City and Manchester United together on points in fifth and sixth. It's been a gripping weekend, actually, Gary. We'll come to them one by one, but just an oversight of the whole thing.

0:34Gary Neville:Yeah, an interesting weekend. Maybe I'm just thinking primarily about Manchester United going up into fourth and Liverpool losing last night and being below them. Sunderland going up into, I think, were they second at one point?

0:50Peter Drury:They were, yeah.

0:51Gary Neville:And then, obviously, Bournemouth have now gone up into second and Tottenham, who last weekend were having a really poor season, now having a great season. It seems like it's crazy. You know, one week we're thinking managers are under pressure, the next week they're in the top six. And yeah, it's good. I mean, look, what I would say is that this league, at this moment in time, has only really got one consistently good side every single week and that's Arsenal who are playing at the level. Obviously Bournemouth and Sunderland are just sensational and, you know, well done to them. And I'm talking about the top teams, they're all over the place and have been for much of this season apart from Arsenal.

1:23Gary Neville:So yeah, a really interesting season. It's something that none of us expected. And we don't know what's going to happen week in, week out. And let's hope that continues.

1:33Peter Drury:Absolutely so. So let's deal with this game. What was good about Tottenham today?

1:38Gary Neville:Well, they did the things that sometimes you, certainly last season and the season before for part of it, were thinking that they weren't capable of doing. And that's being reliable when they're not playing well. Can they withstand pressure? Can they soak up a team putting balls into their box? They've done that today. I think that he defended really well. The goalkeeper looks a lot better. There were times when I'm not 100 % on him now, but I just think that there is an element of him looking more solid than he has been. Van der Ven looks, I mean, he's always looked great. Van der Ven, you know, you just look at him with that left foot and the way he strides forward and his presence, but he's just, you know, five goals from set pieces.

2:15Gary Neville:You start to add that to your game as well. Danso, I thought, did well alongside him. Spurs have got a lot of players out. I don't think they played well today. It's mad. I mean, football is like that sometimes where David Moyes will wipe the scoreline out, which he can never do, unfortunately, because it's the only thing that matters at the end of a football game. But it's not. I think David Moyes will look at the team's performance today and think that we did a lot of very good things. We could have had a goal in the first half. It was disallowed. There were a couple of big chances for Beto and some great saves from Vicario.

2:43Gary Neville:So I don't think it's all doom and gloom for Everton. It's just obviously disappointing when you get beat 3-0. But from a Spurs perspective, I think particularly in that second half, for half an hour, they had to withstand a lot of Everton pressure set pieces, corners, balls into the box, and they stood up to it. And that takes some doing. To win away from home in the Premier League, I don't care who you are, whether you're Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland, the champions Liverpool or Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, to win away in the Premier League is always a great achievement, and Tottenham have done that today.

3:14Gary Neville:And those 3 ,000, 4 ,000 Tottenham fans in that far corner will have a great journey home.

3:18Peter Drury:And so given that, given the robustness that you've seen, in what you rightly describe as an unspectacular game, really. Can you find it in yourself to really believe in Tottenham going forward?

3:32Gary Neville:Yeah, I mean, I like the manager a lot. And what he has to do is there'll be that balance, won't there? So you've had this sort of, if you look at Tottenham over the last five, six, seven years, when you look at the period where Jose Mourinho and Nuno was in for a short period in Conte, there was some sort of quite large criticism from Tottenham fans about the quality and style of football. And then we went to Ange Postacoglu, who brought amazing football for about three or four months. I thought it was absolutely sensational to watch. Five or six months. And even when they were getting beat last season, some of the football, the combinations, you know, it's hard.

4:07Gary Neville:I often said that about watching Angie's Tottenham teams. It's bloody hard to make a team play like that. To actually put those combinations together. You know, and I think that the style was there, but obviously the results weren't there, particularly in the Premier League, and they won a trophy at the end, which was fantastic. What I think Thomas Frank's going to try and achieve is the balance between the two of becoming really difficult to beat, because that's what a football team is, that balance between being really difficult to beat and defensively very good and structurally sound, and then having that ability to flip from that shape into a good attacking shape, which means that you've got some excitement and some thrill and some risk going forward.

4:43Gary Neville:Today, I felt there was more the defensive side of it and the more the rigour of the defending part rather than the sort of element of excitement going forward. I didn't think they carried much excitement in their attack, which is surprising because you've got Simons out there, you've got Colomohane, you've got Brendan Johnson over on the right-hand side, Kudos. You've got four players there who can perform and deliver, but if you've got your back four more solid and your midfield two a bit more pragmatic, it does hamper that four up front, being able to have the sort of combinations to play. You do need that balance through midfield, but they're missing quite a few players.

5:18Gary Neville:You think about Maddison missing and Kulisewski and Solanke and then Romero and the dogging, probably missed someone out as well, but they've got a lot to come back. If they can get the players fit and they can keep on picking up points when they're not at the best and Thomas Frank can just continue to keep working with his team. He's a manager that I think everybody likes, whether you're a Tottenham fan or not. They've got a real good chance of building, you know, they've got a good group of players anyway, but I think they can build on something that means that they can become a top four, top five team again which is obviously something that they would need the size of the club they are

5:51Peter Drury:and of course they would benefit if other top clubs as they seem to be at the moment keep dropping points, losing games and this is a weekend when City and Liverpool and Chelsea have all lost I think clearly Liverpool is the lead story if you like because they've lost four in a row how are you reading their situation?

6:14Gary Neville:It's interesting there's obviously when you come to Everton there's quite a few Liverpool fans work here you know the stewards actually that let you into the car park and obviously I'm sure that when you go to Anfield there's Everton fans who work there as well it's obviously a very close community but there's some Liverpool fans on the car park that I ran into really worried worried about the manager worried about sort of what was going on and I'm not in that place but what I don't do when I come to Liverpool is ever doubt their knowledge of their football team. They intently watch everything that's going on and it's such a close-knit community that they always find out about things.

6:48Gary Neville:But look, I actually think there's quite a few of those games that they've lost where I felt as though they could have won. Flipping it the other way if they'd taken the chances, what they have to sort out is their... Earlier on in the season, I felt as though their full-backs weren't right and maybe Canati at times wasn't right, but Van Dijk was holding them together and Alisson was in goal and you've got two world-class performers there. But the virus is catching. It's not just going now into sort of the left-back who I think now is becoming a worried left-back. You know, Kerkhez is becoming scored last night but, you know, watching him, he has to be taken out, I think.

7:29Gary Neville:I'm worried about the right-back. You know, Frimpong's not a right-back. Conor Bradley's being given his head and I'm supportive of that because I think there's a lot of talent there but it's difficult when your team are conceding goals and you're trying to sort of, you know, that pressure's on. And I did say a couple of weeks ago, I think maybe last weekend it was, when we were doing the podcast after the Liverpool-United game with Jamie Carragher, and I just said, look, there were times at United when we were conceding goals. It does remind me, Arna Slaughter's Liverpool do remind me of our team a little bit.

7:57Gary Neville:We went through these mad periods where we were going to see goals, always looked like we were going to score, but we were all over the place, and that wasn't all the time, but there were moments when I remember these things happening. and you could then think that what he would do is he'd put, he'd obviously have two centre-backs, but he might put John O'Shea at left-back and me at right-back or Wes Brown at right-back and almost go to four centre-halves and then really narrow the midfield and make them a lot more solid and say, right, OK, let's just build a foundation off the back of that because one thing you can guarantee with Salah, Eketike, Verts, Izak, Gakpo and the others that they've got, Chiesa, they'll score goals.

8:33Gary Neville:so us seven plus the goalkeeper responsible for making sure that we're solid and we're not open all the time and we're not exposed and it sounds quite defensive it sounds like sort of going back to base base camp and sort of sort of starting from scratch but sometimes you have to do that when everything's crazy and everything's chaotic and everything's mad which it is for Liverpool at the moment you just have to find sort of what would be a strong foundation and that means putting players in there that ultimately can keep a narrow back four prevent spaces win your duels win your set pieces, make sure you don't give easy goals away, play it forward a bit quicker than you have been and stop popping it through midfield and just be a little bit more direct knowing that that front three will win your games and that happened at United a lot and I just wonder whether it's a time now for Arna Slott just to simplify and pull it back because if he carries on playing Kirchis at left back and he carries on playing Bradley at right back and they carry on being as exposed as they are in midfield, you'll keep getting the same results or you'll keep basically every single week going into a game, flipping a coin and thinking, well, are we going to win or are we going to lose?

9:35Gary Neville:And that can't be what Liverpool are about, the way in which they performed in this last 12 months. So, look, I like the manager a lot. I like his way of working. I like his manner in press conferences. It doesn't look like there's any panic there from him. But deep down, I think he's going to have to interfere with this. He cannot just keep each week allowing the same things to happen. and that's what is happening. When it goes on, you know, I always say, one mistake, it can happen. Two, you start to get a little bit worried. Three, you maybe have to intervene and four, it becomes a pattern of what you are and that's where we're at now with Arnazlotz.

10:08Gary Neville:It's a pattern of what they have become in this first two months of the season and yeah, he's going to have to do something different and the only thing that I can think of is really narrowing that back four, really making sure that midfield three are tight and allowing that front three just a little bit more freedom to go and win games, but to say to those seven, be a little bit more safe in the way in which you play. Don't open us up as much. Don't go forward as much. Don't sort of play as riskier passes and be a bit more direct. Because, yeah, it's a worry. You have to deal with it now. It's not just a blip anymore.

10:37Gary Neville:It's becoming something that's a concern to Liverpool players and Liverpool fans. And they can't be down there, seven or eight points behind, or they are behind Arsenal. That's not where they need to be.

10:47Peter Drury:No, that's a really thorough answer on Liverpool. They're just ticking off the other big clubs who've lost this weekend. We move on to Manchester City. And if I may, in order that we don't miss out on the clubs that are overachieving, talk to me about Manchester City in the context of the fact that next Super Sunday is Manchester City against Bournemouth, which becomes, for that reason, doubly interesting.

11:09Gary Neville:Yeah, Manchester City, I have to say, just aren't Manchester City anymore that we've seen for years. Amongst the best teams you'll ever see in the Premier League and in English football, but they're not that. There's some players in there that sounds really harsh, but they're average and they've never had average players. They've always had exceptional players in every position. And when you drop below that standard in your recruitment, and we've seen that in the last couple of years, they've still got some fantastic players. But when you couple the recruitment over the last couple of years with some players ageing and sort of just losing their little bit of spark, which is natural, you end up with a team that don't deliver as much.

11:52Gary Neville:And they're still in a sort of half-decent position. They'll still probably finish in the Champions League, which is fine in a season. But when you're judging Pep Guardiola and where he's been and where this Manchester City have been over this last seven or eight, nine years, they're well below the standard. And they look like they can get beat in any single game of football. And that's unusual. They're not even amazing anymore to watch, as in sort of the play. It's a bit, almost like a hybrid between, a bit direct, a bit of the old Pep in terms of his passing, a little bit scruffy. I'm not quite sure what it is.

12:29Gary Neville:It falls in between a team that have just lost their identity. And I always felt Pep Guardiola had the ultimate, he was the ultimate manager of identity. You talk about sort of philosophy, the first word, the first words out of your mouth would have been Pep Guardiola. Pep Guardiola's philosophy, the whole of English football and European football have copied this for eight years. But it almost feels like Manchester City themselves have sort of lost that. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me when they lose games now. And that's exciting for the rest of the Premier League. We want a competitive Premier League.

12:59Gary Neville:We want teams that can beat each other. It's amazing to see Bournemouth and Sunderland up there. It's amazing to see that there aren't teams that have come up from the championship down in the bottom three. That's fantastic for us all to see. That's what we wanted. so we can't complain but for Manchester City fans they're just going to have to obviously just accept a lower standard for a year or two because it's not quite right for them and well well done to Unai Emery and Villa because they were down in the dumps a few weeks ago and they can see themselves sort of pushing them right back up there are they in seventh?

13:28Peter Drury:Yes they are Yeah they're in seventh

13:30Gary Neville:and they had a terrible start to the season

13:33Peter Drury:Yeah so Chelsea is the other one to sort of complete the set and again in order not to miss out on people who are doing really well This is an answer, obviously, in the context of Sunderland and a fabulous win for them at Stamford Bridge.

13:44Gary Neville:Yeah, I mean, look, Chelsea, again, inconsistent. I mean, what you want in life from everybody that you work with is consistency and reliability, and particularly at the top level and in a high-performance environment. And we're talking about all these teams, you know, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea. They've all been inconsistent at parts of this season and they need to try and find that. Chelsea I thought were fantastic against Liverpool a few weeks ago I thought they were awful a week or two before that at Old Trafford when they got back to 10 men in the second half 10v10 I just thought they were nowhere near enough so you're watching them one week here, the next week here and that's not good enough the money that has been spent on these squads the managers have got to get more out of them and look, is it the players that have been recruited for these clubs or have the managers just dropped off?

14:35Gary Neville:I think we're seeing that obviously Pep Guardiola is still here but there's no doubt there was a period five, six years ago when the managers I think in the league were all the very best in Europe and when those managers have left one by one apart from Pep it's got to a point where you see that the football just drops. I think the managers are the most important people in the Premier League. We need the best managers in Europe and then obviously I think we'll get the best teams along with that. So for Chelsea yeah they'll be really frustrated and they're up and down like a yo-yo. Sunderland, from the first game of the season, they've played against West Ham and I know a lot of teams have beaten West Ham since, but just their approach, the physicality, the speed of their attacks, their counter-attacks, their aggression, I'm all for that.

15:21Gary Neville:And I think it's come back into football in this last couple of years. I think one thing that the teams have done this year that have come up, they've respected the physicality of the Premier League. We know the talent in here is great, and the football and technical ability, but you've got to be physically matching every single team, home and away, and that's what Sunderland are doing and it's a brilliant result. I crave the idea of Sunderland and God bless them this week, Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough, those types of clubs from the north of England that are great first division and Premier League clubs in my mind.

15:51Gary Neville:You're getting back into the league and thriving and doing well and that's what Sunderland are doing. It's great for the Premier League and great for English football.

15:58Peter Drury:100%. We will of course get to Arsenal but there's another team in the top six now that you used to play for. and you had one of your utopian Saturdays, didn't you, where Salford won at Gillingham and then you got to watch Manchester United and I was there too at Old Trafford. I must say, I don't say it quite felt like the old days but there was a bit of a feel, wasn't there?

16:22Gary Neville:There was. It was such an important game because I think straight away after Liverpool, which was sensational, any win at Anfield just feels rare and special when you're a Manchester United player or a fan. But then all the way through the week, you've just got that thing in the back of your mind, don't mess it up now, don't cock it up. You know what I mean? Don't go back the way. Don't take one step forward and three back because you'll end up back where you're questioning the manager again, you're questioning the system again. So it was such an important game, not just for the three on the row.

16:54Gary Neville:It was obvious that Manchester United would go up into the top six, not maybe as gloriously as they have with all the other teams losing that have lost up there. but it was obvious that Manus United were going to sail back up the league and it was a game they couldn't lose and Brighton have got a great record against United but I thought the football was good I actually thought in the first 10 minutes what I actually was most impressed with with United was in the first 10 minutes I thought that what they did they tried to go a little bit high press and I saw De Ligt jumping out onto Welbeck Shaw was really aggressive and actually continued to be aggressive but what it meant was that they felt like there was gaps everywhere for Minte and Welbeck and Cadilloglu on the right and said to run through.

17:34Gary Neville:And I thought, this is going to be dangerous. This is going to be a problem. And I think they got a couple of warning signs and then they just sat back a little bit. And that just something, it's not a problem for them. As long as they're able to actually not do it for the whole game and they have to come out of that shape. Manchester United being with a back five and then that sort of what would be four in midfield and the sort of, you know, three in midfield or two in midfield, but the two coming back in with Cescou up front and being compact for five, ten minutes and stopping the flow and suffocating the game and then getting your football back.