Chelsea fans certainly don’t love Gary Neville, and his often wild or frankly just inaccurate takes on our club over the years have really made many Blues fans dislike the former Manchester United and England defender.
Neville as a right back was great. Neville as a manager was terrible. And more often than not, Neville as a pundit is even more terrible than he was as a manager!
But even still, he’s actually made some decent points with his latest comments.
Let’s just first recap what he has said about Chelsea this weekend.
“I actually like Nicolas Jackson. That might be an unpopular opinion on here, but I like him,” said Neville on the Gary Neville podcast. “I think he has a lot to give. He’s a young player. I think they he cost…not stupid money but it’s his first full season in the Premier League, he’s scored quite a few goals and he keeps going.
“There’s a lot to be said about that. He might not be striker number 1 but if he was your striker number two or number three in a squad of 18 to 20 players, you’d say ‘I’ll take that’. So for me, the performance Chelsea put in against Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final that was a hell of a performance. Good, really good.
“And if they had a forward who could finish more consistently than Nicolas Jackson then they would have won the game, and I think that’s what Chelsea’s owners should be looking at. Performance standards are not consistent and they’re awful when they’re awful – but actually their good looks quite exciting.”
He’s spot on with his analysis of Jackson here, and it’s very similar to what many of us have been saying.
Jackson for me started the season quite poorly, but the second half of the season he has done very well all bar missing far too many easy chances. He’s still not an out and out 9 for me, but his overall play and contributions on the ball has improved immensely since the first part of the season. And I also agree that at the moment, he is probably a number two option striker, or he could even be starting more on the left or as a second striker. But his improvements have been good.
Neville believes there is something there for Chelsea and again, he’s not wrong. There is quality, and there is potential, I don’t think any of us have ever doubted that as an overall outlook at least, even if we are very unsure on many of the players we have signed.
Neville added: “You can see something, but they just need two or three players to glue it together. They need really good, experienced signings. They can’t afford to go down the route of eight-year contracts.
“If they can get those right three players in at the end start of the season; the striker, the centre-back to replace Thiago Silva and the goalkeeper, I think, as well.”
‘They need really good, experienced signings.’ Amen Gary, AMEN.
Yet another pundit/former international player who was actually a good player, knowing what we need in this squad to really compete again. He joins a HUGE list of Chelsea fans, former pros, former Chelsea players, pundits, analysts, journalists, and rival fans who have all said the same thing all season. I mean, we can’t ALL be wrong! Well we could, but we’re not!
I personally think we need more than just three players, but essentially he’s got it right here as well. We need a stronger and more experienced core of the team.
And on the long contracts thing, I’ve always been split on this. We did this as a smart loophole to FFP and PSR, being able to amortise fees over a longer period. So this was smart in my opinion. Just the other side of it it brings negatives and some issues. But I think at the time it was a smart loophole to find.