“No one wants to grow up to be a Gary Neville”

“No one wants to grow up being a Gary Neville”

Carragher’s famous quote to Gary Neville. Was it harsh? Was it true? Was it just for comic affect?

The problem was it was probably all 3!

“Was it harsh”
Gary Neville made 400 appearance for Manchester United and 85 for the England National team. He was an integral part of one of the most successful club sides of a generation which he served as club captain for 5 years. He is one of the most decorated English and European Footballers of all time winning a total of 20 trophies including 8 Premier League titles and 2 Champions Leagues. He is the most capped English right back and represented his county at 5 international tournaments.

So to answer the first question “was it harsh?” yes! If there was ever a role model for English full backs in that generation then Gary Neville was the man to be.

“Was it true?” This is somewhat counter-intuitive to the first point but yes it was true. Even with all the honours he had no one wanted to become a full back. For multiple generations the full back position was filled by failed wingers and failed centre backs! This wasn’t just the case for grass roots football this went all the way to the top of the professional game! Neville may well have been in that position himself! There are countless cases of wingers turned full backs over the years, some have been some of the most successful full backs we have seen, take Jordi Alba and Dani Alves for Barcelona, arguably a different style of play in La Liga but the point still stands no one wanted to be a full back!

The comic affect was obvious, but I feel a lot of that came from the fact that every football fan and player realised it was true. For one reason or another full backs were an undesirable position. It wasn’t just full backs though; centre backs have had the same problem and so have goalkeepers!

Terry and Vidic were two of the most dominant centre backs the Premier League era has seen and yet there is no way young kids were saying I want to be the next John Terry! This is why I loved what Jamie Carragher said so much because it really highlighted an issue that wasn’t being noticed in football. We were seeing two positions in our full backs that may not have been utilised effectively and other undesirable position not getting the recognition they deserve which ultimately would lead to less options going through the levels of football.
This isn’t to say that top level players haven’t emerged as clearly from an international standpoint you only need one or two in a generation to be competitive, however if you take Glen Johnson for example who was clearly a well regarded player, he had very little competition at club and international level which arguably could have caused complacency.

However! And it is a big however! Has this all changed? Are we seeing a new outlook on football and a more rounded opinion of positions?

Apparently, no one wants to be a Gary Neville but I bet my house on the fact there are thousands upon thousands of young English footballers in a park around the country pretending to be the next Trent Alexander Arnold or Andy Robertson! This isn’t to say Liverpool are the only side doing this but they are the team I want to focus on for a paragraph or so.

Their style of play is extremely expansive! They expect full backs to offer not only a defensive security but an attacking option that not only gives the opposition someone to mark but offers substantial goal contributions. This offers some glamour to a once dreaded position on the pitch!

This doesn’t just apply to full backs! How many more willing goalkeepers to do you think we had in parks, courts, streets and pitches around the country and the world when the likes of Ederson and Allison were bought for either World Record fees or at least very close. How many more kids in parks now want to be the next Virgil Van Dijk!

These sorts of transfers have a knock-on effect not just in the professional game but the grass roots game as well. Not only do players now want to play these positions because of the change in style of play but because of that change in style it moulds players with attributes that are normally unique.

I feel I should expand on the above slightly with a few examples. 20/30 years ago there wouldn’t be a need for goalkeepers to have high level ball control and distribution, they would be expected to be shot stoppers and not a lot else. Whereas recently goalkeepers are now expected to have these attributes as well as shot stopping and being commanding vocally. This then influences the way young goalkeepers want to play at a young age. They now want to play out from the back, they want the ball to feet.

The same can be said for centre backs, the way the game has evolved it is expecting centre backs to be a lot more comfortable on the ball, take Virgil Van Dijk for example he had completed the most passes in the Premier League before it was halted for coronavirus.

So yes maybe kids didn’t want to grow up being a Gary Neville, but we needed players like Neville in order to evolve the game and now have kids that want to play these positions. The smart option for aspiring footballers would be to no just copy what Trent Alexander Arnold does but to watch how Neville used to defend as well and try and take the positives from both players games.

This is certainly a topic I would like to come back to but I think this initial post covers the main points I wanted to talk about. I would love any feedback either in the comments section or on Twitter/Instagram. I love talking about football and any new discussions are extremely encouraged.