Gary Neville at Valencia should be no surprise

While it might be superficially surprising, few should really be shocked that Gary Neville has been appointed as Valencia manager, even if it is only until the end of the season. A move of some sort has been on the cards for the past few years, and there have only been an increase in the number of relationships between Lim and Neville.

In July 2011, Gary Neville spoke out in favour of Peter Lim’s football scholarship, a project that aimed to coach young Singaporean football talents, with Jorge Mendes keen on bringing the very best players over to Europe. At that point, Lim was best known for running a series of the Manchester United cafes in Asia, and even at that time was rumoured to be interested in buying a football club of his own. He would go on to buy interests in two of them.

One was Salford City. Lim owns 50% of the club, and the rest is owned by the Class of 92 (Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, though not David Beckham), and Phil Neville. The intention of the Class of 92 is to take players who have been discarded by other, bigger clubs, and to see if they can then be developed and moved onto clubs who might take them on. Using the contacts they already have, Sadiq El-Fitouri moved from Manchester City to Manchester United, via Salford City. Having Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt as coaches of United can’t have hurt the move. Of course, as the recent BBC documentary on the club showed, there’s also a commitment to improving the standing of the club, and to promote it in Salford. With the financial backing behind the club, a rapid ascent up the football pyramid is entirely possible. Were they to ever reach the Premier League, even more money would be made.

That is not the only link between Lim and Neville, though. It’s not even the only link in Lancashire. Hotel Football, the football-themed hotel that opened within walking distance of Old Trafford and might well have engendered a sense of suspicion between Manchester United and the Class of 92, is now part-owned by a financial group which Lim has a stake in, for £30 million. Lim also owns Cristiano Ronaldo’s image rights, and has been linked to third party ownership of players with Mendes.

But it goes further than that. Mendes, the football agent mentioned above, has worked with Lim in other ventures, and was the man who facilitated Lim’s purchase of Valencia, a team that was previously in severe financial trouble. In July 2015, Lim appointed Phil Neville as the assistant manager to the side, to work with then-manager Nuno Santo. Santo was sacked at the weekend by Lim, as he had struggled to impress with the side. Phil Neville was expected to take over temporarily for Valencia’s next match against Barcelona.

Last week, Gary Neville’s column for the Telegraph saw him explain why Mauricio Pochettino was his favourite Premier League manager, because of the attacking football he played. He was, he said, the manager that he would model himself on should he ever become a manager. So far, Neville’s coaching experience was as an assistant to Roy Hodgson for England. and he was most well known for raising the standards of analysis at Sky. Neville had surprised most with the coverage he had brought to Sky’s Monday Night Football, showing the rest of the industry how much better things could be. It will be hugely unlikely that Neville will be able to fulfill his duties for England or Sky as he works as Valencia’s manager.

The cynical view of Neville’s column was that he was demonstrating a clear difference between his ideas of football, and how Louis van Gaal was disappointing supporters at Manchester United. His positive approach was in contrast with the Dutchman’s dour, conservative and fun-free football that was produced at Old Trafford this season. With Giggs not assured of taking over Van Gaal, it could be suggested that Neville was positioning himself as a rival for the job when it next became available.

Lim has been linked with a move to buy Manchester United in the past, and supposedly came close with an attempted takeover of Liverpool. There have also been rumblings that the ultimate aim of the Class of 92 is to take over United themselves, with the backing of Lim’s finance.

With the extensive and significant business ties between the two parties, and with Phil Neville already at the club, and presumably some discussion over football when Lim bought some of Salford City, it should be no surprise that Gary Neville has been brought over to manager a Lim side. The only shock could be in the timing, not the event itself. There are now two important questions to be answered.

Gary Neville has made it clear that he is an attacking manager, and he has made it obvious that he is capable of thinking about football at a deeper level than other English players, like Steven Gerrard or Paul Scholes. Now is his chance to prove himself, or otherwise, as a serious candidate for the Manchester United job and as a competent manager. With a business colleague as his boss, he should be going into the job well aware of what is expected, and you would hope with the support he needs to succeed. The second question, which is far harder to answer, is what it means for United. If he succeeds at Valencia, it would only strengthen the hand of Lim, the Class of 92, and Gary Neville himself should they ever attempt their own takeover.