Neville didn’t learn from Moyes’ mistakes - and has paid for it

Last week I mentioned there were rumours going around the city that Gary Neville’s tenure at Valencia would come to an end once the season was over; it appears those rumours were true. The only saving grace for Neville was the opportunity to achieve something in the cup competitions as the league form continued to be erratic. A drubbing at the hands of Barcelona in the Copa del Rey was soon followed by a narrow defeat, with a sprinkling of bad luck to boot, against Athletic Club in the Europa League.

It’s been the learning curve everyone predicted it would be for the Neville brothers at Valencia, although the end result is rather disappointing. There was a huge element of risk when he took the job so the scepticism at him being named as Nuno Espirito Santo’s replacement was understandable. Not so much because of the ‘demanding fans’ tag so many like to generalise the Valencia faithful with, but due to the political issues surrounding the club as well as the on the field matters.

When Peter Lim took over there was already a smattering of worry amongst fans. As a club with a long-standing commitment to its roots and having Valencian owners, a foreign investor was a journey into the unknown. Lim is a self-confessed Manchester United fan - not a Valencia one - and it become apparent from the get-go that he wouldn’t be a hands-on type of owner, preferring instead to leave club under the rule of club president Amadeo Salvo and right-hand woman Lay Hoon Chan. Oh, and not forgetting agent to the stars Jorge Mendes either.

A wonderful opening campaign meant those initial worries were swept under the rug, but not forgotten. Due to the exuberant prices agreed in loan deals and despite the cash windfall of the Champions League, Financial Fair Play meant Valencia were quite limited when it came to making any more changes. The team needed more leaders but the club’s philosophy under Lim was to sign young players with potential as opposed to established stars.

Losing Nicolas Otamendi to Manchester City created an even bigger hole in defence considering they had already lost number one goalkeeper Diego Alves to a knee injury until January. A power struggle over who was in charge of transfers meant Salvo, Rufete and Roberto Ayala all left the club. The tipping point was a move for Rodrigo Caio: a young Brazilian starlet but one who has been blighted with knee injuries in recent years, which the existing committee didn’t want. Nuno and Mendes, who recently bought the rights to the player, pushed for it to happen but, despite flying into Valencia for a medical, the results revealed doubts around Caio’s knee and the club were forced to pull the plug on the deal.

The unbalance out on the field was plain to see. Rushed moves to find a replacement for Otamendi meant the club spent nearly £30m on Aymen Abdennour and Aderlan Santos, with young Danilo the only new face in midfield. Inexperience leading inexperience created confusion on the pitch. The fans wanted Nuno gone, seen as the figurehead of Jorge Mendes’ unofficial rule of the club, and got their wish just before Christmas.

Gary Neville seized the opportunity to become an instant saviour as most outsiders in Europe saw Valencia as a team massively underperforming. After all, the majority of the squad was the same which impressed for large parts of last season. Come in, turn the ship around, get the team up and around the Champions League, Europa League spots then consider the options available at the end of the season. Easy.

Easy only if you look at it as an outsider.

There were two grave errors Neville made during his time at the club and both were key in the Englishman being in the position he currently finds himself in. The first error he made was alienating the local and national press by refusing to talk with them at any point during his time at the club. When you consider he’s been at Valencia for nearly four months now, that’s staggering. If you create an ‘us and them’ approach over here, you’re making the rod for your own back.

If Neville had done some research or even bothered to meet local journalists he would’ve known the issues at hand but chose not to. Under Salvo’s leadership a lot of stories were intentionally leaked to the press as long as they painted the club in a good light. This stopped after the boardroom reshuffle and with certain sections of press kept in the dark, they turned on the regime and in turn Nuno. Now the press didn’t cost the Portuguese coach his job but they carry a lot of weight with casual and/or new fans, so once the ‘Nuno, go now’ chants started it was all over bar the shouting.

Only Neville himself can answer why he wasn’t more forthcoming to the Spanish press, which is even more alarming when you consider David Moyes made the exact same mistake and was crucified for it. One thing is ignoring all interview requests to concentrate on adapting to your new surroundings but when you speak to nearly every major newspaper in England but none in Spain, it’s naturally seen as disrespectful. And what’s even more baffling is that the press were actually on his side at the beginning, despite the lack of interaction, and he still saw no reason to engage with them.

Of course once it became clear that nothing had changed on the pitch he was unprotected and the media took full advantage. Those who were originally unconvinced but decided to give him a chance wasted no time in asking him to leave. Others, more neutral observers, resisted the urge to demand yet more upheaval and instead focused their efforts on improving the atmosphere at the Mestalla to end the season on a high. When that changed nothing either, they too asked for Neville to quit. The only person keeping Neville at the club is the man who appointed him in the first place.

Paco Polit, a local journalist who has covered Valencia CF for 10 years, says there are a catalogue of errors which have led to Gary Neville failing the task asked of him. “I believe a lack of communication between Gary, his staff and the players has been a problem since day one. The players themselves have openly admitted it at several press conferences.”

“The media shutdown was only adding insult to injury after not giving a single interview and/or explanation outside the pre and post-game press conferences.” In previous years plenty of training sessions have been open to the public but that hasn’t been the case this time around. “Actually, I believe that the ‘bunkerizing’ in Paterna is the only idea they’ve come up with to avoid the press watching what, according to some disgruntled players, are lacklustre training sessions,” adds Paco.

“After deciding the starting XI each week, there isn’t a single game on which you can claim his substitutions or tactical decision-making has improved the squad.” In fact, a lot of fans believe the performances under Neville have been worse than those under former coach Nuno.

The other error he made was failing to take into account the players at his disposal and what they were capable of. I like to think of it as a person picking up a copy of Football Manager for the first time and assuming, because they know who the best players are and what areas of the squad they need to improve, they’ll get off to a flying start. It doesn’t work like that, not in the game nor in real life.

I can’t remember watching a Valencia match this season and them trying something different under Neville’s reign. It was the same approach to every game and, for the large part, the same result. While the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is true I also think “if it’s broke, bloody fix it” is as equally important. There was no fixing on hand, only replacing broken parts with yet more broken parts.

Think of it as taking the batteries out of the remote control and putting them back in: it only works for a short period of time before you need to make a long-term solution. Gary Neville is still blowing on the batteries, adding bits of tin foil and pieces of paperclips to get a few more seconds of life out of them.

Valencia fans are like many others and love to see faith being shown in the academy boys, but it needs to be the right ones at the right time. Wilfried Zahibo might have a bright future ahead of him - although he is 22-years-old - but he was thrown into the starting line-up twice in the league and both times was horribly exposed. He looked nervous and uncomfortable on the ball, arguably the two worst traits to have in a midfielder you need to be disciplined in possession as well as protecting the defence.

Ultimately Gary Neville joins the growing list of British coaches who managed to get a fantastic opportunity abroad yet failed to take advantage of it. Whereas David Moyes never enjoyed the support Neville has had from Valencia’s owner and president, he’s in danger of performing even worse than the Scot.

As Paco tells us, speaking as both a journalist and a fan of the club he loves, a loss against Las Palmas and it could get a lot uglier for Neville. “Valencia fans were promised a competitive team and instead have been ‘treated’ to the worst season since (Ronald) Koeman took charge.” At least the Dutchman won a cup.

I expected you to be different, Gary, but you proved to be yet more of the same.

You can find Paco Polit on Twitter at @pacopolitENG