As someone who has never played the game of football to the highest level, I wonder if I dare even giggle at Gary Neville? The hierarchies of English football and the various industries that surround it – including Her Majesty’s sports press – frequently remind me of some failing post-war minor British public school, where bumptious members of the Remove are always being slapped down by the bigger boys, for reasons as bygone as the empire. Pointless rules, desiccated conventions, rigid systems of deference – what is any of it for, except propping up the establishment for the same reason establishments always demand propping up?
Hang on, where on earth was I? Ah, yes. Gary Neville, prefect of punditry over at Sky Sports. In the course of a wide-ranging interview last week, the malfunctioning Liverpool keeper Loris Karius, 23, had the mildest of digs at Neville, 41, from whom he has absorbed at least his fair share of unsparing criticism.
Related: Jürgen Klopp attacks Neville brothers over Loris Karius criticism
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