Gary Neville has confessed he feared he had overstepped a line when he described Chelsea as ‘blue billion-pound bottlejobs’ in the wake of their Carabao Cup final defeat to Liverpool.
Neville sent social media into a frenzy when, live on air, he aimed the dig at Chelsea’s underwhelming performance, with the Blues succumbing to a Liverpool side which featured several inexperienced academy talents.
Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has repeatedly hit back at Neville’s assessment of the side, labelling his comments “unfair” and “harsh”, and Neville has now admitted he felt he may have gone too far.
“After the game I went to the producer and asked whether it was harsh, he said it might be a touch harsh, but he said. ‘We’re on television, in entertainment and it is one of the biggest moments this season, last-minute goal’, and secondly, ‘Did you think they bottled it?'” Neville told The Overlap.
“I said that they froze in extra time, there is no doubt that they were playing with fear and froze. I was actually going to do a roll back on my podcast, the day after, and say that I shouldn’t have probably used that word ‘bottle’, but when I heard that Mauricio thought the team were playing for penalties, I thought that it was the epitome of freezing.”
Neville went on to acknowledge the harshness of his words but stood by his decision to chastise Chelsea live on air.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that it was an instinctive and in-the-moment comment, I had one minute to think of that line. Peter Drury, the big moment after the cup final [winner], that’s the commentator’s moment, and he was on for about 30 to 35 seconds,” Neville reflected.
“I knew that [Jamie] Carragher would come in next because I could feel him next to me, wanting to come in, Liverpool scored, and he literally jumped up and turned around to his mate.
“I got progressively angrier during extra time with Chelsea, and I thought to myself, initially I was going to use [Todd] Boehly’s name, but I didn’t want to personalise it, then I thought, ‘Should I say it? Is it too strong?’.
“I was thinking that as I said it and sometimes when you think that you might think that it’s a reason not to say it, but I felt as though it needed to be said, it’s a harsh line.”
