Neville fires warning to Tuchel after witnessing disgraceful behaviour from Chelsea players in the past

Posted by

Manchester United legend Gary Neville has warned Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel about the culture at the club when it comes to manager sackings.

The German tactician only recently replaced Frank Lampard as manager at Stamford Bridge, and has made a strong start at his new club.

However, we’ve seen top coaches struggle at Chelsea, with things sometimes turning pretty ugly for them towards the end due to a history of strong player power at the club.

It remains to be seen if Tuchel can survive that, with Neville expecting that things could turn ugly for him eventually, as it has with other managers.

MORE: Chelsea still trying to sign Bundesliga star

The pundit spoke in particular about being shocked at how some CFC players behaved when they worked to leak stories to the press about Andre Villas-Boas.

This ultimately lead to the Portuguese being axed by the club shortly afterwards, and Neville admits it took him aback as he’d been shielded from that kind of thing at Manchester United.

“I think you look at those players there… they’ve got really good players at Chelsea,” Neville told Webby & O’Neill.

“And players thrive on a new idea, then they get bored, and then they’ll kick him out and they’ll bring someone else in and you’ll be asking me the same question again in two years, particularly at Chelsea, it’s always 18 months to two years, we know what happens there.

“I think he will make them better. He’ll improve them. Not because Frank (Lampard) wouldn’t have generally got there himself but I think ultimately Chelsea are very trigger happy, they don’t give (a manager) two or three years that you need to be successful, to prove you’ve got the idea the owners of the club want. They want results straight away.

“With that money spent in the summer they needed the results, they’ve brought a manager who knows what he needs to do, he’s changed the system, he’s gone to that three at the back with two wing backs, I think they look better but I think it’ll be a big test against us (Manchester United).”

He added: “I was in Napoli when Villas-Boas was getting stabbed in the back left, right and centre off all the older Chelsea players about eight or nine years ago,’ said Neville.

“Basically I was sat there with Sky Sports people on the day of the game and phone calls were coming through from agents and journalists saying, ‘he’s saying that’, he left three or four players out that night, they lost, he got sacked two days later.

“I was at United, I’ve been shielded from this nonsense for like 30 years, I was like, ‘is this what goes on?’. You’ve got players in their hotel rooms in the afternoon ringing journalists and their agents are ringing journalists and broadcasters. I’m like, ‘do one’.

“Villas-Boas got sacked two days later. They did the same to [Luiz Felipe] Scolari, they did the same to [Rafa] Benitez.

“The players at Chelsea have always had what I think would be the connection you shouldn’t have with the owner or with the owner’s people.

“The players should never have a connection that would be unprofessional. You don’t break rank and go above your manager to the sporting director or owner. In any company, by the way. If you’re a member of staff you go to your line manager. It’s criminal in any business for that to happen, in any sports team, in any walk of life.

“A manager’s got to have eyes in the back of his head [at Chelsea].”

“The girls in here are crazy man!” Who fancies partying with Erling Haaland? Read more.

More Stories André Villas-Boas Gary Neville Thomas Tuchel