Neville: I Hope Liverpool Don't Pose A Threat To Our Title

“Gary Neville is a red, he hates scousers!” the fans sing. Aside from Neville’s no-nonsense approach to football, and his desire to stick by his team mates, it’s his strong feelings on Liverpool that have really endeared him to our fans.

When Rio Ferdinand scored in the last minute against the dippers, Neville seemingly celebrated on behalf of United fans. He charged to the away end, shouting and showing them the badge. It was perfect. He was charged £5k for the privilege mind, but I’m sure he’d do it again. I’d have loved to see the look on their faces, as they ripped up our seats and went wild.

He has today spoken out about the season so far, reflecting on our most disappointing result and who he thinks stands a chance of winning the league.

Neville was asked did he think that Liverpool, following their good start to the season, could pose a serious threat to the title this season.

“I hope not, but we don’t know yet, do we?” he said. “They’ve started well. They’ve had some good results – they beat us which was obviously disappointing and gave them some confidence. But it’s a long season. We know the champions will come from Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or ourselves. It’s a case of who puts the most consistent run together. If we win our game in hand, then we’ll only be three points behind the leaders so we’re still in contention.”

Of course, let’s not forget we’ve had far tougher fixtures than any of the other top four teams, which will start to even out by the time we reach January. By the beginning of November, we’ll have faced the three remaining of the top four teams away from home. At the same stage of the season, Liverpool will have played two, one at home, one away, Chelsea will have played two, both at home, and Arsenal will have played one, at home.

Neville then reflected on our most disappointing result so far, which surprisingly, he claimed was the draw with Newcastle at home, not the defeat to Liverpool away.

“The most disappointing result for us was probably Newcastle at home,” he added. “You can always go to Liverpool and lose…even in seasons gone by when we’ve won the league, we’ve sometimes lost there. You never really accept it and you’re always disappointed but those games you can lose, away to Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. It’s the game at home against Newcastle where we’re probably drifting behind a little bit on the two points dropped but I’m sure we’ve got time to make that up.”