Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has revealed he used to spot Liverpool players leaving night clubs at 4am during his playing days. He made these comments on a recent episode of the Stick to Football podcast.
Neville, now 48, said that the senior Liverpool players of that time were “big drinkers”. He also spoke about the talented young players that Liverpool had. “What we came into [at Manchester United], at that time [1992/93] Liverpool had a talented group of players, and I don’t dismiss that some of them were as talented as we were, like [Steve] McManaman, [Robbie] Fowler, Jamie Redknapp, and a couple of others,” Neville said.
“Their senior players were big drinkers. They had a talented group at Liverpool and there was one year where they were pushing us for the title, in 1995/96, but our senior players, I felt, were more professional and were more talented.”
Neville suggested that the Liverpool players’ fondness for nightclubs may have affected their success during that period.
“To me, there wasn’t an excess [of drinking], where we put games in doubt, but I remember seeing Liverpool lads at Cheerleaders [a nightclub],” he added. “Cheerleaders on a Wednesday night, I went a couple of times and I remember the Liverpool lads were in the corner, the United lads would go home around 1am but the Liverpool lads were [there until] 4am, 5am on a Wednesday.”
Following Marcus Rashford’s party controversy last month, Neville stressed the importance of a strong dressing room with leadership figures. He also questioned if there are any leaders in the current squad at Old Trafford.
“It’s a massive factor, the dressing room that you come into as a young player and the influence and standard bearers in the dressing room,” he continued.
“These United lads who have come through in the last five to eight years. If you’re a young lad coming through at Liverpool and Manchester City you’ve got a good chance, whereas if you’re at United now, you’re thinking, whose guiding that dressing room?”
