Hands off Pip!

[GLewis]

There's a difference between criticising him and abusing him.

Too many people launch into the latter, even if they did intend to only do the former.

He's not good enough any more (I'd thought that his legs had gone a couple of years ago, never mind now) but he always tries his best.

It's one of the fallacies about our support that the fans will get behind you as long as you try. That simply isn't true unfortunately.

[MmmblueBernard]

He's a superb influence on the team, light hearted, but knows the time for business. When things go well, he talks about focus, when things go bad, he takes the criticism with broad shoulders. You can see when Coleman and Donovan joined, he had a key part in them settling in.

He does look ineffective in midfield, but he is essentially trying to replicate Arteta's role, simple passes linking the play. Phil's nature is to avoid risk, sometimes you need a bit more guile to be effective going forward and stamina to be there in the first place. He tends to resort to sitting back and making sure he covers the defensive aspects as priority.

He's more effective at right back, but you're nearly always up against lightning quick players down the wing now. That's why he tends to sit deep or commit to stopping the play by kicking people up the arse. But he is only in midfield because of injuries, it's not pretty, but it's all we got this year.

^^This

He is playing because Moyes can only play the players he has. He admitted the other week the team needed rebuilding and a few of the oldies phased out. Neville is on that list.

[the roy vernon plan]

Sorry but Neville simply should be playing. He is not good enough.

Why not give Billy an extended run there? or Gueye? or Barkley when
he was fit?  Or play 4-2-4 ?Anybody but anybody and anything would be better
than Neville. Neville simply gives the ball away or passes backwards. He covers
little ground and points too often for a gentleman.

 

[efctaxi]

I’m not the biggest Neville’s fan but the slagging he gets here is disgusting.

The man is almost 35 years old and played 6 matches in 22 days ffs. His old legs can’t endure such strains.
Not to mention the fact, that in normal circumstances he would be just a cover for Hibbo and would never play in midfield.
Let me remind you that without him we would have  0 fit right backs and one relatively fit central midfielder at the moment.

And it’s even more ridiculous when people criticize his attitude, tweeting, etc. He is not the best footballer in the world, to put it mildly, but his attitude is world class.

Amen.

Well said mate.