Gary Neville has delivered a withering assessment of Tottenham Hotspur's Premier League season and sent a stern message to owners ENIC Group
Gary Neville launched a scathing attack on Tottenham Hotspur’s “pathetic” players and told owners ENIC Group they have failed supporters. Tottenham secured their Premier League status as West Ham were condemned to life in the Sky Bet Championship on the final day of the season on Sunday.
Joao Palhinha’s goal just before the break was enough to secure Spurs a first in the league at home since December 6 – and send down the Hammers in the process. But even though Spurs will be playing in the top-flight next season, it has still been a campaign to forget for the club.
There have been three head coaches and multiple unwanted records set, including losing six games in a row for the first time in the club’s history and going on a 15-match winless run in the Premier League, and Neville has described Spurs’ underachievement this season as 'another level'.
He said: "Is it too far to say that they've been pathetic? That they should be ashamed of themselves? Probably not.
"This is Tottenham Hotspur. I know sometimes I get mocked for saying this is Manchester United, but this is a football club steeped in incredible traditions.
"Now they've not won trophies for a long time regularly, even though they won the Europa League last year, which was fantastic. It was great for this fanbase to celebrate a trophy.
"But they've been underachievers and underperforming for a long time. This is another level of underachievement and hitting new lows. The last two years in the Premier League."
But it wasn’t just Tottenham's players who were on the end of a bashing from Manchester United man Neville, as he also told the club’s owners, ENIC Group, they have lost credibility and the trust of the supporters.
"The fans were celebrating because for them it's real,” he said on the Gary Neville podcast. “For the players, I'm sure for some of them it is real, but for some of them, it doesn't feel like they want to be on the bus and that's what Roberto De Zerbi is going to have to work out. He's probably worked it out already.
"Not winning a game here since Christmas is absolutely shocking for a group of players that have been expensively assembled and for a club of such stature, but they're flimsy, they're weak, they're vulnerable and the autopsy really has got to begin.
"Now they know for real, having escaped today, they can start to basically drive a bulldozer through that dressing room because that's what they need to do.
"The actions out on the pitch speak a lot louder than words. To dare is to do - do they dare to do, these players? I don't think so. Are they always together? No, I don't think so.
"Is there a connection right through the club? No, we hear that the owners have been trying to sell this club for two or three, four years now, trying to get as high a price as possible.
"They've done a great job in certain ways with certain things that they've built, in infrastructure terms, but they failed the fans on the pitch - that is most important.
"Football is all about first-team performance, whether that is the women's team or the men's team. You have got to win. But what has happened is the 'Always together' that you mentioned has come from the fans because they have stayed together.
"There was a protest planned a month or so ago and they cancelled it because they recognised the team needed them out on the pitch.
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"They have turned up in their thousands today, these Tottenham fans, to urge their team forward, and I thought that might add a bit of anxiety to the players, but it didn't they handled it quite well.
"There's got to be a massive reset; there's got to be an autopsy that goes really deep, right the way through the club.
"When you're owners of a football club - and I'm an owner of a football club - sometimes you have to start by looking in the mirror yourself.
"Success sometimes doesn't come in a football club because of the decisions that you [the owner] make, because of what you do. Not because of what the fans, what the players, or what the coaches do.
"I mean, appointing Igor Tudor and having to sack him within a few weeks - he didn't feel right; that appointment from day one, did it? It just didn't connect.
"Sacking Ange Postecoglou and bringing in Thomas Frank, someone who's highly respected, bringing in Igor Tudor, now bringing De Zerbi in.
"What a rollercoaster of a season. [The owners] have lost a lot of credibility and trust. You can see the signs that are up against the owners, and I'm not surprised."