Gary Neville podcast: Desperate Glazers treating Manchester United like a toy… of course they’re going to sell | Football News

Gary Neville has blasted the Glazers for their mishandling of Manchester United, claiming the owners have treated the club like a “toy” throughout the takeover saga.

The bidders hoping to buy United still remain interested in a takeover and believe the club remains up for sale.

A Mail on Sunday report claims the Glazers are planning to take Man Utd off the market with the plan of putting the club back up for sale in 2025 when they believe their valuation of £7bn-£10bn will be met.

Those involved in the process, including merchant bank Raine, the overseers of the takeover talks, have not been told of any change.

Sheikh Jassim and Sir Jim Ratcliffe were the only serious bidders by the end of the takeover process but they fell short of the valuation the Glazers set. Sky Sports News understands that they wanted £6bn.

Speaking after Arsenal’s dramatic 3-1 victory over United at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, Neville was highly critical of the club’s regime.

“It’s just a game for them, they think it’s a toy!” said Neville. “Of course they’re going to sell. They’re desperate for money.

“They can’t even compete on FFP anymore. Man Utd are talking like a midtable club when it comes to the transfer market. Man Utd turn over £500m, one of the highest revenue generating clubs in the world.

“Chelsea, Arsenal can sign big players, Man Utd are scrambling around on FFP. I know they’ve had losses on Covid and that could be thrown as an excuse.

“Today was a fantastic game but it won’t change the fact that they’ve got owners of one of the biggest clubs in the world who are messing around with the football club and I’m not going to stop talking about it because it’s a massive problem.”

Speaking on the Gary Neville Podcast, the former United defender also assessed Arsenal’s title credentials following a dramatic denouement, while he also reflected on Rasmus Hojlund’s debut and Tottenham’s impressive start to the campaign under Ange Postecoglou…

Rice was signed for these moments…

It would feel like that more than three points for Arsenal. It’s brilliant for the dressing room and obviously despair for the losing team, but for Arsenal it’s magnificent.

For Declan Rice to get the goal, I think it was big. Rice is the big signing of the summer so for him to settle in will be crucial for him.

He’s just connected with this whole stadium if he hadn’t done already.

With the money that Arsenal’s invested in the summer and the season they had last year, they will want to be in that run-in again with 10 games to go in the same position whereby they can prove to themselves that they can get to the top.

Manchester City are an outstanding team so you can’t be four points behind them even after four games. They’ll punish you and they put pressure on you.

Arsenal are going to have to do what they did today [Sunday] throughout as there’s going to be no let-up.

They started last season like a house on fire and they were unbelievable in that first half of the season and then they fell off at the end.

The fact they’ve not been at their best and they’ve picked out 10 points out of 12 isn’t a bad thing. The form really needs to start coming after Christmas in February and March.

They need to be playing better than they are at the moment but I wouldn’t worry about it too much at this stage that they’re not fully fluid as they’re bringing new players into the team in Kai Havertz and Rice.

I wouldn’t be overly worried and I’d be encouraged by the fact they’ve got 10 out of 12 points.

That goal for Declan Rice was a big moment. That’s what he’s been brought for. I tipped Arsenal to win the Premier League title this season, which is a long shot.

Games like these call for big players. Roy Keane was known for driving his Manchester United team. He may not have been the one who scored the winner, but we would never stop thinking that the victory was the only result.

I think Declan Rice plays every minute of a football match thinking a draw is a bad result. That’s a really important factor.

You’re signing these players for the big moments in the big matches.

I think this was probably the best Manchester United have defended this season. They’re playing against the best attackers they’ve faced this season as I believe Arsenal are better than Tottenham.

There was more compactness and more diligence with Antony and Marcus Rashford in wide areas. The full-backs [Diogo Dalot and Aaron Wan-Bissaka] defended really well.

There was a seriousness to United’s performance today and when [Alejandro] Garnacho put the ball into the back of the net, you felt it was the perfect away performance where you’ve resisted a lot of pressure and gone and scored the goal.

They made 200 passes in their own half in the opening 45 minutes and they’ve never made that number of passes this season in a full game let alone in half of one.

I was surprised Arsenal allowed them to do that. United were the away team so they tried to kill the game.

To a large extent, that’s what they did. They got the goal through Rashford on the break and at half-time they would have been happy.

Up until the 94th minute, I’d say Erik ten Hag would’ve been proud of what his players did.

They’ve rightly been accused in the past of their appalling record in away matches against other top nine teams – they’d picked up one point from the 24 available last season which is just awful.

It was big for them the last 10 minutes, and they’ve fallen short again. That will be the over-riding thought at the end of this game.

There will be massive disappointment, but if I’m thinking about it logically, there were elements of that performance that were a lot better than what I saw at Tottenham and certainly than what I saw against Nottingham Forest and Wolves where I thought at times, they got cut apart.

Today, I saw something that resembles a team in defence. Goals change matches and it changes our thinking, but Arsenal were quite passive at times.

The big worry now is over the defence because they’ve lost Raphael Varane and then today they lost Victor Lindelof and Lisandro Martinez at centre-back. That’s a problem. The midfield was better today but Sofyan Amrabat will add something to their game. United have been below par to what you’d expect them to be so far.

On Rasmus Hojlund’s debut…

Definitely [he was up for a scrap]. He was only playing his first 25 minutes but straightaway he got up against Gabriel, he was trying to harass him and he was trying to back into him.

Manchester United haven’t had that. They don’t have it when Marcus Rashford plays as a centre-forward and they don’t have it with Anthony Martial either.

He gives them a different option. It’s a difficult game to come into, but for the build-up to the goal that was disallowed, there was a beautiful little flick to Casemiro.

What he’s experienced today is Premier League football. The experience you can be OK in a game at the top level and you can lose it in the last minute. He’s learned the devastation of losing in the last minute. The players in the changing room will be kicking themselves and asking themselves how it happened.

There’s a lot expected of Hojlund but really he’s a 20-year-old boy who is only starting out in the game. Due to United’s goal problems and stuttering attack, there’s big expectation because of the price tag.

I feel it’s a little bit too much so we have to let him breathe and evolve. He’s at a big club like Manchester United so he will be judged straightaway.

Is something building at Tottenham?

When we went to Tottenham a couple of weeks ago, it was a Saturday night and they were playing Man Utd. I said then that they would have a lot of fun this season with the way in which Ange Postecoglou plays.

It really fits with the way Tottenham fans see the vision for their club, and how they see Tottenham playing over the years. The only small negative, but it’s actually quite big but people were focusing on other things was when they went out of the Carabao Cup in midweek.

That’s one of the two trophies they could probably win. If you’re going to turn around the fortunes of the club and win silverware, that’s one of the two you really need to pay attention to.

That’s the negative, but in the league they’ve been really good. They’re playing exciting football which Spurs fans believe in.