Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher fear getting Sky Sports axe and admit job could be ‘taken away from us’
GARY NEVILLE and Jamie Carragher have both admitted they cannot rest on their laurels or they will risk being axed by Sky Sports bosses.
The two greats regularly go head-to-head in debates while covering the Premier League for the broadcaster.
The former Manchester United and Liverpool defenders are the stars of Monday Night Football and offer brilliant insight into the game.
However, with Sky Sports recent freshen-up that has seen Soccer AM axed and some of the channel’s star names leave, they are both concerned over their futures.
Neville told FourFourTwo: “I don’t really think about how long it’s been. But it is hard, you know. It’s not playing football, it’s not being a manager, but anyone who looks at it and thinks, ‘Oh, they’re just on television, talking about football’… well, yeah, OK.
“But there are thousands of jobs all over the world now doing this, so to stay at Sky, the Premier League rights-holders in this country, and on shows like Super Sunday and Monday Night Football, the demands are high.
“To stay there for several years is an achievement, because it’s probably a gig that most people would want. If you think of the top gigs in football punditry, there’s only three or four.
“Working on major tournaments, Match of the Day, Monday Night Football – they’re the pinnacle of football broadcasting.
“We know it will be taken away from us the minute it doesn’t work any more, so we’re very conscious of making sure we change things all of the time.”
Carragher added: “Yeah, we know what viewers think because we’re viewers ourselves, and you don’t want to watch exactly the same thing every single season.
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“I don’t want to do that and I don’t think Gary does. We always want new ideas, different guests, different formats.
“Friday Night Football, which we’ve done for the last three or four years, was a good example: the format was completely different to the other shows that we do.”
Soccer AM had been on screens for nearly 30 years until Sky Sports pulled the plug on the show.
While personnel-wise, commentator Martin Tyler has left the broadcaster and been replaced by Peter Drury and pitchside reporter Geoff Sheeves also left the company after three decades.
The changes have been in the air for a while, as the broadcaster sacked Soccer Saturday trio Matt Le Tissier, Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson before the 2020/21 season.
Neville joined Sky in 2011 following his sack from LaLiga side Valencia while Carragher joined up with his former rival two years later.
Sky aren’t the only world-renowned broadcasters to make mass cuts.
US giants ESPN recently parted ways with two of the biggest names in NBA punditry – Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy – ahead of the 2023-24 season.