‘Bit harsh!’, says shocked Jamie Carragher after Gary Neville takes brutal dig at ex-Man Utd pal Rio Ferdinand
MANCHESTER UNITED legend Gary Neville left Jamie Carragher and Jill Scott stunned after firing a brutal dig at Rio Ferdinand.
The two ex-United stars reunited for an episode of the Stick to Football podcast this week alongside Carragher, Scott, Ian Wright and Roy Keane.
Having played together at Old Trafford for nine years, the former team-mates did not shy away from making a joke at each-other’s expense.
And Neville received a hilarious response after commenting on the centre-back’s defending.
Discussing the early stages of Ferdinand‘s career, Neville asked: “Was it the move to Leeds that completely changed your mindset on the seriousness of defending? When do you go from that carefree centre-back, giving a goal away or two every other week, to being…”
But Carragher quickly chimed in to say: “That’s a bit harsh!”
Scott then quipped: “He’s the guest,” before the group broke into laughter.
Neville then continued his question, asking: “To being this serious defender who’s coming up to me saying ‘nothing down our side’. When does that come?”
Scott joked: “When he had to play with you!”
But Ferdinand went on to answer: “When I was at West Ham, I used to live on an estate and I had my mates being so jealous of me, so all I was thinking about was impressing them, and that could have been by doing a skill against a forward.
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“We could have lost 3-0, but if I had done a skill, I was telling my mates to watch the highlights on Match of the Day for that skill, and that was my mindset.
“It was all about me playing well if I had done a skill on a striker or if I had brought the ball out a few times, and Harry Redknapp was championing me for that, calling me a Rolls-Royce of a defender, so I wasn’t getting that defensive mentoring.
“Additionally, I was getting applauded in the media for being a different type of centre back.
“Then I went to Leeds, and I asked to speak directly to the manager, so I rang David O’Leary, and asked him if he was going to coach me in defending and teach me to be more aggressive, and to his credit, him and his team drilled me constantly on the training pitch.
“Obviously going from West Ham to Leeds, who were playing Champions League football, the stakes were much higher, you take it more seriously and you start looking at the game differently, and that was part of my development.
“But then going to Manchester United was just totally different. I had come into a team who had won five or six Premier League titles, and I’m sitting there with no trophies at all, let alone Premier League winning medals, so I’m sat there thinking how I can get better.
“I remember one game, we played against West Brom, and I tried to do a couple early cross-field passes to show people, but they got cut out and they almost scored on both occasions, and I remember coming into the changing room at half time and the manager unloaded on me, which brought my ego down massively and made me realise what my responsibility was in the team.
“There are so many better players with the ball, who are there to create chances, and I just need to be good at defending.”
Ferdinand spent 12 years at Man Utd after joining from Leeds United in 2002.
During that time he made 455 appearances and won several major titles including six Premier League titles, the Champions League and three League Cups.