Man Utd icon Gary Neville makes outrageous bet with Arsenal fan that will mean excruciating forfeit if Gunners win title
MANCHESTER UNITED legend Gary Neville has agreed to an hilarious bet with an Arsenal fan.
The Gunners thumped Everton 4-0 on Wednesday to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League to five points.
With only 13 games remaining, many are starting to believe that Mikel Arteta’s side can claim a first title triumph since 2003-04.
And even Sky Sports pundit Neville, who won the top-flight eight times with the Red Devils, seems to be swaying a little.
He has remained adamant for months that second-placed Man City would eventually overtake the North London side and clinch a third-successive title.
Neville did admit this week that he is now less confident about that following the thrashing of the Toffees, but insisted that he still believes Pep Guardiola’s men would eventually just pip them.
Now he has agreed to a bet on social media that will see him wear a Gunners jersey labelled “champions” if Arsenal do go all the way.
The Twitter user had originally posted that he wanted the 48-year-old Neville to “shave his head bald on the Emirates pitch on the last day of the season for charity” if they win it.
That did not appeal to Neville, who instead offered an alternative by stating: “I will wear an Arsenal shirt saying champions for you my friend!”
Neville then revealed that a punishment lays in store for the Gooner if Arsenal falter, as he added: “But if you lose it you all grovel on here and say ‘Sorry Gary’.”
FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS – BEST NEW CUSTOMER OFFERS
On a recent episode of his The Overlap podcast, Neville said: “We have this little [WhatsApp] group on Sky and obviously they know that I’ve nailed my colours to the mast that City are going to win the league and I’ve been getting a lot of stick from Arsenal fans.
“But after the Villa game I got on the group [and there were messages saying] ‘unbelievable win for Arsenal’ and I replied: ‘It’s all too desperate, too much emotion too early.’
“I think I’ll be right at the end of the season but I might not be – and it sounds daft but emotion in football when you’re playing and you’re that desperate and you celebrate that much, and you’ve still got half the race to go almost, it’s not a good thing.
“You ordinarily don’t celebrate that hard. So after the Villa game, I could understand how big a moment it was, and actually to be fair I didn’t say this publicly, but I thought, ‘That’s quite desperate quite early’.
“The emotion is something that is a negative, it’s not a positive in a title race, for me, honestly. You’re right to be worried [about emotional fatigue].”