Football
PA Sport 8y

Former Valencia boss and England coach Gary Neville in no rush to return

Gary Neville has told The Times that he is in no hurry to go back to coaching as he focuses on his business interests and television punditry.

Neville, 41, was sacked by Valencia last season, and saw his role as an assistant to Roy Hodgson end after England crashed out of Euro 2016 to Iceland.

He is now returning to his role as a pundit with Sky Sports, but he does not consider himself a failure after lasting only 16 league games at Valencia.

"I don't judge myself on the Valencia experience at all," he said. "Better coaches than me have been sacked by Valencia. It's more that I had been saying for 12/18 months that I had a decision to make this summer.

"People will suggest I've chosen punditry over coaching. That's not the case. I think what I've probably chosen to do is attend to my business interests over coaching.

"It's me applying myself to my businesses for the next four or five years and doing some television."

In addition to his work as a pundit, Neville owns a company with former teammate Ryan Giggs which operates hotels and restaurants, and is a co-owner of National League North club Salford City along with Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and his brother Phil Neville.

"My businesses will always be a focal point of what I'm doing," Neville said. "I almost jumped into a job at Valencia, but I'm absolutely 100 percent committed to my businesses and projects.

"I get up at five or six every morning to go into the office in Manchester, spending every single moment on them. I love it. I love part-owning the club. I love being in control of my own destiny rather than being controlled by someone else.

"I know that, if I fail, it's my failure, whereas with football coaching, it probably wasn't me in terms of never feeling able to commit fully to it in the past four years -- apart from when I was at Valencia."

Neville added that he still cannot explain England's elimination from Euro 2016 at the hands of unfancied Iceland, who won 2-1 in the Round of 16.

"I've watched it back and I still can't explain it at all," Neville said. "It was unrecognisable from everything I'd seen from the players over the previous two years.

"Even against Russia and Slovakia, when things weren't always going our way, there was no panic and they kept doing the right things, moving the ball quickly and passing it in the right way, whereas against Iceland it felt that after an hour that something had happened that no one could explain.

"I don't go along with 'these young players of today, they don't care about England.' They were committed, they had the right spirit, but in the last 60 minutes against Iceland, it was like something had happened.

"People won't listen to me at this moment in time because they'll say 'It was rubbish, it wasn't good enough,' and obviously the results at the Euros weren't good enough and the ultimate game against Iceland was unacceptable, but I'll argue with anyone in the country, fan, journalist or coach, that what I saw over a two-year period was the direction of travel.

"Ultimately the results didn't come with it. Sometimes that happens in football. You don't feel you get the rewards for the work you put in."

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