Gary Neville rips into Chelsea incident after Liam Rosenior complaint | Football | Sport

Gary Neville has dismissed Chelsea’s grievances over their thwarted pre-match huddle against Newcastle as ‘nonsense’. The Blues tried to gather all their players at the centre circle before kick-off on Saturday, only to have their strategy disrupted by referee Paul Tierney.

The official was positioned in the identical location prior to the match and declined to shift. Offering his perspective, former Manchester United star Neville argued the gesture was merely theatrical in any case. “I thought it was extremely odd. Really weird,” said Neville. “I’ve never been a fan of huddles.

“If you’ve prepared for seven months of a season, four days before the game and then you need a huddle 10 seconds before kick-off to talk and motivate each other, you’ve done something wrong in your preparation.

“No words can help you, in my opinion. No words should be able to help you seconds before a football match. You’ve done all your preparations. You’ve analysed the player you are playing against. You know how to create opportunities if you’re an attacking player.

“You’re in the changing room 10 minutes before you go out. You’ve said everything. What more can be said in a huddle out on the pitch? It’s just for show.

“The fans won’t be conned by that. They will judge you on your performance.

“It won’t intimidate a good team. It didn’t intimidate Newcastle. It’s weird to do it in the centre of the pitch. It’s like ‘what’s the most gimmicky thing we can do to make people believe we have team spirit?’

“I think it’s a nonsense. The whole thing is a nonsense. Stop doing it.”

“I’ll be speaking to the refs and just trying to get an understanding of why that happened today. We were told in the rule book it’s about timing. You can be where you want on timing.

“I just want to find a solution to this because we’re actually talking about something that’s nowhere near as important as what’s happening on the pitch.”