5 great players who made bad managers

#4 Gary Neville

Gary Neville's record as manager of Valencia was truly diabolical

It’s perhaps hard to judge a manager on one brief run, but based on his tenure at La Liga side Valencia – as well as his disastrous run as an assistant coach under Roy Hodgson with England – it’s probably fair to say that Gary Neville, one of the Premier League’s greatest defenders, is not exactly a tremendous manager.

Neville’s move to Valencia was an odd one to begin with considering he couldn’t speak any fluent Spanish and had no real managerial experience outside of his work with Hodgson and England, and it wasn’t a shocker when he got off to a bad start – a loss to Lyon in his debut game sent the side crashing out of the Champions League. More disasters followed, such as a 7-0 loss to Barcelona in the Copa del Rey in February 2016.

Valencia’s league form was hardly any better – they’d gone eight games without a win in La Liga since Neville’s appointment. Calls were made for him to resign but the Man United legend hung in there, and led the club to their first win under his management in February. However, the losses once again began to pile up and he was fired in March 2016.

At the time of Neville’s sacking, Valencia sat just six points clear of the relegation zone, hadn’t kept a single clean sheet and had only won three of 16 league games – a diabolical record by anyone’s standards. Perhaps Neville is simply better off sticking to punditry.