“We’ve seen a more exciting Premier League because there are teams like Aston Villa who we didn’t expect to be overperforming”- Gary Neville aims subtle dig at Aston Villa as he says club is Overperforming
Gary Neville believes the Premier League is becoming more exciting because every team has the desire to play on the front foot.
Speaking on the Gary Neville Podcast, the Sky Sports pundit believes the top flight is better off having more attacking teams than ever before.
The Premier League legend also aimed subtle digs at Tottenham and Aston Villa, labeling them as “overperforming” so far this season.
England’s top flight currently has six points between Liverpool in first and Tottenham in fifth, the smallest difference between first and fifth after 20 matches since the 2001-02 campaign.
With the race for Europe and the battle to avoid relegation also promising to be tight in the second half of the season, Neville believes the Premier League is better off for having 20 teams with the desire to attack in different ways.
“We’ve seen a more exciting Premier League because there are teams like Aston Villa and Tottenham who we didn’t expect to be overperforming, but also teams are beating each other and are always on the front foot,” he said on the Gary Neville Podcast.
“Going back 20 years, the league was full of teams who played pretty ugly football who were intent on stopping the opposition.
“Every team across this league now thinks about how they can keep possession, win games, score goals. They’re always thinking proactively, that wasn’t the case 10 to 15 years ago and it shows how much the game has adapted. And we’re so much better for it, because it’s exciting.
“Yes, you get the odd 0-0 like you saw in the Liverpool vs Man Utd game a couple of weeks ago but more often than not, the games have chances, goals and the players are going for it.”
While Gary Neville is right in his assesment of the increased competitiveness of the modern day Premier League, the former England star didn’t need to label Aston Villa and Tottenham as the overperfomers in the English top flight this season.
Nevile has to understand that teams like Aston Villa are setting themselves up to break the current structure of the so called “Big Six” clubs in the English top flight, we saw it with Newcastle last season and so far this season with Aston Villa who are deservingly in second place because their performances warrant such a lofty position on the table.
Neville should be conscious that the days of the Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool dominance in the Premier League are over and that is a good thing for the competitiveness of the Premier League. Aston Villa are not over achievers, they deserve every bit of their success so far this season
