Phil Neville making Gary look like Sir Alex with embarrassing Inter Miami stint

Robin Bairner

• 22 Jul 2021 09:06 BST
• 3 min read

Inter Miami are one of the most high-profile franchises in MLS, yet manager Phil Neville already finds himself under pressure at the team part-owned by fellow former Manchester United star David Beckham.

Indeed, Neville’s managerial career in the men’s game is promising to be as embarrassing as the one that brother Gary has had to date.

Inter Miami have a squad so expensively assembled that they have been punished by MLS for breaching salary cap regulations. Among their ranks they boast a World Cup winner in the form of former Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus midfielder Blaise Matuidi as well as one of the most prolific top-level strikers in the last decade in the form of Gonzalo Higuain.

And yet they find themselves at the foot of the Eastern Conference table with just eight points from 12 matches. While Neville’s men do have the relative luxury of a couple of games in hand, they are already well out of the playoff running and are the only side in MLS yet to hit double figures in terms of goals.

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Inter Miami hit a new low on Tuesday, when they were hammered 5-0 at home by the New England Revolution. They were already out of the game by half-time, by which point they trailed 4-0, limiting them to a damage limitation exercise.

Neville’s side have now lost four successive home matches – a humiliating record in a league in which home field advantage is huge due to regulations that mean travelling teams have to take commercial flights to the majority of away matches, often resulting in long stopovers.

Indeed, Inter Miami have now lost six successive matches and have managed just a single goal in that time.

How does Phil Neville compare to Gary?

For Neville, it is a catastrophic sequence of results and one that must call into question his future in what is his first club managerial post.

Previously, he had coached the England women’s team and had been an assistant at Man Utd and under his brother Gary at Valencia.

Indeed, Phil’s record as a manager threatens to be significantly worse than that of Gary, whose sole stint at Valencia is not looking nearly so bad in comparison.

During his time in La Liga, Gary Neville led Valencia to 10 wins in 28 games but was sacked after four months in charge, with Valencia 13th in the table, six points clear of the drop zone.