Gary Neville regrets brutal dig at Chelsea stars - despite doubling down on comments
Chelsea were undone by a youthful Liverpool side in last season's Carabao Cup final and Gary Neville now regrets his infamous "billion dollar bottle jobs" line
Gary Neville has admitted he regrets calling Chelsea "billion dollar bottle jobs" after their loss in the Carabao Cup final.
The Blues were beaten 12 months ago by Liverpool at Wembley as Jurgen Klopp claimed what would turn out to be his final trophy at Reds' boss. Chelsea had just presided over another huge summer of recruitment as their owners continue to throw huge money at the playing group.
On that afternoon in late February Chelsea and Liverpool went to extra-time as the west Londoners boasted British-record transfers in their starting XI, but the likes of Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Raheem Sterling couldn't guide them to victory.
Instead it was Virgil van Dijk's header that won the game as Liverpool ended with the likes of Conor Bradley, James McConnell, Bobby Clark and Jayden Danns in the starting XI. That saw Neville take aim at the losing finalists - a move he now regrets.
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Neville considered backtracking on his comment, but was then frustrated by the admission from the Chelsea camp that they were trying to get to penalties, ultimately falling two minutes short.
Neville added: "I was actually going to do a roll back on my podcast, the day after, and say that I shouldn't have probably used that word 'bottle,' but when I heard that Mauricio thought the team were playing for penalties, I thought that it was the epitome of freezing."
That was the closest Pochettino and Chelsea got to landing a trophy before they parted ways at the end of the season. Chelsea's huge cash injection is still yet to result in any silverware with the Carabao Cup final, where they were perceived to have a hefty advantage in terms of quality, still seen as a huge missed opportunity.
Neville's comments were late put to Pochettino, who claimed that despite the stellar names in their starting XI the two teams were similar in terms of experience. "If you compare the age of the two groups, I think it is similar,” he said.
The Sky Sports pundits concedes he looks to avoid such personal criticism, acknowledging how it can stick with a player. He once claimed that David Luiz played like "he is being controlled by a 10-year-old on a PlayStation".
With the benefit of hindsight he said: "David Luiz has never got rid of that. It's a cheap shot really. It's that line of humour meets cheap shot."
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