Gary Neville blasts Danny Rose for Sun interview but the Tottenham star is not the only one sick of being gagged
AT the crack of dawn yesterday, Gary Neville began the bombardment of Danny Rose.
“WTF is Danny Rose thinking?” tweeted Sir Alex Ferguson’s favourite lapdog.
Well every early-rising Sun reader knew exactly what Rose was thinking because the England left-back had opened his heart in a wide-ranging interview praised for its outspoken honesty.
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Neville then followed up by writing: “Imagine walking into the training ground having not been fit for months and months. Morning lads!!”
The implication was that Rose would feel the wrath of his team-mates for urging Spurs to sign new players, for admitting he would consider any approaches and for casting doubt on Tottenham’s wage policy.
In reality, Neville’s suggestion could not have been further from the truth.
Rose was slapped on the back by fellow players, keen to applaud him for airing his views so starkly.
Some said they wished they had done the same months ago, while others threatened to break rank and do the same themselves.
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The reason Rose’s interview caused such huge ructions was not because of the enormity of the story. A left-back fancying a transfer and a few extra quid doesn’t exactly stack up against impending nuclear war between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
What made this so sensational is the stifling culture of intense secrecy and paranoia which accompanies top-level football in England.
It is so rare to hear a leading footballer genuinely speaking his mind — without a club lackey monitoring his words and preventing him from saying anything controversial — that Rose’s opinions made you gasp.
In truth he was not laying into chairman Daniel Levy or manager Mauricio Pochettino — Rose praised Levy’s stewardship of the club and said his Argentine manager would be the ideal man to improve England team-mate Ross Barkley.
He simply spoke openly about, among other topics, Tottenham’s lack of squad depth compared with Manchester City and Chelsea, his intention to be paid his ‘true worth’, his desire to move north before he retires and his dismay at the sale of Kyle Walker.
Rose was fined two weeks’ wages when he went into training yesterday because Spurs bigwigs were furious that their PR department had not been able to cross out any interesting comments with a red pen.
In truth, they would have needed to red-pen the entire article, so compelling were Rose’s opinions. But he is not the only major footballer sick of being gagged in this way.
As a 27-year-old father and a seasoned international, he finds it frustrating and patronising that he is unable to talk more openly more often.
But for Neville — still following the gospel of the old Stretford Stalin — speaking out in a newspaper remains a cardinal sin. While coaching England under Roy Hodgson last summer, it is said Neville spent more time threatening players to prevent the Three Lions team line-up from being revealed in national newspapers than he did warning of Iceland’s long throw-ins.
Despite a vast tarpaulin being erected around England’s Chantilly training base, the line-up found its way into the newspapers for each of England’s four matches in France.
Neville was looking in the wrong direction while trying to plug ‘leaks’ — as were England’s defence when Hodgson’s men were humiliated by Iceland, with Neville axed along with his boss, just as he had been after less than four months as Valencia chief.
The point is this culture of secrecy and suspicion, which has existed with England and at most major Premier League clubs, does not make players relaxed and happy.
Rose’s interview, off the back of a frustrating six months out injured, was partly a reaction to this. Failed Tottenham chairman Sir Alan Sugar branded Rose’s interview ‘disgusting’ and ‘unprofessional’ and demanded Spurs ‘chuck him out’.
On a free transfer? Rose would probably bite their hands off . . .
Former boss Harry Redknapp — who starved Rose of first-team opportunities to such an extent he considered quitting the game — suggested his former defender acted out of envy for wages of players at other clubs.
Rose admitted wages played a part in his frustrations. But it is a feeling shared in a dressing room in which players are paid half the going rate.
The irony is that had Levy doubled his players’ wages, he could have picked up twice as much in fining Rose two weeks’ money for getting things off his chest.
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