Gary Neville has plenty to work with at Valencia
Troubled club pulls together for Barça draw before vital Champions League tie
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Your support makes all the difference.He was behind the glass partition of club owner Peter Lim’s private box at the Mestalla when the 86th-minute equaliser came, but Gary Neville will still have felt the stadium shake as the net bulged.
Neville takes his first training session as Valencia coach this morning and after brother Phil helped mastermind an impressive 1-1 draw against champions Barcelona on Saturday, he will know that there is plenty to be positive about as he looks forward to his first match in charge on Wednesday against Lyons.
Beating the Ligue 1 side will give Valencia a chance of reaching the Champions League knockout stage and Lyons’ form suggests it is well within their grasp. They lost 2-0 at home to Angers on Saturday for their fifth defeat of the season and are now 19 points behind leaders Paris Saint-Germain having won only one of their last eight games.
Valencia in contrast have lost only one of their last nine at the Mestalla in Europe and are on a run of 19 home games without defeat in all competitions. They will welcome back full-back Joao Cancelo and midfielder Javi Fuego from suspension and centre-half Shkodran Mustafi might yet overcome a hamstring injury to return to the side.
If Los Che win they are then in the hands of Andre Villas-Boas’s Zenit St Peterburg. Should the Russians, who have already won the group, manage a home draw against Ghent and Valencia win, the Neville brothers will be in the last 16 of the Champions League.
As preparation for what will be his first memorable European night as a coach, the draw against Barcelona was full of signs of encouragement for Gary Neville. There was the way supporters had lined the streets two hours before kick-off to give the Barcelona team coach an intimidating welcome. Never mind that the bus avoided that hot reception by making its way into Mestalla on the opposite side of the ground, the home players will still have been lifted by the show of support.
As the teams took to the pitch before kick-off, another defeat for Jose Mourinho in the Premier League was being confirmed. The Chelsea manager has been mooted in these parts as a possible target next summer. He had already reminded Gary Neville that he would not be able to freeze-frame games from the dugout now he was playing with tactics for real. Was Bournemouth’s 1-0 win an omen that things were going to go Neville’s way?
It certainly seemed so when in the first 10 minutes both Lionel Messi and Neymar blasted good chances over Jaume Domenech’s bar. “Messi pay your taxes,” the Valencia supporters belted out from behind the south goal, provoking a wave from the Argentine.
Neville will have also been impressed by the unity on show. All of Valencia’s 10 unavailable players were on the bench during the warm-up in a show of dressing-room solidarity and Gary Neville’s decision not to go into the dressing room before and after the game was appreciated as a show of respect to Salvador Gonzalez “Voro” who was caretaker coach on the night. Voro has an excellent record when taking temporary charge – unbeaten in previous incarnations stepping in after the sackings of Ronald Koeman in 2008 and Mauricio Pellegrino in 2012.
There was a unity on the pitch, too. Phil Neville should take credit for that. The space was closed between Valencia’s defence and midfield, leaving Barcelona with little room to play and he spent most of the game directing from the technical area, urging his defenders to stay awake in the face of Europe’s most formidable front three.
The players ran for each other, with left-back Jose Gaya omnipresent in attack and defence. The 20-year-old is a huge prospect.
Striker Paco Alcacer is perhaps the other outstanding talent and it was the 20-year-old Spain international who earned his team a point with just four minutes left.
When a long pass dropped to him on the edge of the area, Alcacer had Javier Mascherano and Gerard Pique either side of him and the odds stacked in their favour. But he brought the ball down and drifted between his markers before rolling it to the unmarked Santi Mina to score.
The 19-year-old cancelled out Luis Suarez’s 12th goal in his last eight games. The Uruguayan striker admitted after the match that he may have been offside as he ran on to Messi’s pass. He also owned up to treading on Valencia defender Aymen Abdennour’s foot in an earlier moment of controversy, claiming the action was unintentional.
Suarez as the enemy, a late equaliser born of a refusal to lie down and a cauldron atmosphere – at times it would have all felt somewhat familiar to the Nevilles. Now they need more of the same on Wednesday to keep the club in the Champions League.
There was a unity on the pitch from Valencia, too. Phil Neville should take some credit for that
Phil Neville applauds Valencia’s players after the 1-1 draw with Barcelona (main picture), while brother Gary watches the game from owner Peter Lim’s box (far left) getty;ap
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