Tuesday 25 May 2021 17:19, UK
Download the Gary Neville Podcast on: Spotify | Apple | Castbox | Spreaker
On the latest Gary Neville Podcast, the Sky Sports pundit reveals that he hopes Phil Foden "lights up the Euros" ahead of the England squad announcement.
The 20-year-old Manchester City midfielder has just won a third Premier League title, and has a Champions League final quickly approaching.
Before the showdown with Chelsea though, Foden is expected to be named in Gareth Southgate's 26-man squad for the summer's European Championships, and Neville is tipping him for big things at his first senior tournament.
Read on for Neville's thoughts on Foden, plus much more on Man City's title win, Harry Kane's future and Manchester United's season from the latest Gary Neville Podcast...
"I feel warm towards Foden in a sense of he's a local kid and because of my upbringing at United, I do feel really passionate about local lads doing well and Greater Manchester producing great football players.
"This is one incredible talent and it's gone beyond talking about his potential talent - he's a performer. In the big games, this lad steps up, he's someone to contend with. They are not just looking at Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling or Riyad Mahrez, they are looking at Foden as being someone who influences huge matches.
"I'm really looking forward to the Champions League final, not because I want City to win it, but for some reason, I want Foden to do well as a local kid.
"When I broke through at Man Utd, I had great standard bearers in front of me. They were great players, but they also did things the right way for every single game. They played at a high level every single week and Foden has been there for three or four years now, around Vincent Kompany, around David Silva, around De Bruyne, around Sergio Aguero.
"What those players do when they perform like they do every week, they let the young players know where to go. You have to work hard, prepare well, eat the right things, sleep well and do the right things every single minute of every single day. This is a constant and it's how you achieve consistency and this is why I think Foden now is surrounded by good people, good professionals, great players and is now emerging as one himself.
"I hope that continues for England's sake. We are going to see him in an England shirt this summer and I hope he lights the tournament up. I have not been excited about seeing a young player in a tournament since Rooney in 2004. You think of Owen in '98 and Gascoigne in '90 - these are English players who light up tournaments and Foden has the ability to do that."
"It seems like such a long time ago that we were dismissing City, talking about a potential decline and really questioning them at the start of the season. Defensively, they looked all over the place but also, the fact that they looked like they were not going to score goals.
"The football wasn't there, the connectivity wasn't there, the body language on the pitch. I remember the Manchester derby, the 0-0, and thinking 'how's it got to this?', where it looked like all the juice had been squeezed out of the orange with this Man City team.
"It looked like they had been Pep-ed to death for the last two or three years, this intense passing, intense pressing and they have nothing left to give.
"Then all of a sudden, they had this spark.
" At Stamford Bridge, you thought 'oh, what's this? This is football' and it was the best half an hour or 45 minutes we had seen in that first half. From that moment on, they never really broke stride.
"I called them a collection of delicious footballers on Sunday - it's not a word I use to describe anything or anyone - but they are absolutely incredible to watch. They are sublime.
"It's a different way of playing football than I ever imagined. I said after the game that I never imagined our league could be won this way with a group of technical players. Fifteen years ago, if you had one of these players in your squad, we'd be asking how you fit him in or what's his best position. Pep has got six, seven or eight of them all in one squad."
"When City first signed Ruben Dias, Jamie Carragher summed it up quite well when he said it was the last throw of the dice. Kompany had left, Man City had decided not to compete on price with Man Utd around Harry Maguire and during last season, I felt like that was a mistake because he would have given them that presence.
"If you had said to me at the start of the season that Dias and Stones would be a partnership as they were, I would have said absolutely not. Sometimes a partnership works, we saw it at the latter end of the Bruce-Pallister partnership where together, they were incredible but when you split them up, it didn't quite work. The same with Vidic and Ferdinand, and I think we have seen the same with Dias and Stones.
"They are absolutely fantastic together and you would have thought that Aymeric Laporte would have been a mainstay for years, but Stones has re-emerged and looks like he's having the best season of his life.
"Dias has been at the heart of everything, his performances have been composed. He's had that leadership quality and those Terry or Kompany-esque clearances and blocks about him, where he's a really brilliant footballer player but also a warrior in moments of the games where his team need it.
"The big question mark was the loss of Kompany and how that was going to be dealt with and I think Dias has proven beyond what anyone could imagine to be the answer."
"Everybody has recognised that this is a crossroads moment. Tottenham have come through this golden period, even though they have not won anything, where they have got to Champions League finals, they came second in league and they have had a really great period as a football club, playing great football and moving to a new stadium.
"They have also got this exceptional player in Harry Kane and it's a really simple conundrum - does he want to stay at Tottenham? Do Tottenham want to keep him for the next 10 years and he does what Matt Le Tissier did at Southampton or Alan Shearer when he went back to Newcastle? You can have exceptional careers and be at clubs like that where you stay there and it's your club, you don't leave and this is where I'm at.
"Or does he do what maybe Ferdinand did leaving Leeds or Rooney did leaving Everton, where they have left and gone to other clubs in the league that have been more successful and go down that different path.
"This summer is the moment where it will either happen or it won't. You could maybe argue next year, but once Harry gets to 30, you would imagine that moment would have done. It's a big moment for Tottenham, it's a big moment for Harry Kane.
"He's gold… A Ferdinand, a Rooney, a Shearer, they are gold and you just know they are going to perform. Kane fits into that category. Any club that gets him is not going to be disappointed with what he delivers. He's consistent, he's reliable, he's exceptional and he will break the records with England the Premier League, I'm absolutely certain of it."
"If Man Utd can win on Wednesday, this has been a really good season for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it would demonstrate great progress.
"Then you are talking about recruitment - you are talking about Varane, Kane, Haaland, Sancho. Those players that you know can take them to that next level. There would be numbers in those attacking areas which means they would become more exceptional in front of goal.
"Then a player at the back that would give that partnership alongside Maguire that you could see being there for three or four years and would really challenge and put United at the forefront of challenging City and Liverpool.
"But Solskjaer is going to have to something exceptional because Tuchel, Guardiola and Klopp are exceptional winning managers and they are hungry and ruthless. They want to win relentlessly so Man Utd cannot think that, if they win the Europa League on Wednesday and finish in second, that they still do not need that jump up a level. They are still 12 points behind City, you have got to swing that four games and it does not happen easily.
"So United have got to do big things this summer and Wednesday is such an important moment in the club's history for Solskjaer and these players to get a medal around their necks."
