Gary Neville subjected to chants of 'donkey, donkey, donkey' from Valencia fans
Monday 21 March 2016 07:38, UK
Valencia fans vented their anger towards Gary Neville by chanting ‘donkey, donkey, donkey’ at him, according to Guillem Balague.
Neville watched his side slip to a 2-0 home defeat to Celta Vigo on Sunday as the Mestella Stadium was a cauldron of boos, whistles and negative chanting at full-time.
Neville has now won just three of his 16 La Liga games since taking charge as his team remain just six points off the relegation zone with 34 points after late goals from John Guidetti and Hugo Mallo.
The home fans also booed Neville's substitution minutes before their team fell behind after he decided to replace striker Pablo Alcácer with fellow striker Alvaro Negredo.
"The fans have chanted that the players are mercenaries and Gary [Neville] and Peter Lim to go home, so they're going after everybody at the moment," said Balague.
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"The chants of 'donkey, donkey, donkey' that Gary got today, which is a very Valencian way of saying 'you haven't got a clue', were also sang at Unai Emery, so perhaps the fans aren't [in] the perfect place to judge what the real reaction is.
"But you just have to look on the pitch. What are they playing at? What's the system? What's the idea? It looks to me that the players are being asked to do one thing when they could actually do it another way. It doesn't feel that there is symbiosis there."
Valencia have eight games remaining this season to haul themselves clear of danger but still have to face Barcelona (a), Real Madrid (a) and Sevilla (h) in a tricky fixture list.
Big decisions will have to be taken at Valencia. It should take Valencia to where it should be, which is one of the top 10 clubs in the world
Asked whether relegation is a possibility, Balague said: "It is. Gary has said that himself. They need to get to 42 points. We've seen cases like Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo and Sevilla where they think that relegation won't happen but then it gets to a point when they're not used to this kind of fight and they can't get the points from nowhere.
"It's a very tough calendar but they should get enough points to make it to 42. If things aren't right from the top of the club and the choices they make aren't football-like choices, it's normal to see that it's not built on normal foundations.
"Big decisions will have to be taken at Valencia. It should take Valencia where it should be which is one of the top 10 clubs in the world."
