Gary Neville Slams ‘Not Authentic’ England Players For Hiding Behind Social Media Teams

Gary Neville criticised England players for sounding like automated robots on Twitter, asking "do any of the lads post themselves?"

Many elite professional footballers use social media staff to manage their accounts and Neville was clearly disheartened by the inauthentic messages after England's 2-0 win in Albania.

"It's a shame they don't manage their personal connection to the fans and media," said Neville adding the hashtag: Independent Thinkers.

Several of England's players posted remarkably similar messages after their victory in the World Cup qualifier. Jesse Lingard and Mason Mount both went for a "job done" and let's look forward to Wednesday approach (classic).

Harry Maguire and Phil Foden put Manchester rivalries aside to go for a "Two wins from two" message... while also looking forward to Wednesday and England's game against Poland.

One Twitter user pointed out that the platform is a "cesspit" and asked why players would bother. To which Manchester United great Neville replied: "I get that.

"Either be on it yourself with your own thoughts or stay off it completely."

Frankly, if Neville thinks that top-level footballers don't sound this devoid of personality in real life, he hasn't heard many post-match interviews recently.

But of course players having their social media accounts managed for them is a common situation, generally so that they don't get themselves in trouble by saying the wrong thing (or simply because they aren't interested in using it but know they should to grow their profile).

However using a team to help manage a social media account doesn't always meaning avoiding problems.

Spurs goalkeeper Joe Hart got himself in an embarrassing situation earlier this month after an Instagram post was sent from his account with the message "job done" - following Tottenham's humiliating Europa League exit to Dinamo Zagreb.

Hart had to record a video the following morning explaining it was an admin error on the part of his social media team.

So perhaps Neville is right and players should just send their own messages, errors and all.

Now let's all look forward to Wednesday.

Featured image credit: PA Images/Twitter

Topics: England, Gary Neville, Twitter

Alex Reid

Alex Reid is a writer at SPORTbible who’s previously strung words together for FourFourTwo, Boxing News, The Guardian and, yes, Cruise International (it’s about big ships, not Tom). Interests range from football and boxing to real sports like WWE and darts. He is not a cage fighter.

@otheralexreid