Gary Neville hits out at 'biggest betrayal' of Manchester United dressing room, says it is 'unforgivable'

Gary Neville has hit out at Manchester United players for committing the "biggest betrayal you can have in a football dressing room" after Nemanja Matic gave a telling interview earlier this week.

Matic, who currently plays for Ligue 1 side Rennes, called out former teammates Jadon Sancho and Paul Pogba for "always" turning up late to United training.

In fact, at one stage, the Serbian headed up an 'internal disciplinary committee' in a bid to raise standards, although the system failed to spring some individuals into action, with fines totalling £75,000.

Speaking to Austrian outlet YuPlanet, he said: "At Chelsea, players acted professionally. They were punctual and were never late for training. But at United it happened almost every day.

"Among the players who would always be late were Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho, and a couple of other players."

Matic added: "The rest of us who were always on time were angry so we decided to form a kind of an internal disciplinary committee with me serving as its president.

"I put a sheet of paper up on the wall where I documented the names of individuals arriving late. During one particular season we collected around £75,000 in fines. We had planned to use the money to throw a party in London but we didn't due to the Covid outbreak."

As well as Matic's revelation, reports emerged that Ten Hag had lost 'more than half of the dressing room'.

Now, former Manchester United defender Gary Neville has said that being late to training is "the most disrespectful thing" a player can do.

Speaking on the latest episode of Gary Neville’s podcast, Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet, Neville said: “I remember being late once when I was coming into Carrington, once in 20 years.

“I got stuck in horrendous traffic; I was never late. I was ringing up, I was frantic, I was absolutely devastated.

“Just the standards that I set, just if anyone else was late I’d criticise people, because that is the most disrespectful thing you can do, making your teammates wait.

“Working hard goes without saying, but if everyone is waiting for you, you can’t be that person in life.”

He added: “I have been soft on the [United] players for 12 months because I’ve focused on the rotten environment with the ownership, there’s difficulties at the club for players to succeed just with everything that’s around them.

“A lot’s not right with the club, and hopefully new ownership will sort it out.

“But what we’ve heard from Nemanja Matic in the last week about lateness is something that just riles me.

“The biggest betrayal you can have in a football dressing room is when players or players’ representatives are going to the media to undermine the manager and other players in your dressing room. Honestly, that is f***ing unforgivable.

"When I heard these stories coming out I thought, 'here we go again, the f*****s. They're at it, they're going to try and get another manager sacked, another group of players thrown out'.

"You know it's happening and you can tell it's been fed and I thought, 'stop whinging, shut your mouths, work as hard as you can and the day after, come back and do it again'.

"That's it. I have got some sympathy with them at the moment with the club and how it is with what's going on, the continual poor recruitment, negativity, bad ownership, lack of sporting department and lack of all the stuff they've got.

"I've given them a pretty easy ride but I've got no sympathy if they're leaking stories or they're being late."

Image credit: The Overlap/YouTube

Sancho, meanwhile, has been 'banned' from using first team facilities at Carrington, according to the Daily Mirror, following a public dispute with Erik ten Hag.

Back in September, Manchester United released a statement confirming that Sancho was doing a 'personal training programme' away from the rest of the team, pending resolution of a squad discipline issue.

You can watch the full episode below, brought to you by SkyBet.

Thoughts on Neville's comments about Matic? Do you agree?

Let us know in the comments.