Neville fires back at Croatia star after dig at media | TEAMtalk (original) (raw)

Former England and Manchester United defender Gary Neville has revealed his disdain at Luka Modric following comments he made after Croatia’s 2-1 victory over the Three Lions on Wednesday.

Following the victory, Modric criticised the English media for underestimating the Croatian team, and getting carried away.

The Real Madrid star claims Croatia proved them wrong with the victory, but Neville disagrees that was a factor, and says it had no impact on either team’s performance.

“I don’t believe it for one second,” Gary Neville said on ITV.

“I think he’s come out after the game having won and thought ‘I’m going to have a dig’ and obviously he was in a position to do that.

“He’s a great player but I don’t believe for any minute of that game he was ever thinking about the English media, what the English media had said, what any pundit had said.

“Why would you? No player ever thinks like that during a match.

“The fact that we made a mistake for the second goal, or that (Mario) Mandzukic was alive and John Stones wasn’t is nothing to do with the English media. They’re just moments in football matches that happen.

“He’s played for Real Madrid for the last seven or eight years, imagine the amount of media articles and critical things that would have been said about Real Madrid on a daily basis.

“Why would you even think that would be taken into a football match?”