Lingard took to Snapchat where he shared a video of his hotel in Miami Beach, along with team-mates Marcus Rashford, Ro-Shaun Williams and their friend Jamal Branker. The latter was seen face down and gyrating with a pillow for comical effect.
Lingard immediately came under criticism for the tasteless act, though Neville has backed the 26-year-old by insisting United do not have role models.
'When I was playing, you always had three groups - the guardians, the middle group and the younger ones,' said Neville during a Soccer Science conference inside Manchester's Hotel Football.
'Manchester United doesn't have the guardians now. Absolutely not, no. There are some good professionals, Juan Mata for instance, Ander Herrera, when he was there, and Scott McTominay - you can see he's a good lad and wants to play football.
'But I don't think they carry the influence in the dressing room to be able to dominate the culture and that's a real problem.
'In any business, in any football team, if the guardians in the dressing room, the ones who have the influence, are not setting the example, then you have a big problem and have to clear them out,' Neville added.
'Jesse Lingard doesn't drink a lot. Twenty years ago, somebody going on a holiday would have been bladdered for four weeks. What's worse - a social media post where somebody's having a bit of a joke or getting bladdered for four weeks?
'You'd rather have your player being sober, probably training all day and having a joke with his mates. This is absolutely a lesser evil than we had 20 years ago when players would go off for five or six weeks and come back overweight, saying "pre-season's for getting fit."
'The idea of a guy going on social media, looking a bit of a prat while not winning football matches and not playing that well is a really bad cocktail.
'But then again, on the other side, he's giving his all, he's a young lad and social media is the modern form of media, so get over it.'
MailOnline
No comments:
Post a Comment