Interview with The Independent on Sunday:
think it's mainly because of the fact that I've nailed my colours so firmly to the United mast; that I've been perceived as being Man U through and through," he says. "I can almost hear those rival supporters saying, 'Right, let's have a bit of him'. But the thing is that I thrive on it. The best feeling in the world is playing away from home, at grounds where it's hostile, we've just scored, and 40,000 people go quiet." Just as last Sunday? A look of contentment flashes across his features. He can still taste it now, a triumph on such alien turf succulent to a footballer's palate.
And then there is that image of him as a willing disciple of his manager, Fergie's representative on earth. He admits, self-mockingly, that people "expect me to be this most boring, professional, wooden, backside-licking person who sits in the dressing room and walks around saying, 'Yes, boss' to everything that's said". What Neville will concede is this: "If boring is being professional and working as hard as you possibly can, that's what I set out to do. I'm no Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes in terms of ability. But I have to give my all every day in training, otherwise it'd be a waste of time."
Boring is far from the truth for a player of many, and varied, opinions, an independent man, who does not have an agent, and, further, would like to see the game banish them. "If you've got that kind of money, the percentage players give to their agents, then give it to your mum and dad instead," he says, while maintaining that any player should be capable of conducting his own salary negotiations. "It's easy to find out what your comparables are earning," he says. "How hard can it be to write that down on a bit of paper, stick it in front of a guy and say, 'This is what I want?' Agents just cause so much disharmony in football."
But it's the lippiness on the field that makes him a target, you suggest; that uppity attitude, a relish for confronting officialdom and antagonising opponents. He makes no apologies for himself, nor for a certain celebrity team-mate. "I'm one of the worst," Neville readily agrees. "There have been games when I've looked back at the video, and thought, 'You shouldn't really be round him [the referee] like that'. I don't know why I do it, because I have nothing but respect for referees and the job that they do."
But as a senior player, is it not incumbent upon him to help curb the youthful excesses of a young player like Wayne Rooney? You pose the question with the profanities mouthed by the teenager to Graham Poll at Highbury, sufficient to traumatise a lip-reader of genteel disposition, specifically in mind. "Do we really think that Wayne steps out of line to a point where it's a problem?" Neville asks. "I don't see a boy with a temperament problem. I see a young player who has the enthusiasm of a 19-year-old, who possesses an amazing ability. We should want our young players to have that feistiness about them.
"He plays football like he's desperate to win. You can see it in his face. He's like the kid in the schoolyard. Why not look at the most positive things about him and say, 'God, what an exciting player to watch'. Look at [Eric] Cantona. We'll look back in 30 years and say, 'I'm glad we had Eric, with his volatile temperament. That's what gave us all those experiences, those moments of magic'. Not everyone can be like Gary Lineker, and never get booked. That'd be all a bit boring, wouldn't it?"
There is a fervour in his eyes. "I love watching players, like Roy Keane and Bryan Robson before him, who live on the edge. It's that street-fighting-type character in them. Football needs that. Don't take it out of them,please. We all pick up habits playing in the street or schoolyard. Why, just because you're 19 and being paid to play, should you change the character you've developed since you were a child?
"People say, 'Oh, he [Rooney] earns that much money. He should behave in a certain way'. Why should he? Rugby players punch each other in the head and they're gentlemen. Football players don't do things half as bad, and they're thugs. Why?"
As for the managers, the suggestion that they should have toned down their observations in the prelude to that infamous Highbury fixture he regards as "ridiculous and laughable". He continues: "In the future, people will talk about Arsène Wenger, Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho too, and what they have said will become folklore. I believe our manager is the best of all time. We should want to hear him speak; not tell him to be quiet. I want to listen to a manager who is actually speaking from his heart."