"I think Jose Mourinho is starting to bring it back, to a level. My hope was he was going to go away and blitz the Premier League by 25 points, and then everyone else thinks: ‘Right, I’ve got to go away and get up to that standard.’ That’s what could happen in this next couple of years.
Oh fuck no. If that happens, I'll cry. When Mourinho's first stint in England ended, virtually every single club copied him to ridiculous degrees. The likes of United implemented it properly with Vidic and Ferdinand providing an excellent base(which is probably want Neville is thinking about), but the rest of the league suffered in terms of the quality of football. In particular the glory cup ties between Rafa's Liverpool and Chelsea made me question what I was doing with my life.
Nowadays the quality of football from Barcelona, Madrid, Bayern and Juventus have set a new bench mark. And it's not just the big clubs, even At, Madrid and Dortmund have had some success by being more proactive. That isn't to disparage the defending obviously, Juventus were excellent at defending against Real Madrid in the semi finals. The difference is that they defended so that their attackers had the best chance to score, rather than because they were happy to settle for a draw.
I find it odd that Neville talks up Mourinho's approach when his ridiculous attempts to park the bus against a 10 man PSG team at home ended up costing him the tie.
