Gary Neville slams two ‘selfish’ Chelsea stars after Manchester City defeat

Gary Neville fears the selfish actions of two Chelsea stars will see the club miss out on Champions League qualification.

Liam Rosenior’s side saw their hopes of a top five finish suffer a further blow on Sunday when Manchester City left Stamford Bridge with three points following a swashbuckling second half display.

Goals from Nico O’Reilly, Marc Guehi and Jeremy Doku emphasised the chasm that currently exists between both teams as Chelsea struggled to get to grips with their rampant opponents.

The home side’s cause wasn’t helped by the absence of their skipper Enzo Fernandez who was sitting out the second game of a suspension imposed on him by his own employers for his outspoken comments over the course of the international break.

While Fernandez was forced to miss out, the club took a more lenient view of Marc Cucurella’s revelations but regardless of the former Brighton full-back being let off the hook, Neville believes Rosenior being undermined in such an obvious way can only lead to more unrest.

Neville told Sky Sports: ‘It’s a struggle and you add to that the ill-discipline of Enzo Fernandez and Cucurella who have been speaking up in the last few weeks.

‘As a football player in a dressing room what do the rest of their teammates think.

‘When you speak like they have, that’s entirely selfish. It’s entirely selfish. It’s not helping your manager who is young and inexperienced. It’s not helping your teammates. It’s not helping the fans because they’re thinking you’re discontent.’

Chelsea have now lost five of their six games in all competitions with their only win in that run coming against League One strugglers Port Vale in the FA Cup and Neville condemned the actions of two senior players, particularly given the less than ideal timing.

He said: ‘In a period when you need to knuckle down, you’ve just gone out the Champions League and been mauled by PSG, which is no embarrassment they’re a good team. You needed everybody to knuckle down and stay in that mode of tightness.

‘When you’ve got the two experienced players that they have are demonstrating discontent and saying that the previous manager was good and we liked him and not sure why it changed. I agree there had to be consequences.

‘What they’ve done is say you need to have the camera on you against Manchester City being in the stand with everyone knowing you’ve been ill-disciplined. That can’t be helpful.

‘The problem is those players are still going in the dressing room having an influence and if they’ve got a bottom lip down by their shoe and sulking and slagging the club off, I think you’re going to have a difficult end to the season.

‘It feels to me now that Chelsea will miss out on Champions League football. I think Chelsea are going to miss out because of what has happened over the last few weeks.’