Jamie Carragher has hit back at misquoting Gary Neville and sought to set the record straight about his comments about long throws and set pieces. The former Liverpool ace spent part of last week’s Monday Night Football, the day after his former club lost to Manchester United, examining how long throws are emerging as a tactical weapon employed by Premier League teams.
Neville then took issue with Carragher’s stance on long throws in the latest episode of The Overlap podcast, declaring that he prefers them. “Carla said this the other day on Monday Night Football…I thought it was really interesting because, to be fair, I disagree with that, but he’s not here. I wish he was here…He said he hates long throws, and someone else said that yesterday. They hate long throws. I’m like, I love long throws.”
But hitting back at Neville, Carragher posted on X (formerly Twitter): ‘I never said 100 times that I hate set pieces and long throws!
“What I don’t like is that every team is making long throws and it’s taking up a lot of time. It makes perfect sense that teams who struggle to get the ball into the box and lack quality are doing that. I also like to see how teams deal with that.”
“But a team that has good technical players and has spent £100 million on them should be putting the ball into play as soon as possible to get these players on the ball. I’m no football fanatic, but this throws the game backwards!”
Roy Keane and Ian Wright supported the reintroduction of the long throw, describing it as an “entry into the box”.
However, towards the end of last season, Jamie Carragher criticized Arsenal’s set-piece coach Nicolas Jover after the draw with Crystal Palace.
He said: “This season, from a percentage point of view, only Man United have been worse per set than Arsenal.
“So when we make a big deal about the set-piece manager…he’s absolutely out of this world in terms of forward progression, but they have big problems defensively.
“So should we cut his salary in half? Do they need a defensive set-piece coach? That’s one of the talking points of the season and rightly so. It’s unbelievable.”
“It feels like every game they score or come pretty close to scoring from set pieces. Obviously he’s a big influence, but it’s funny that they have big problems of their own.”
