Gary Neville hails 'truly gifted' Terry Venables, the manager 'too big for the FA'

Venables passed away aged 80 after a long illness (Picture: PA)

Former England and Manchester United defender Gary Neville has hailed Terry Venables as the country’s most gifted football coach, a manager ahead of his time who was ‘too big’ for the game’s governing bodies.

Venables’ family released a statement on Sunday confirming his death at the age of 80 after a long illness.

Tributes have flooded in for the one of English football’s great characters who enjoyed club success across the capital with Crystal Palace, QPR and Tottenham and in Spain with Barcelona.

In 1994, he was appointed England manager, leading them to the semi-finals of Euro 96 where they suffered semi-final heartbreak in a penalty shootout defeat to Germany.

As one of a clutch of talented youngsters part of that team alongside the experienced presence of the likes of Stuart Pearce, Paul Ince, Teddy Sheringham and Paul Gascoigne, Neville remembers the tactical innovation Venables brought to the side after his success in Barcelona.

The former right-back described Venables’ departure from the national team as a setback for English football, believing England ‘lost out’ after parting ways with a manager who ‘was onto something special’.

‘He was a huge personality, larger than life and I think at the time, too big for the FA,’ Neville told Sky Sports. ‘We lost out, with England, through that change because he was onto something special.

Venables led England to the semi-finals in Euro 96 (Picture: Getty)

‘He developed a great spirit but as a really technically gifted, tactically aware team. Great leaders like Gascoigne, [Tony] Adams, Ince and Pearce, he was managing them really well with a group of young players coming through.

‘He was unable to take us beyond that tournament, and that was one of the great sad things.

‘We talk about Pep Guardiola now, he calls it in training three or four days before, I have never played under a coach, as a good as Terry Venables, he would almost predict the outcomes of games.

‘In Euro 96, we played three or four different systems and changed systems in games.

‘I played the first game a traditional right back, the second game on the right of a back three and the third game a right winger in possession against Holland and then in the fourth game against Spain I was a right wing back.

‘I have no doubts this was the most technically gifted, tactically aware English coach we have ever produced. He went through that Barcelona system and we got the benefits of that, it was a wonderful time.’

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