Gary Neville has only been adding to Liverpool fans’ glee with his antics since the Premier League title was confirmed. He’s continuing to make himself look foolish.
At first, it looked like Neville was going to be mature about Arne Slot’s triumph, admitting that a 20th title means the debate regarding the most successful club in England is over. Liverpool has tied Manchester United domestically, and is way out in the lead when it comes to European honors.
However, he could not hide his allegiances for long. He slunk out of the gantry right on the full-time whistle as Liverpool confirmed the title against Spurs, and now he has been at pains to point out that he still believes Man Utd is the “bigger” club.
Speaking on It’s Called Soccer, Neville drew a distinction between the biggest club and the most successful. He expressed annoyance that people had twisted his words. “I will always maintain Manchester United are the biggest football club in this country, and that will never change,” Nevile insisted. “100 per cent, it’s not even a debate.
“However, the most successful club now, at this moment in time, in this period — and I did add those words on the end — is Liverpool. They’ve won 20 titles and they’ve won more European cups, and they’re the two trophies that we all measure ourselves by.”
If Neville is openly admitting that his views on the biggest club in the country will never be subject to change, then his opinion clearly isn’t all that valuable; the crown has to be able to change hands to reflect long-term shifts in order to have any meaning. Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with differentiating between the biggest club and the most successful.
All kinds of factors feed into being a “big” club. Very few teams could produce the kind of atmosphere seen at Anfield last weekend, and those intangible elements certainly play a part.
(Image: Steven Halliwell | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Until Jurgen Klopp came along, it had been a barren period for Liverpool. But the history and the fanbase meant it never dropped out of the conversation.
Likewise, Man Utd is still bigger than Man City or Chelsea, and Neville is entitled to believe his former club remains the biggest in England — although I believe Liverpool’s claim is stronger. However, where the pundit went next represented a new low for the debate. “Let’s put it in ChatGBT [sic]”, exclaimed an excited, if agitated, Neville. “Who is the biggest football club in England?”
He proceeded to read out the answer from AI software ChatGPT, as if that’s some kind of definitive proof. The AI assistant initially put forward Liverpool and Manchester United as the top two candidates, but favored Man Utd when Neville prompted it to pick just one.
It’s alarming that Neville, one of the most prominent pundits in the country, is among those who feels comfortable leaving his own reasoning skills at the door and letting AI do the thinking for him. There are plenty of legitimate use cases for the technology, and its answer might even provide some useful starting points for an actual debate, but it is clearly not equipped in any way to settle the argument.
ChatGPT mentioned titles (where it seemed to think Liverpool is still on 19), recent success (where it made a half-hearted case for Man City), and commercial and global appeal. No doubt all of this feeds into being a “big” club in one way or another, but distilling all of these discrete factors into an overall objective winner is an impossible task for man or machine.
Seeing the host declare Neville “correct” because of ChatGPT’s verdict was a bleak moment. We are close to the rubicon with AI, and normalizing its use in such a manner is irresponsible, even before any environmental considerations.
Hopefully, Neville takes the chance to reflect. Like him or loathe him as a pundit, I’d still rather hear his opinions than those of ChatGPT, and such small-time behavior was never going to add anything to the debate over the biggest club in England.
