Both Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher know the feeling of being trolled only too well which is why neither takes online abuse all that seriously.
By that same token, they don’t tend to accept praise all that freely either.
But the seemingly endless Twitter rivalry between Neville and Carragher means that neither man will pass up the opportunity to call out the other, which is exactly what happened when the former Manchester United full back responded with three short words to an article praising the impact that an upcoming development project of his will have on the city of Manchester.
Neville’s St. Michael’s project is going to see two skyscrapers erected in Manchester city centre and the outgoing chief executive of Manchester City Council, Sir Howard Bernstein, has complimented the former England international’s integrity ahead of construction of the buildings on Jackson’s Row, near Deansgate.
Very kind words… https://t.co/NDeB4XPTMN
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) February 22, 2017
“Very kind words,” Neville replied to a Business Cloud article on the project.
And that was enough to get his punditry soulmate Jamie Carragher to bite.
You're not turning into one of those 'idiots' on twitter who retweet praise are you? FFS! https://t.co/Pxpfnvsokp
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) February 22, 2017
Neville responded by insisting he was just thanking Bernstein for his kind words, rather than showing off the fact that he was being praised.
Never in football or punditry James as you know! That's the rule.. https://t.co/aXOsTrQDsZ
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) February 22, 2017
But, not content to let the exchange end there, Neville rummaged through some of the Liverpool legend’s tweets only to find some examples of Carragher thanking followers for some compliments on his punditry and, coming full circle here, one of those tweets was directed at the author of this very piece that you’re reading.
And Neville was only delighted to retweet to remind Carragher that he can sometimes be guilty of the very thing he accused Neville of doing.
They love each other really.
