Gary Neville xlaims off-field pressure and relegation scrutiny impacting Man City players

Gary Neville believes that intense public scrutiny regarding potential Premier League sanctions is taking a psychological toll on Manchester City’s players following their 3–1 defeat to Nottingham Forest, according to a report by SPORTbible.​

The loss leaves Enzo Maresca’s side six points behind league leaders Arsenal after starting the campaign with seven straight wins.​

Speaking to NBC Sports, Neville argued that constant speculation surrounding the club’s off-field issues naturally seeps into the squad’s environment.​

“It’s all everybody’s talking about back home in the last sort of, what will be, month or so, and those players will be getting asked constantly, ‘What do you think is going to happen? What happens if they do get relegated? Will you stay?'” Neville said.​

“Now you imagine that your family is having to put up with that, your agents continually thinking about those types of things, so it can’t be ruled out as a factor that that’s going to start to seep in,” he added.

​”If you lose a football match or two and then you can start to look at that as an excuse, but they’ve got to play better, they’ve got to compete in games, they’ve got to make sure that they do better on the pitch from a tactical, from a physical perspective. But I do believe it will be having some impact just because of the weight of what’s been hitting them from a publicity point of view in the last four to six weeks.”​

Maresca also expressed frustration with his side’s performance, telling Sky Sports: “First half when you don’t match intensity and lose all the duels it’s difficult. Then when we want to react, it’s too late. In this kind of match, you need to match intensity and win duels, otherwise it’s always complicated.

First half we were not good enough in terms of duels, second balls – we lost all of them. Then when we went to react we were 2-0 down and in football that is always complicated.”