Geoff Norcott

One, I looked at Gary Neville critiquing angry middle-aged white men and thought, in the words of the great historians from Newman and Baddiel, that's you, that is.

LAUGHTER

Gary Neville is so argumentative and divisive.

He's one of those rare blokes who can even piss off people who agree with him on almost everything.

I mean, he's tactically astute.

He speaks a lot of sense about football fans being priced out of the game.

He hates VAR, but still, I'm just not having him.

I mean, he could rescue my dog from a canal and I'd shout, put my dog down, you irritating git.

Whether it was on a football field looking terrified of Roy Keane or in a podcast studio looking terrified of Roy Keane or hiding in the commentary gantry because he's too scared to be in the same room as Roy Keane, the whole Gary Neville brand is an angry wind-up merchant.

Secondly, Gary, without those angry middle-aged white men, you'd have a much smaller audience for your stupid podcast.

Thirdly, we all know the rules for the liberal media that Neville works in, so the suspicion lingered that he wouldn't have dared stereotype any other communities that way.

Would he claim that the problems, for example, of going to the doctors are caused by nosy female receptionists with a God complex?

Or that the worst thing about his stupid podcast is all the laughing?

For God's sake, stop laughing and tell us whether United should have started with a back three!

Where was I?

Oh yeah, angry middle-aged white men.

So, Gary Neville's always been outspoken about his political views on social media.

He recorded this particular video shortly after an attack on the Jewish community in Manchester, which was very much not carried out by angry middle-aged white men.

However, that's not to say that what Neville said was completely without risk.

He might not have taken any risk within the liberal bubble, but as everyone in the public eye knows, if you are going to get criticised on social media, the assailants are most likely to be male, and a lot of them will be middle-aged and, yes, white.