Valencia eliminated in Gary Neville’s debut as head coach

Neville was appointed as Los Che’s new boss until the end of the season last week and his first game at the helm will be Wednesday’s must-win Champions League clash against Lyon.

Gent’s 2-1 triumph over Zenit at Ghelamco Arena meant Belgium were celebrating a first club through to the knockout stages of the competition in 15 years.

However, although the Italian side were held to a goalless draw, the Bundesliga outfit could not conjure up a victor, despite having plenty of chances in the second half.

“There is a fascination now with the style of play – possession and counter-attack – but can’t we play both?”

Mustafi put the ball in the net with another header two minutes later, but Aymen Abdennour was adjudged to have committed a foul and the goal was disallowed.

“I haven’t seen the goal again yet but listening to the players they thought it was a goal”, Neville said afterwards. Against Barcelona everyone saw that we are a team that can play well against the best sides.

The victory should help ease criticism of Lyon coach Hubert Fournier. Lyon might not be able to qualify for either the last 16 or even the Europa League, but the French club will want to at least finish their European campaign on something of a high.

Neville’s brother and assistant manager, Phil Neville, took charge for the game and is said to have already set in place a good relationship with the players. We had nothing to lose here.

“We have to keep it simple and we have been working on very basic things”.

Neville had to deal with a series of injuries that ruled out defenders Antonio Barragan and Lucas Orban, midfielder Andre Gomes, and forwards Sofiane Fegholi and Rodrigo Moreno.

Valencia started the evening without eight first team players through injury and they suffered another setback when Argentina global Enzo Perez hobbled off to be replaced by Javi Fuego.