Speaking exclusively to EscapistMagazine.com ahead of the release of EA Sports FC 26, ex-Chelsea man Pat Nevin has compared Raheem Sterling being frozen out at Stamford Bridge to the predicament Winston Bogarde found himself in 20 years ago.
Nevin also believes Michael Carrick or Darren Fletcher could replace Ruben Amorim at Manchester United if Ruben Amorim is sacked.
And he has also tipped Steven Gerrard to join Wrexham, insisting there is no downside to taking the job.
Read the full interview below.
Could Jordan Pickford leave for Man Utd in the next 12 months?
“I’m not sure it’s the right thing for Jordan. Lots of players find a club that actually suits their personality. Jordan Pickford’s made mistakes that at Everton you go, ‘For goodness sake’, you groan a wee bit, but you understand it.
“You do that at Man Utd, look at what happens. Look what happened to Onana. Almost every mistake that he made, everybody remembers because they get battered for it. It’s the first game on Match of the Day, it’s constantly hammered on newspapers, Sky, BBC, you name it.
“Also there’s something about Manchester United – Everton might finish above Manchester United this season. They did last season.
“Also, I’m biased as well, and it’s hard not to have a bias. My bias is when you’re at Everton, go and ask anyone who’s spent time there and been loved there what they feel about the club. It’s a bit special. It’s not like other ones. They have a real, real affection for it. That affection doesn’t go after your career’s finished.
“I think Jordan, from the time he spent there and the love that he’s got from the fans, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually just stayed. I wouldn’t be surprised. And I would be delighted and I think every Evertonian would be.”
What did you make of Man Utd vs Chelsea?
“Those first four minutes were bizarre. Chelsea came out with a game plan. I watched the team that they put out and thought, ‘Yippee, can’t wait. I want to see this’.
Neto, Cole Palmer, Estevao, all behind Joao Pedro. This is going to be great. Man Utd look as if they could be in for one here because they’re struggling.
“Even though Chelsea played in midweek in Munich – another game I’d been to myself – I thought ‘This is going to be a great game’. And then nothing. Within minutes, you’ve got Estevao off the pitch. Obviously, you’ve got a goalkeeper off the pitch. Pedro Neto taken off, Cole Palmer taken off, and you just think, ’What? Where’s this game gone that I wanted to see?’.
“Chelsea oddly went very, very defensive after that and, even at 2-0 down, for a long time they were very defensive.
“I was quite surprised at how negative Chelsea continued to be. And then it went to 10 v 10. And Chelsea stayed at five of the pack for a long, long time.
“Joao Pedro ran his socks off the whole day. Reece James was spectacularly good at getting up there. He looked the most dangerous player in a creative sense.
“But you’ve got two wingers on the bench and you don’t bring them on and you’re playing against three at the back. You’ve kind of got to do that. So I was quite surprised by the slight negativity that Chelsea showed, particularly when it was 10 v 10. It was kind of weird.
“So can Chelsea learn anything there? Absolutely nothing. It was just so weird.
“Man Utd fought, chased, battled, they made enough good use of the extra man to go ahead. But after that Chelsea were there for the taking and it kind of fell away.
“The belief evaporated a wee bit. And then when they went down to 10 men, that was it. It was ‘hold what we’ve got’. And I actually thought after that, it was quite a dull game. It wasn’t a great game. After that, you have an expectation that goes to 10 v 10. The conditions are wild. It’s out there. It’s up to Chelsea to go and attack. And Man Utd have got some uncertainty about them. But it kind of fizzled.
“Then there was a big five or 10 minute period at the end which had the goal. But in short, have Chelsea suddenly become very, very special after that game? No, no. We’re still waiting to see if they have any chance of challenging. And Manchester United, have they suddenly turned the corner because they beat a 10 man Chelsea? No. Not the case either.
“I was walking back afterwards in the rain and I was listening to all the Man Utd fans and they don’t think that either. They’re not stupid. The biggest phrase that was used around me – and I thought it was very good – was ‘We needed that and we got a bit lucky because of the sending off’. I think that’s where most people are and I actually think the manager thinks that too.”
Will Chelsea regret selling Noni Madueke?
“It’s a good question because usually I would say no because Chelsea sell so many players that you forget after where they’ve gone. But this time maybe. I have to say my eyebrows were raised when they let him go. And to bring Garnacho in… I’m not sure yet. Really not sure.
Between Garnacho, Gittens and Madueke, to choose one of those three to play each week at the moment I would be choosing Madueke. I wouldn’t really be hesitating over that for a second.
“Chelsea are thinking of the value, the trading costs and all that sort of stuff. And I get that, because it’s kind of partially worked for them in some ways. And not worked in other ways, particularly if your name’s Raheem Sterling or Axel Disasi.
“I think a lot of people at the end of this season will look at how Madueke’s done and look at how Garnacho’s done and compare them. I think there might be a wee bit of regret there.”
Does the Raheem Sterling saga highlight the flaw in Chelsea giving out these long contracts?
“There was a lad called Winston Bogart who did that with Chelsea a million years ago. He didn’t kick a ball in training, just picked up his wages and flew back to Holland. He turned up everywhere and shrugged his shoulders.
“Who’s going to pay allegedly 350 grand a week for Raheem Sterling just now? The others are on less and some of them Chelsea have moved on already. Jackson’s gone on loan and there’s a lot out on loan just now.
“But if you’ve paid say 100 million for a player and his value decreases, it is a gigantic danger. We’ve all seen it, I’ve seen it.
“I have a massive suspicion that Chelsea Football Club’s owners are not stupid. So they are aware that there is and always was a danger there and they’ve factored that in. I do believe that.
“More than that, I hope that. Because see, if they hadn’t factored that in, it could be unbelievably damaging to the club.
“I suspect they’ve factored that in and hope that because these players were bought young, the vast majority of them will have a good resale value and because of that resale value, the ones that are costly and sit there stewing and doing nothing for two, three, four years at end of their contracts, then you can take the hit on it because you’ve made money on the others.”
Just how much pressure is Graham Potter under at West Ham and could Michael Carrick succeed him?
“Graham Potter is under huge pressure at the moment. Part of the pressure is the teams that have come up haven’t been useless. So there’s usually a couple you can think of that are going to fall away.
“Sunderland look alright. Leeds look okay. They don’t look bad at all. Sunderland are actually quite special – they actually beat West Ham. Burnley are well organized.
“So you put it all together, there’s no free passes this year. If you have a bad season, you could be right down there. This isn’t a season to sit and wait. If you sit and wait too long and it’s the wrong decision, you can go down. And West Ham fans know this already.
“It’s an absolute certainty that Potter’s future is being discussed at the moment. I know it’s early and I know Graham Potter’s not had that much time, but that’s the gig. So those discussions will be happening now with the manager to come in. Whether he does come in or not, you’ve got to plan ahead.
“Graham might win the next four games and things are fine, but the planning will be happening now, that’s just the way it is.
“Will Carrick be part of it? Yeah, I think he will. Five years at Boro, so he’s respected. But people know the new limitations of the club and the spend. So I think you take that on board. But, and it’s a big but, I don’t think any Premier League clubs think that way anymore.
They don’t think, ‘Yes, he’s one of us, so we’ll give him an extra leg up’. No, it doesn’t happen. Say if you’ve been a club legend for 15 years and you’re a good coach, but you’re somebody who’s in Spain just now, who’s a slightly better coach, who has nothing to do with club, you take the Spanish. That’s what you do. And this is a business. This is not about heart. It’s about the head, not the heart.
“When you’re making those decisions, especially in the Premier League, especially when you’re under a lot of pressure. So yeah, Carrick is in the running, but only if he’s the best that you’ve got available. Nothing else counts, it really, really doesn’t.”
Could Frank Lampard also be in the race to replace Graham Potter?
“There’s lots of West Ham fans that wouldn’t accept Frank Lampard because they have booed him forever. Calling him fat Frank forever. All the years I saw it I always felt terrible because Frank, I don’t think he ever said a bad word against West Ham. It was just that he left.
“Plenty of players leave clubs. He’d done quite well when he left. It wasn’t a bad decision for Frank in his career. He wouldn’t have been lifting Champions League trophies and all sorts of trophies. He’d have done well because he’d have helped West Ham be a better team, but he was going to something extra special when he went to that Chelsea team which was growing in their world power.
“So yeah, I can understand why they were miffed and annoyed because he was one of them, but he did grow to love and become Chelsea. There’s no doubt about that with Frank.
“I still don’t think that should stop West Ham supporters taking him on because he’s a good manager. He’s a very good manager. Derby done well.
“I thought in retrospect that he was harshly treated at Chelsea – I thought he did a good job. He kept Everton up which was not easy at the time. And you ask people at Everton, they loved him. They absolutely loved him. Even the fans, even though they were struggling, he got every player, all the people behind him, even the staff.
“He’s done OK at Coventry I think – it’s been alright. And he’s shown that he’s in there for the battle. He’s had the Chelsea job, he’s had the Everton job, he’s had the Chelsea job twice. But it’s not beneath him to go and get the hands dirty at Coventry. So that’s a guy who wants to work, he cares about it, he loves it.
“I just don’t know how Frank would feel about the West Ham job. There’d be a wee bit of stick at the start, but I’ll make you a promise, if he won the first three or four games, the stick would go.”
Do you think Michael Carrick or Darren Fletcher could replace Ruben Amorim?
“They could do. Short term I wouldn’t be surprised at any of these names at all. And that would be absolutely fine. And they might do well.
“They offered the caretaker role to Ole first didn’t they. It takes the pressure off, you can have a good look around. And if he does well, we just keep him. That’s fine.
“You’ll get a bit of pressure in the press saying, ‘They don’t know what to do, they haven’t got a clue, they can’t get the right man, all that sort of stuff’.
“I’ve been there before. I just blanked it. I don’t care. I’ve got a guy doing a good job here and I wouldn’t look for the other manager. And I’ll say to them ‘If you keep on doing well, you can get a job’. I’m not hiding anything from anyone here. I’m looking at every possible option.
“But what you have to do is give it a number of months in that situation. If it does happen and things go badly for him then you have to have a direction. You have to have a two, three, four, five year plan.
“Maybe that’s been United’s problem. They’ve tried, they’ve had plans. They’ve had two, three, four, five year plans that have all lasted a year. And that’s not good. Because the next person comes in and they change it, the next one changes it.
“That’s the only reason why they’re standing by Amorim just now. It’s because they know they didn’t spend time with the other ones, so we now end up with a Frankenstein team. All bought by different managers. None of it really fits together. And then you find out they got rid of some people they shouldn’t have gotten rid of like McTominay.
“They’ve got this vision. But if the vision doesn’t work, like it isn’t just now, they need to look at it again. It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, we need to have a vision and we need to stick by it’. But if you’ve made a mistake again and it’s not working, you have to change your vision. That’s just football.
“It’s one of the toughest managerial roles in world football just now. If Mourinho can come in and can’t really change it… they’ve had some really top, top coaches come in (and fail).
“I always go back to the same one. They made such a mistake getting rid of Moyes. That’s the one you should have stuck with.
Could Harry Kane join Man Utd if he returns to the Premier League?
“I’ve been lucky to go to Bayern quite a lot – I see him all the time. He was unbelievably important at Spurs – he’s more important at Bayern. He’s actually more important. He’s a bigger, better player, even than he was back then. It’s just stunning to think of. It really is stunning.
“He is that crucial to Bayern Munich that Bayern Munich would have their fingernails pulled out before letting him go. So A, they’re not going to stop wanting him. They adore him – he’s their best player by a country mile.
“He’s playing with an intelligent team. He’s scoring staggering amounts of goals, he’s playing in the Champions League.
“If someone then said, do you want to play for Manchester United? Where they are at the moment, I mean, really? It wouldn’t even make sense at the moment, right?
“What are the other options in the Premier League? I mean, it might make sense in a couple of years because Manchester United might do much, much better and he would be the final piece.
“And by the way, had they got Harry Kane and he didn’t go to Bayern Munich, the world would be different. I honestly think the world would be different. Because he would have made a big difference and could have been the saviour of Manchester United. But it didn’t happen. He moved elsewhere and he was let go.
“He is up there and should be compared with Erling Haaland as a goalscorer. He’s that good. And the only reason why his numbers aren’t as good as Haaland’s is because he was playing for Spurs back then, who weren’t getting as many chances. That’s nothing against Spurs, he just wasn’t getting as many chances as Haaland.
So who else? Would Liverpool take a player at Kane’s age? Probably not. Chelsea? Absolutely not. They don’t pay big money for people who don’t have resale value. That’s just the way it is with Chelsea.
“So you’re actually running out of clubs aren’t you? It’s just Spurs. And it’s Spurs for the heart. I wouldn’t be shocked by Kane going back to Spurs. That’s the one.
“If Harry ever did come back, he’d do it because he cares. There’s not that many like it, but I think Harry’s one of them. Because remember, he stayed a lot longer than most of us thought he should do. And I think he’s got a feeling for that club. So if he comes back, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for Spurs.
Could Mo Salah be expendable to Arne Slot in order to get all his new signings in the team?
“That is a really tough question because this season if you watch him I would say 85% of most of the game you think ‘Yeah, you could maybe take him off, not use him’. But he’s not like everyone else. He’s had a really quiet start of the season. Then have a look at his goals scored and his assists and you go, ’What? Are you joking?’
“I learned this about Salah a long time ago, long before Slot came. He was playing the game, and I do understand it, because I’ve felt it myself sometimes when I played, you’re playing and there’s no space, and you’re getting closed down, and you’re getting hammered, and you’re in no position whatsoever to do anything right in that wide area. And Mo has found himself in that position many, many, many times.
“But he’s waiting for the moment, because he knows the moment’s going to come. Messi very much did that near the end of his career. He’s watching, he’s looking for space, he’s understanding the movement. He only needs one or two opportunities, and he’ll use it.
“I remember Jurgen Klopp taking him off a couple of times, and Salah getting furious. He’s thinking ‘What are you doing? I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this’.
“He’s hardly kicked a ball, but he still knows he’s got it. Because when it develops and he knows where it’s going to develop, he’s ready.
“Jurgen was angry and there was a real bad feeling for a while. But Salah was right. And Jurgen figured it out eventually. You’ve got to leave him there, even when it’s not working sometimes because like very, very few players on the planet, he can be absolutely anonymous for 85 minutes and it kind of doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter.
“So can I see Slot dropping him? Yeah, maybe, but only to rest him. No other reason at all, because he’s still doing it and the numbers are still fine.”
Are you disappointed Rangers missed out on Jose Mourinho?
“Only in one way because I’ve got a slight part of me that likes to be entertained in madness and see bizarre happenings. In Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, it can be wild. And those Celtic-Rangers games are off the scale sometimes. Jose would bring something that even maybe Souness didn’t bring to it.
“So for pure ability to write about it and talk about it and be mildly entertained, yeah, I’d love to have seen Mourinho at Rangers.
“It’s a wee bit disappointing, but in the end he’s got a period of time at Benfica – I’m not sure how long that lasts, it doesn’t last long with Jose these days. I’m already hearing stories that there’s a kind of clause for the end of the season. So you just never know.
Could Steven Gerrard choose the Wrexham job?
“I have to say, Wrexham’s a temptation. With Wrexham, what’s the downside of that? The expectations are minimal from most people in football. Maybe not from the owners, let’s be fair.
“But he could make that extra special. My eyebrows are raising at that one. I’m thinking, ‘Oh yeah, that could be good’. And of course, north-west, Wrexham may have a wee understanding with Liverpool Football Club.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at that one if that happened. Certainly from Stevie G’s point of view, that might be a temptation.”
What’s your prediction for Chelsea vs Benfica?
“Chelsea have got a really quite difficult set of Champions League games. A lot of people haven’t looked at it that closely yet. This isn’t easy, this one, to qualify from unless you win your home games.
“This game against Benfica is possibly the most important game of this group of eight games that Chelsea play. Chelsea know they’ve got to win this one. They’ve got to win this one if they’re going to be comfortable getting through. Not saying they won’t get through if they lose it.
“But if they’re going to be comfortable, you’ve got to win this game – and I think they will. But boy, I think it’ll be close. And again, it’s Jose, so it’s not going to be a big scoring match. Don’t be surprised at a 1-0.”
What is your prediction for Red Star Belgrade vs Celtic?
“This will be a brilliant game. If you’ve never been to Belgrade, it’s a fabulous place to watch football. They are mad. But then go to Celtic Park and it’s similarly wild on a European night.
“This could be a cracker. I think there’s a guy called Katai, Aleksandar Katai, he’s 34. I think he’s scored five goals in the last two games. And they’ve got Marko Arnautovic there as well.
“It’s a tough one for Celtic. See if they could sneak a draw. It would be absolutely brilliant, but I think it might be tough for them.
“I think this one might be just a wee bit too much for Celtic, but I also think the rest of the campaign will be quite good and they’ll do okay.
What is your prediction for Rangers vs Genk?
“Home win. If you’re going to get through to the knockouts then you’ve got to win your home games.
“Genk have not had a good start to the season but they hammered Lech Poznan 5-1 away. So these away games are not easy and I wouldn’t be surprised if they draw that one. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Last Updated On: Sep 24, 2025 4:22 pm CEST