GARY NEVILLE has branded the end to his glittering career at Manchester United “an absolute disaster”.
The right-back is still regarded as a legend at Old Trafford after making 602 appearances for the club in 19-and-a-half years.
A member of the much-lauded Class of 92, he won 20 trophies including eight Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues, as well as 85 England caps.
But he says he was embarrassed by his performances in the months before his retirement in February 2011.
Neville, now a TV pundit, told Sky Sports’ The Football Show: “I’d planned to finish at the end of the previous season and had agreed to go to Sky.
“But I had really good last ten or 12 games and conned myself, the manager and chief executive David Gill into thinking there was maybe one more season in me.
“I’d made my mind up I was leaving, I was finishing – and if I’d finished then it would have been perfect.
“But I took another season and that last season – I obviously finished it in January and retired – was an absolute disaster.”
Neville, 45, is still haunted by his final displays in a United shirt – particularly the very last one in the 2-1 win at West Brom on New Year’s Day, 2011 when he was subbed at 71 minutes.
He continued: “My last three-and-a-half years were disrupted heavily by injury and I was nowhere near the level of the other players.
“I was amongst an incredible team – Rooney, Tevez, Vidic, Ferdinand, Van der Sar, Evra, Cristiano Ronaldo – and I felt every day in training I was inferior.
“In the last six-to-eight months I was at the club I felt embarrassed. I didn’t want to be picked. I knew I was a risk if I went out on the pitch.
“In training every single day I was looking at Rafael and the other lads – the energy, the speed of the game had shifted beyond me and it was obvious for me to see.
“Not even my experience was covering the sort of yards and if you can’t get there, you can’t get there.
“You start taking up bad positions and when you think about the game at West Brom it was a horror show performance from me for 72 minutes.
“How I didn’t get sent off or cost us more goals? It was the same at Stoke in the game I played before that in November.
“And it was the same at Everton where we were 3-1 up, finished 3-3 and the two goals came down my side.
“So for me I was finished and at 31, 32 I was never going to play for another club.”
