Neville reveals Chelsea ‘weakness’ exposed by Hull City as Alonso hits out at his ‘soft’ side
Phil Neville thinks Hull City exposed a major “weakness” with Chelsea during Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge.
Hull continued their great start to the 2026/27 campaign on Saturday with a well-deserved point against Chelsea.
The newly-promoted side were pegged back after battling back from behind to take a 2-1 lead, and they would have scored more if it was not for the interventions of Chelsea goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.
And Neville has credited Hull for exposing “weakness” that Xabi Alonso‘s side have at right wing-back with Pedro Neto.
“We felt before the game, Hull were just going to park the bus, but they did not do that,” Neville said on NBC Sports.
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“I think what they obviously did, they saw weaknesses in the Chelsea set-up defensively. There was lots of space on that right-hand side, in behind Neto.
“They created chances, they high-pressed, they were hard to beat. I thought it was an outstanding tactical performance from Hull.
“I thought that was a top coach’s tactical performance. You know, sometimes when you get these teams coming up, they just park the bus.
“He went man-for-man at times. He was mid-block at times. His defenders are never, ever far away from each other.
“But I thought what impressed me most today was their attacking play. I thought tactically, attacking-wise, they picked the holes; they found the spaces.
“I thought they deserved probably more than the point.”
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“It was too soft…”
Speaking post-match, Alonso acknowledged that his side were not good enough defensively against Hull City.
“It will take time to or it will take moments to fix them when we get the lead and you still need to be competing and not to give the chance so easily for them to come back, especially in the first goal, we can do much better,” Alonso said.
“It was too soft to give them this hope because until then we were controlling, we were creating chances, but that momentum that we had changed the mood and the score of the game and it’s something that we need to be talking [about], we address and we will get better, but it’s having an impact on our performances at the moment.
“We need to be aware that from any situation, any team in the Premier League can hurt you. Today it was from a long ball, two bounces, the way it happened.
“You need to be very aware, very ready that the danger can come from any situation. If you are soft or if you are not prepared, you will get punished and we have been punished that way.”
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