'If a Wild Bean Cafe Pasty could talk': England fans hit Twitter to mock Phil Neville's commentary debut

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Louise Thomas

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New BBC football commentator Phil Neville faced a Twitter backlash yesterday after his television commentating debut was labelled "robotic," "monotone" and "dull" by social media users.

England fans took to Twitter in their thousands to criticise the former Manchester United man’s microphone capabilities during England’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Italy last night.

Among those to lambast Neville’s commentary style included the controversial funny man Frankie Boyle who wrote: “Phil Neville could make Zippity Doo Dah sound like a cancer diagnosis.”

Chris Addison joined his fellow comedian in the poking fun at Neville, writing: “Phil Neville. If a Wild Bean Cafe pasty could talk.”

One user likened Phil Neville’s punditry performance to “being tranquilised”, while another one wrote Neville had the “personality of a potato.”

So bad did the negative outpouring against Neville become that former Liverpool midfielder Didi Hamann, had to warn the BBC’s new man not to check his Twitter during half-time.

‘If Phil Neville reads his twitter feed he may not come out for the second half,’

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