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No room for error in Neville's Valencia debut

Xinhua, December 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

New Valencia coach Gary Neville will make his debut in the home dugout on Wednesday in his club's most important game of the season.

   Valencia need to win at home against Olympique Lyon and at the same time hope that Gent fail to win their respective game at home to Zenit St Petersburg in order to continue in the Champions League in the New Year.

   It is a formidable ask for the 40-year-old, who despite working as assistant to England boss, Roy Hodgson has never coached a club side and a major part of Valencia's season rests on the outcome.

   Neville will have been contended as watched from the stands to see how his new side showed considerable personality to take a 1-1 draw at home to FC Barcelona at the weekend, with young striker Santi Mina scoring Valencia's goal with five minutes left in the game.

   That result and his appointment as coach has certainly helped to rekindle public interest for the club and 3,000 fans turned up to watch Neville take his first ever training session on Monday.

   Neville also has good news on the injury front with striker Alvaro Negredo, who had fallen badly out of favor with former coach, Nuno Espiritu Santo, available after injury, along with defender Shkodran Mustafi.

   Javi Fuego, Enzo Perez and Joao Cancelo, who were all suspended on Saturday are also available again with David Barragan, Andre Gomes and Diego Alves the only three players who are unavailable.

   It will be a worry for Valencia that Zenit have travelled to Gent without their Brazilian striker Hulk, but they will take confidence from the fact that Lyon are in the middle of a poor run of form which was confirmed by their 2-0 home defeat to Angers at the weekend, a result which has seen them slip out of the top five in France.  Endi