Phil Neville calls out reporter's Liverpool cap after Timbers win | OneFootball

It's a good thing for Stumptown Footy reporter Alex Barnes that he was speaking with Portland Timbers manager Phil Neville following a victory on Sunday, given his choice of attire.

During Neville's postgame press conference following Portland's 3-1 home victory over the Houston Dynamo, Barnes took the microphone to ask Neville a question about defending, while wearing a Liverpool FC baseball-style cap.

Let's just say Neville, who spent his entire 19-year senior club career playing for Liverpool's two fiercest rivals, Manchester United and Everton, was not pleased.

"What's the cap you've got on there?" Neville asked during the middle of his response. "That's an insult now! I mean, wear any cap you want. A(n Oregon) Ducks cap. But not that cap!"

Neville laughed and smiled during the exchange, showing he meant it in good fun with Barnes, a well-established reporter for the popular Portland soccer website.

The Englishman has continued to charm his new fanbase during his second season at the helm of the Timbers, who so far have exceeded some expectations with a record of 3W-2L-1D through six matches.

The biggest surprise was a fully deserved 3-0 victory at the Colorado Rapids on Matchday 5. But in some ways Portland's comfortable win over Houston on Sunday was just as impressive, given that it came in a fixture that had many of the traits of the prototypical trap game.

Evander who?

Neville and the Timbers have spent the early part of the season in transition after selling last year's MLS MVP finalist Evander to FC Cincinnati and then acquiring David Costa from RC Lens as a similar but less offensively dynamic replacement.

Neville told Sunday Night Soccer's Andrew Wiebe postgame that he always knew his team would need a collective approach to make up for Evander's 15 goals and 19 assists during the 2024 season. So far it's been Antony leading the way with four goals, while Felipe Mora has two, and Costa and Kevin Kelsy have one each.

Antony is still looking for his first assist of 2025. Even so the 23-year-old's production is encouraging after he had six goals and six assists across the entire 2024 league campaign.

“We needed to find probably 20 goals from somewhere, and what we thought was we were going to spread those around," Neville said. "And people like Antony do need to start scoring goals, and he has done so far this season. And I still think we can play better."