Gary Neville confessed his "love" for Newcastle United before making a cheeky joke about the club's fans.
Neville was speaking after Newcastle's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Monday night.
First-half strikes from Olivier Giroud and Timo Werner consigned Steve Bruce's side to defeat in London.
The result leaves Newcastle still fourth from bottom of the Premier League table - but seven points clear of the relegation zone.
Asked about the Magpies' approach at Chelsea, Neville told Monday Night Football on Sky Sports: “I thought the shape, in terms of being higher up the pitch, being more aggressive was certainly better in the second half.
"Chelsea are the better team, let’s be clear, they’ve got a poor record here, but it doesn’t mean they can’t go out there tonight and do well.
"I thought in the second half they did better because it could’ve ran away from them and been three or four, but I thought to be fair, they were still quite aggressive."
The former Manchester United defender added: "(Callum) Wilson is a loss. If they had Wilson, we wouldn’t even be talking about relegation.
"What I would say about relegation is, why are we not mentioning Burnley - who are in good form - Brighton, we’re not mentioning them.
"We seem to talk about Newcastle as the only team that could get drawn into it. We talk down on Newcastle, that’s just the way that we are."
At this point, fellow pundit Jamie Carragher interjected: "You don't, you love them!"
To which Neville replied: "I do love them, and to be fair I want them to be better as a club, but the fact of the matter is that we don’t mention Brighton. Brighton aren’t that fantastic."
It was then suggested to Neville that he was only being positive towards Newcastle for fear of upsetting the fans.
“If you upset them on a Monday night, you’re done for the week," Neville jokingly responded. "You come off Twitter for a week with that lot!”
