Was just reading this (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/blog/2013/jan/22/colin-murray-motd2-bbc) on the guardian website and it got me a little bit annoyed about the unrealised potential of TV punditry. A list of the current crop of football pundits (with my personal biased opinions on them) would look something like this (accounting for a few omissions):
MOTD:
Gary Lineker- annoying habit of making out every show is a scorcher you simply have to stick around for when Sky Super Sunday's means he's mostly talking up fixture lists of Stoke v Wigan snore-a-thons. otherwise does his job but not nearly worth the money
Alan Hansen - spews out strings of Hansen brand cliches: 'and it's in the back of the net' 'woeful defending,' ' he's got pace, power, technical ability, and the finish to match'. could have been replaced by a robot and cassette player 10 years ago.
Alan Shearer - for the first 2 years of his tenure i could at least fascinate myself by watching the tuft of hair slide a little further back on his head every week but now i don't even have that to look at while he drones on in the background with painfully dull analysis describing literally what is happening 'he passes it to silva, silva plays the one two, he shoots, it's a goal.'
Mark Lawrenson - his moustache contained all his personality. when he shaved it off there was nothing of him left. when he grew a goatee he entered into a state of negative personality where his presence makes it feel like there's less life on your TV screen
Sky Sports:
Gary Neville - the only ex-player who shows the benefits of having a player perspective, and one of the few pundits that attempts analysis beyond describing replays of the goals.
Jamie Redknapp - looks like a generic male model from a stock photo catalogue. can't remember being interested in anything he has said ever. incredible he is still being employed.
Graeme Souness - something about his grim, Scottish, angry no-nonsense 70s ex-footballer approach i find refreshing. will generally come out with an opinion that represents majority fans instead of all these 'diving is now acceptable' pundits jumping on the Gary Neville bandwagon.
SSN
Jeff Stelling - only one out of the whole list that actually knows anything about lower league football.
Merson/ Thompson/ Le Tissier/ Nichols - basically all the same: ex-pros who don't know anything outside their own clubs and beyond that what they read in their tabloid newspapers. it is actually embarrassing when they're forced to cover a game at our level due to FA Cup restrictions and have to give an opinion on a player as if they actually had a fucking clue ('i like the look of him from what i've seen of him Jeff').
ITV:
Adrian Chiles - uglier, more dour Lineker with worse accent and jokes
Lee Dixon - at least attempts some analysis on the 5 minutes he gets on ITV between adverts, but something lurking under the surface about him that stops me from liking him
Gareth Southgate - have seen quite a bit of his punditry without really forming an opinion on him. Maybe a form of opinion in itself
Roy Keane - like Souness except Irish and 90s
Final Score:
Mark Bright - sounds like there's always some burden of stress weighing on his voice that makes listening to him an unpleasant experience.
Martin Keown - looks like a dour gorilla seeing out his last days in a rundown foreign zoo
Robbie Savage - unapologetic self-publicist and wind up merchant who's unable to form basic sentences when that should be an entry level requirement for any pundit. one of the least liked men in football but still appears in every dark orifice of BBC's football coverage offering his opinion
Garth Crooks - as if an alien conciousness had been put in a Midlands man's body and asked to analyse a sport it doesn't fully understand but has observed and nonetheless formed strong opinions about
Football League Show:
Steve Claridge - like all of the above (excepting Stelling) in knowing nothing about the lower leagues, EXCEPT HERE IT'S ACTUALLY HIS JOB TO KNOW ABOUT THE LOWER LEAGUES! FL punditry's Robbie Savage
Maniche - can tell he has no real interest beyond it being his job but still better than Claridge
To bring this back to the Colin Murray story, apparently Shearer was heavily involved in getting him fired on the basis he didn't like a non ex-pro offering forthright opinions about players. But as the list above shows, most ex-players seem to make for very poor analysts; unsurprising perhaps since most basically bypass school and therefore don't learn the basics of analytical thinking necessary in offering broader insights into the longer tactical battle of a football match. What i've often thought is, while these ex-players can make a good appraisal of the quality of a pass, finish or individual piece of skill, they're unable to step back and see the bigger picture of the shape of the game as a whole, which i would find far more interesting as a viewer, especially on a highlights shows where we can already see for ourselves a good pass or finish or piece of skill, but what we can't form is a picture of the game as a whole.
Many of the world's best football tacticians weren't particularly good at football or even ex-pros at all: Mourinho, Ferguson, Wenger, Bielsa etc. but it's hard to argue with the fact they know more about football than the players they manage. Yet, when it comes to football punditry, media outlets hire almost exclusively from within the pool of prominent ex-players.
I know this is a very long post, but I find the battle of football tactics fascinating and it's frustrating, in a society so saturated with football, that there's no outlet for that in the media. Part of the reason I love having Di Canio as manager (and something that makes him rare amongst ex-players with high profile footballing careers) is you can tell he's someone who really understands tactics and tries to set up his team differently for each game. For all the post-match nonsense he spouts, there's normally a hidden gem in there where you get a real insight into his methods and approach.
What does everyone else think of the current state of football pundits/ analysis? Any favourite/ least favourite pundits from the current crop?
