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I've always wondered why pundits are given the time of day they are. It really is quite odd. They are, by and large, examples of failure for the most part, or at least rarely are they examples of overwhelming success.

 

For instance. The other day I was listening to Souness talk about "what it takes to be a great manager". Now, his qualities as a player are undoubted, but how the fuck can he sit there with a straight face and talk about what it takes to be a great manager, when he was an absolute failure of one? And why do people listen to it?

 

Similarly, I watch players like Danny Mills and Robbie Savage give their tupence on the ability of players who they could only dream of being. And its lapped up by the majority of the country, oddly. Meanwhile Craig Burley is on ESPN balking at the idea of Benitez being mentioned in the same breath as Michael fucking Laudrup as a manager.

 

Everybody is allowed an opinion, I just don't understand how these guys are given this platform of importance when really they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

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I actually don't mind alot of Robbie Savage's commentary, but yes it angers me when the likes of Burley feel they can criticise someone like Benitez, and it frequently staggers me the lack of knowledge some of the co-commentators show on the game, a managers tactics, a teams style of play, or a players attributes.

As much as I hate to say it Gary Neville is one of the best around also.

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Neville is one of the best pundits around, and worth listening too because he has been at the top level. Same goes for Hansen and seedorf. They know their shit. Fucking Danny mills? Jesus wept. As for lawrenson - great player but I genuinely can't stand him anymore.

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Ian Dowie on Sky the other year before a Barca/Real Madrid game telling us how Guardiola would set up was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. What makes people think these are qualified to analyse correctly what a manager is going to do in such a big game is beyond me. Same goes for Curbishley who does be on Sky every monday.

 

Then again, anybody with a bit of class and ability is in a top job already and has no need to shit like that because they actually made something of their career.

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Agreed about Neville. Although he doesnt say much revolutionary, what he says is refreshing because its not masked by bullshit, agenda or trend.

 

I also don't understand why we need so many pundits to tell us the same thing again and again. Yeah, Torres is shit now. Yeah, Van Persie is great. Yeah, Balotelli is erratic. Talk about something different, you set of cunts.

 

Irks me that they get paid for this shit. Genuinely feel somebody should set up a weekly highlights show with some fair minded and insightful fans/less dull ex-players providing the analysis.

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I was just having a similar conversation funnily enough, specifically about the debate of whether you should bring players on to rescue a game or start with them and bring them off, as lots of us would have done in reference to Sturridge on Sunday.

I symaothise with managers who leave them on the bench for many reasons, but pundits never do, and they are indeed always failures at management, and often truly awful players. Having Robbie Earle, Wimbledon squad player, constantly wailing about double la liga Benitez resting players in his Liverpool days used to drive me up the wall, and some cunt was doing it the other day about Chelsea QPR on the BBC. Savage maybe..not sure.

It's like this, if you are starting a player you are not resting him. If the game is not going your way then you can't then substitute your bet players without mass criticism, like at Reading under Benitez, pundits will never get it. Sorry not another Rafa thread I hope but its my particular bugbear.

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Ian Dowie on Sky the other year before a Barca/Real Madrid game telling us how Guardiola would set up was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. What makes people think these are qualified to analyse correctly what a manager is going to do in such a big game is beyond me. Same goes for Curbishley who does be on Sky every monday.

 

Then again, anybody with a bit of class and ability is in a top job already and has no need to shit like that because they actually made something of their career.

 

Haha! Are you serious? Ian fucking Dowie? Thought he'd be busy enough with his role in Eastenders.

 

Well, thats why I hope Carra doesn't appear for any more Sky pundit panels. If he has aspirations to become a manager he should stay well away. Its not often you see Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho sitting down with Jeff Stelling.

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The punditry is much better when covering foreign football. Sky's La Liga coverage with Balague, Hunter, some current or ex Spanish managers and players. Marcotti, Richardson etc on ESPN. Even Richard Hughes is a reasonable pundit. The commentary is also decent. You might get some bollocks from Gibson or Francis but at least they have some knowledge of the game.

 

I generally much prefer watching Spanish and Italian football, and its not just because I prefer their Leagues. The actual watching experience is much greater for having far fewer Tyler, Chiles, Burley type characters constantly pissing me off with their snidey, clueless, bullshit.

 

As for Motson, that tedious old cunt should have been eviscerated decades ago.

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most of them are pretty useless and Neville is unfortunately probably the only one I actually pay attention to what he is saying because the rest of them just spout what they think people want to hear, although on things like a League of their Own when it gets on to talking Redknapp seems to let his skysports mask slip and actually talkes some sense too

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Irks me that they get paid for this shit. Genuinely feel somebody should set up a weekly highlights show with some fair minded and insightful fans/less dull ex-players providing the analysis.

 

It wouldn't work because there's not enough time to analyze the games properly. You need a decent amount of time to discuss every game, goal etc if you want everything discussed properly and it would end up running for 3hrs+ which is just too long to keep people interested.

 

The Revista show on Sky is better but they never seem to discuss the last few games properly and almost brush over them and go back straight away to talking about the bigger teams.

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It wouldn't work because there's not enough time to analyze the games properly. You need a decent amount of time to discuss every game, goal etc if you want everything discussed properly and it would end up running for 3hrs+ which is just too long to keep people interested.

 

The Revista show on Sky is better but they never seem to discuss the last few games properly and almost brush over them and go back straight away to talking about the bigger teams.

 

Well, you wouldn't have to go so in depth obviously. Analysis could still just be brief but hopefully it would amount to more than just the shite spouted by these mongs.

 

Even if it ran up to 2hrs or so, it would still work. People watch "monday night football" after all, where Neville does just that.

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I've always wondered why pundits are given the time of day they are. It really is quite odd. They are, by and large, examples of failure for the most part, or at least rarely are they examples of overwhelming success.

 

For instance. The other day I was listening to Souness talk about "what it takes to be a great manager". Now, his qualities as a player are undoubted, but how the fuck can he sit there with a straight face and talk about what it takes to be a great manager, when he was an absolute failure of one? And why do people listen to it?

 

Similarly, I watch players like Danny Mills and Robbie Savage give their tupence on the ability of players who they could only dream of being. And its lapped up by the majority of the country, oddly. Meanwhile Craig Burley is on ESPN balking at the idea of Benitez being mentioned in the same breath as Michael fucking Laudrup as a manager.

 

Everybody is allowed an opinion, I just don't understand how these guys are given this platform of importance when really they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

 

 

You are spot on , its something that has always irked me.

 

There was a good example in cricket when Kevin Pietersen called out Sky cricket commentator Nick Knight for basically being a nobody.

 

Pietersen got some grief for it but i thought he was spot on....

 

You have the likes of Hussain , Gower , Atherton and Botham covering the cricket , all ex England captains and all great players in their time , all of them been there and done it so you automatically respect their opinions .............then you have Nick Knight who was a mediocre cricketer who grabbed some caps for England in the dark days of the 90s mainly because they were utterly hopeless and picking any Tom , Dick or Harry more in hope than expectation.

 

As you have pointed out its the same with football when you have no marks like Bright , Burley , Savage etc , its hard to have any respect for their opinions and its laughable when they criticise top players and managers.

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Steve Claridge has to be one of the most annoying. He seems to criticise Rafa more than most. A shit journeyman striker who spent virtually his entire career in the lower leagues and once managed the mighty Weymouth yet he feels he can constantly belittle a man who has won the Spanish league twice, the champions league and the FA cup.

 

The pundits on most programmes are annoying but the BBC comfortably seem to outdo the rest to the extent that I'm sure their recruitment policy involves purposely assembling the biggest panel of complete fuckwits they can find. Mark Bright, Garth Crooks, Mark Lawrenson, Alan Shearer, Jason Roberts, the aforementioned Steve Claridge - I refuse to believe anyone finds any of these people insightful or entertaining. And now they seem to be grooming Michael Owen to become a regular panellist and I can only assume it's because someone made a bet with them that they couldn't find anyone even less insightful or interesting than Alan Shearer.

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I enjoyed listening to Europa League analysis by Gordon Strachan. I also don't mind Roy Keane. Keane simply for the fact that one day, he will actually smash Adrian Chiles in the face on national telly. In general, I wish there was a way to filter out the commentary/punditry and keep just the crowd noise.

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Ian Dowie on Sky the other year ....

 

My missus saw Ian Dowie speaking recently and genuinely asked me if he'd had a stroke.

He speaks like someone who has a mouthful of spider crabs and a black and decker drill up his hoop with sand paper covering the entire drillbit.

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