Why Gary Neville Has Exposed The

great article

I agree with the guardian, it has had the most interesting football coverge out of all the papers in the last 5 years.

"The soccer Saturday culture has become the “boys club” where ex-pro’s who get paid far too much are instructed to discuss the week’s football. The lack of insight is embarrassing."

So true, word for word <clap>

I very rarely listen to the punditry to be honest, even Gary Neville. What I have found is that if I watch a game without listening to the sound, then watch the analysis afterwards, my views tend to differ greatly from whoever is analysing the game (which I also get when attending a game) - i do think some people's perceptions on how a team plays are based are based more on what the commentary tells them than they realise.

In terms of Neville, when i have listened, I think he is ok and I mean that as a compliment, there are very very few i would class as that, rather than good. Having said that, I do have some doubts since he got the England job. Part of the reason I think people rate him is he obviously has not transferred a United bias into his punditry. At the same time though, sometimes I think he has overcompensated for that. I've seen a couple of City games where we have played poorly, yet he has not been as critical as I think he should have been.

I fully understand why, I just think it means his punditry isn't as good as it could be.

Superb article that is

Basically says what most of us think

Very good article and right on many areas, especially the BBC and The Guardian. Forgot to mention how unbelievably dull both Niall Quinn and Alan Smith are as co-commentators or whether Garth Crooks is mentally ill or a comic genius.

Heres a more amusing take on this argument :
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/iddo-goldfarb/bbc-v-sky-battle-of-the-p_b_1941740.html

what i really like about Neville's punditry is you can tell he has studied and work hard to learnt the game. His own natural ability wasn't the best but he made up for it in pure determination and hard work.

Im a big believer in that a naturally gifted player isn't able to fully explain how they do everything - why? because they don't need to learn it, they can just do it. Someone like Neville has had to learn through out his career and has a great knowledge of how, when and why things happen. That is why he is so good imo.

So many things in that article are so true, especially the parts about the BBC - my sky+ comes in so useful and im a fed up hearing lawro's awful jokes. Move shearer, hansen and lawro out.

I would love to see Marcotti, andy brassell and honegstien on MOTD. Now that would be a show.

With regards to radio i feel 5 live and talksport are as bad as each other. Too many ex pros with bias towards their old clubs (Mickey quinn, Jason Cundy) as well as the likes of durham and spoony who just shouldn't be there.

If you ever get the chance to watch the ESPN press pass with tommy smyth and steve Nicol etc please do. Very good show.

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I'm not a fan of Souness to be honest. He's not too bad, much better than, say, Glenn Hoddle or Ray Wilkins, but there's something about the way he talks that just irritates me.

Is there any way of getting the BBC to at least review the clowns they employ as 'pundit'? Surely as a publicly funded organisation, the very people who are paying for it should have some say on the quality of people it employs? Or their over-inflated salaries?

It's been acknowledged that Lee Dixon was probably the best BBC pundit, but they let him leave for ITV. I'm quite sure he was earning only a fraction of what the likes of Hansen and Shearer earn.

Would be good to know how much it costs to listen to the pre-scripted cliches of Hansen, Shearer and Lawrensen for just one MOTD program.

The article's very good. Particularly agree about Merson, surely the most biased, ignorant, Premier League-championing pundit. A couple of weeks ago he said that Radamel Falcao 'isn't fit to lace Robin Van Persie's boots'. Well he clearly hasn't seen Falcao play then. He's a serial offender too, said last year that Luka Modric would get in to any midfield in Europe, including Barcelona's. Who out of Xavi and Iniesta does Merson propose Modric would displace?