Jamie Redknapps attendance at Champions League games effectively made Ruud Gullit take a job in Russia

Hard to argue with that article, and it is well worth reading all the way through.

Thanks for posting, OP.

Yet Redknapp cannot resist interjecting and spouting superlatives for mediocrity
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This winds me up no end and a lot of so called pundits do it. Robbie Savage. Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer. They just overhype every little thing for no good reason.

The BBC probably assume the public are idiots and don't want any actual insight just emotional rubbish from the likes of Robbie Savage.

Gary Neville is a legend of a pundit but I've got the feeling it's not his true calling. His winning mentality and incredible knowledge of the game would suit management and I really hope he ends up becoming a true great of it - he could be that good IMO.

Some people are just ahead of the curve http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/42273 - 27 September 2011

The other day Redknapp said something about what turns the football fans on. Had to chuckle at that.

comment by Mr Chelsea ✪ . (U3579) posted 8 minutes ago
Yet Redknapp cannot resist interjecting and spouting superlatives for mediocrity
____________

This winds me up no end and a lot of so called pundits do it. Robbie Savage. Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer. They just overhype every little thing for no good reason.

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Ditto.

I actually wrote to BBC espousing why Alan Shearer and Robbie Savage were epitomes of all that wrong is football punditry - of course, the Beeb are yet to respond.

Alan Shearer might have played the game to a high level, the last of the 'great England strikers' but his football acumen is non-existent and you could fit his entire football knowledge on one side of a 5p coin.

Savage is just an empty vessel.

Lee Dixon was by some distance the best pundit on the Beeb but he was often relegated to the 'B' team.

For sky, whilst i understand Jamie's appeal to the bored housewives of Middle England, his output is frankly abysmal.

Great article. It echoes what I have thought - and been saying - for many years.

It annoys me when people say that technology would ruin teh game because "correcting decisions would give people nothing to talk about". This is only true of extremely thick people who have nothing interesting to say anyway.

This article should be compulsory reading for the producers of any sports show - including MUTV where the analysis is on a par with MOTD2.

Perhaps the BBC is finally starting to realise its mistakes...as they have finally decided to get rid of that monkey who currently presents MOTD2. Now all they have to do is get rid of everyone else.

AgreeRed Conn

I prefer listening / watching to the journos sometimes, Gab Marcotti, there's Graham Hunter, Sid Lowe is good too, then the TV pundits, I rate, G Neville, Dixon, Souness. There's a few more but those are ones that stick out in my head.

It's funny because I remember respecting something Keano said a while back about how the best way to watch football is with the volume turned down to drown out the commentators.

Now it would seem he's sold out and become the very thing I imagine he hated (not commentator, but the inane guy in the studio)

"Arrigo Sacchi once said that to be a great jockey, one does not need to have been a horse, and this is the situation we are in today. The ex-pro culture has dominated football media for decades. In years gone by the world of football was a who you know game and in many aspects it still it is. Yet with the rise of the internet knowledge of the game has risen due to fans being inundated with a wealth of information. As the masses have got smarter, the “expert ex-pro” has become a carictature for a buffoon who offers nothing but overhyped cliché. "

sums it up pretty nicely

Like any generalisations there are bound to be problems.

SOME ex-pros talk sense. SOME don't

SOME that start off talking sense then start to 'lose it' or repeat the same old cliches (that is a part of life and is not exclusive to football punditry/commentry) and then, of course, SOME don't.

It's all a bit Hegelian. You know: thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

Mr Neville at the moment seems to be leading the way in the 'speaking sense' league (and we never really saw that one coming did we?). Hope it stays that way.

However, I also feel Savage and Claridge do a pretty good job as well. Savage in particular does not seem to fall for the same hyperbole about teams, managers, clubs or players etc., that many others do.

It is als a bit iffy for people on these forums to criticise ex-pros etc., when the contributors to these boards are often prejudiced, ignorant and incapable of reasoned debate or doing the research. Ex-pros, it seems, are only as guilty of the same human attributes as many on here.

Use your own eyes and mind. To pharaphrase Chuck, Flavor and the Professor "Don't, don't, don't believe the hype"

Even as a Liverpudlian what I do enjoy in regards to Neville's punditry amongst other things, is how he refers to his own experiences and the insight he gives us on the winning mentality in the Utd dressing room. You always feel like you're learning something new every week with him and it's enjoyable.

Likewise Souness to a lesser degree. He picks up on things only the winners would at times and tells you with decent insight how he'd have done this or that.

Redknapp sadly just doesn't have the same outlook and it shows. It does become boring quickly, "the little man" this and that.

Great read by the way.

TGM

I must admit, Souness has always struck me as being very good.

He knew the comments he made about Rafa's transfer dealings would upset Liverpool fans, but in his belief they were right and had to be said.

"yet the truth was that Redknapp was clueless, he lacked intelligence of the game, lacked intelligence of the English language and showed too much of a bias to his, his dad’s and his cousin’s sides that made him unbearable to listen to."

this

Fantastic read, and bang on the money.

Vc,

Yes, never backwards in coming forwards is Graeme, I think some, especially the older supporters though would've remembered Souness' own transfer policy 20 years ago, which was as you'll recall a nightmare but that in all fairness shouldn't and didn't stop him raising questions on others.

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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