Get rid of all of them. Football punditry across the board is awful. It says a lot that Gary Neville is considered revolutionary. Just get rid of the whole ex-pro ethos. Footballers are some of the most boring people on the planet. Just hire insightful, astute people who actually have personalities.
Soccer Saturday sack Thompson, Nicholas and Le Tissier
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Sky Sports doesn’t have rights to UFC.
It needs a name change; vanilla Saturday
Too late, they've kicked all the boring white people out apparently
I think it's great that this site has an ignore button.
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Yes. Ex pros have lived it. Of course we can all have our opinions as customers but ex players are ex players for a reason. Therefore they have more credibility.
As much as we like to think we know everything we really don't know anything about what happens behind closed doors, the mental side of the game, the preparation, recovery side of the game and training etc...
For example if your a professional Plumber and I'm not, I don't have the credibility, knowledge and experience that you do. So you're more informed to talk about it.
It's like an expert swimmer that never got wet.
You do have a point. Which alludes to the point John Terry made that time when Robbie Savage criticised him. Which alludes to Sky and BT needing better players to be pundits.
So then how do people who never played football professionally become managers?
Also, you're truly saying that any ex-professionally footballer is more knowledgeable about players/teams then a journalist who watches 100's more games, or studies the history of football in depth, or researches teams in-depth?
Get Mino Raiola in as a pundit, that would spice things up for a Saturday Afternoon
Exactly and they got rid of 4 pundits that fit all of that tag.
Take it further, surely Maradona and Pele should both be great managers?
That's a good point about people becoming managers who have never played the game. Jose being the most famous and successful one. Without doing any research and giving you an informed opinion I would say that this rarely is the case in football at least. The majority of managers have been ex players. Also management takes a different skill set than does playing, some great players don't have the people or communication skills.
Regarding your second point this still isn't the same as playing the game. It's like a football player who reads lot's of articles. Is he a better journalist than an actual journalist? It's like a Doctor has to do residency training to get actual experience to go along with their education and training.
Oh come on, I hate the cnut but Carragher is a decent pundit.
Sort of like the fuss over Greggs making a vegan sausage roll? Yeah, that was a resounding failure for them, wasn't it?
The fact that's even a phrase just highlights how thick a certain section of society is these days.
@Annihilate Now! has kind of already summarised this, but just adding my two cents.
Journalists are the ones who are professionals at analysing/talking about the game. Whereas a lot of ex-footballers can barely string a sentence together. Simply being an ex-pro does not mean you will be a good pundit, and the level of punditry on live TV in this country is appalling as this seems to be the only requirement. Beyond the three who have just been let go by Sky you've got the likes of Shearer, Merson, P.Thompson, J.Redknapp, Keown, Scholes, Ince, Hargreaves, Sutton, Owen, Savage, Murphy, G.Crooks, Kevin Kilbane (I could go on...) who are all shite at offering any kind of insight that the common fan would not pick-up on themselves, and many of whom have clear bias towards their former clubs and hatred of ex-rivals that they struggle to contain.
Now some ex-footballers can string a sentence together and do make a good pundit, but these tend to be the ones who also have the brains/tactical nous/vocabulary to be/have been a manager (e.g. Mourinho, Hoddle, Lampard, G. Neville (he did at least try management). There are some others who (in my opinion) are good at punditry or at least entertaining (e.g. Pat Nevin, Kammy, Rio, Crouch, Alan Smith), but the ones who are actually the best to listen to for analysis and insight are the journalists by trade (James Horncastle, Tim Vickery, Andy Brassell, Julien Laurens, James Richardson) because that's their profession!
I can't help but find it ironic that people who question whether changes like this might be motivated by diversity quotas are branded as racist, and yet those who are in support of such targets/quotas being introduced in the first place are not. Truly boggles my mind.
It's one reason I believe such quotas to be ridiculous. Not only are they fundamentally racist (and hypocritical to boot) imo, they also risk devaluing the merits of the individual in question. Alex Scott, case in point, has shown herself to be far more than capable of delivering in a position on a Soccer Saturday panel, but as long as these quotas exist there will always be those who question whether that is the case.
To state the obvious, directly targeting these individuals in any case is deplorable (the sooner people recognise that Twitter is a complete cesspit, the better, btw). But that aside, I'll take the mortified ramblings of Ian Wright (ironic that his truly shite punditry didn't seem to hold him back, eh?) with a pinch of salt as he appears to be pretty firmly in the equality of outcome camp, which is doomed to provoke this kind of response. I'd also add that I've not seen Micah Richards offer anything spectacular as a pundit. He's likeable enough personality-wise, don't get me wrong, but I'm curious about what exactly it is that would see him labelled as "... the most exciting young pundit to hit the scene in years".
It's one reason I believe such quotas to be ridiculous. Not only are they fundamentally racist (and hypocritical to boot) imo, they also risk devaluing the merits of the individual in question. Alex Scott, case in point, has shown herself to be far more than capable of delivering in a position on a Soccer Saturday panel, but as long as these quotas exist there will always be those who question whether that is the case.
To state the obvious, directly targeting these individuals in any case is deplorable (the sooner people recognise that Twitter is a complete cesspit, the better, btw). But that aside, I'll take the mortified ramblings of Ian Wright (ironic that his truly shite punditry didn't seem to hold him back, eh?) with a pinch of salt as he appears to be pretty firmly in the equality of outcome camp, which is doomed to provoke this kind of response. I'd also add that I've not seen Micah Richards offer anything spectacular as a pundit. He's likeable enough personality-wise, don't get me wrong, but I'm curious about what exactly it is that would see him labelled as "... the most exciting young pundit to hit the scene in years".
The old approach of aged pros has been extremely hit and miss, with far more misses than hits. It takes more than just being mildly intelligent to make an entertaining pundit (see Graeme le Saux who I really don’t enjoy listening to), so I’d be well up for journalists/people that live and breath football having a go if they also happen to be fantastic orators. Their opinions definitely carry slightly less weight than those that have actually done it, but being an ex pro doesn’t automatically qualify one as being knowledgeable or interesting when talking about the game.
Where is this proof that these guys were sacked so that Sky Sports can make up some "diversity quota"?
Can we have a link please?
Or even an interview?
No proof or evidence just like I thought so can you people please keep certain pundits names out of your posts just because they are a woman or they are black.
You sound stupid when you do so.
Can we have a link please?
Or even an interview?
No proof or evidence just like I thought so can you people please keep certain pundits names out of your posts just because they are a woman or they are black.
You sound stupid when you do so.
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Of the three that have been sacked, the last time any of them played top flight football was 19 years ago. The game has dramatically changed and their credibility and authority on today's game is somewhat weak.
the debate, goals on sunday are now gone, what is going on at sky
A long overdue refresh, they're just missing getting rid of Soccer AM
The debate is not on that long as oppose others, GOS the refresh, wasn't that why Alex Scott was brought in. Anyway according to the report they are not being refreshed, like SS they are gone, axed.
Now dont want to sound like a tin foil hat wearing lunatic, but reading during the lockdown, and before about Amazon will look to outbid them for the rights as soon as the current contract is up,hmm to tinny or are sky/nbc/comcast or whatever you want to see them as, looking to getting out of footie, American owned n all ?
Alex Scott shits all over most of the pundits.
For far too long we just have people who played the game being their only qualification. Most of them offer zero insight, especially in this day and age when so much analysis and data is available.
You can’t rely to cliches as a substitute for insight anymore.
Thank god for the change.
For far too long we just have people who played the game being their only qualification. Most of them offer zero insight, especially in this day and age when so much analysis and data is available.
You can’t rely to cliches as a substitute for insight anymore.
Thank god for the change.
I actually find that the female footballers they sometimes have on for live games are way more insightful than the old bitter bores like Souness.
Its pretty obvious they will go with a diverse panel. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Why is it "pretty obvious" ?