Carragher, Neville & MNF On Sky

Ah he's a good lad. He defo wet his kacks when Torres scored.

awec wrote: »

Gary Neville is a great studio pundit and does good analysis on MNS, but he is god awful as a commentator and has one of those voices that's really hard to listen to constantly.

Spot on. I really tried to dislike him as a pundit but I just end up agreeing with everything he says. He's especially good at analysing where the defense went wrong where goals are scored as you would expect.

EDIT: and his reaction to Torres goal was hilarious!

Dubit10 wrote: »

Can't stand him myself. Crap pundit.

You'll find yourself in the minority so.

It's hard to say the Neville is genuinely a "good" pundit when he's good in comparison to so much utter ****e on TV. The standard of football punditry is so low that even being competent stands out a mile.

Really, punditry that actually gives some sort of insight is the least we should expect but unfortunately, most ex-footballers are too thick to be able to come up with anything useful.

Gbear wrote: »

Really, punditry that actually gives some sort of insight is the least we should expect but unfortunately, most ex-footballers are too thick to be able to come up with anything useful.

I agree with your post but I don't think it's anything to do with their intelligence and is more to do with the low standards which people seem generally happy to accept from them.

We all know that come the Summer we'll be bombarded with pundits for BBC, ITV and RTE who have next to no knowledge of anyone playing outside of the Premier League.

batistuta9 wrote: »

at least the BBC & ITV will have people who've played the game recently whereas the majority of RTE haven't played in years + bill knows nothing about football & the BBC usually get some new faces/foreigners in like desailly etc.

Bill doesn't need to know anything about football. That's not his job. His job is to ask the questions that facilitate the answers/discussion. By asking something that we'd perceive as stupid, like "is it safe to say that Barcelona are finished?", he's giving the panellists an opportunity to pick him apart and show the viewers why Barcelona aren't finished. I think he's one of the best in the business at it and RTE will suffer tremendously when he retires.

Compare him to Lineker, who it can be assumed knows a lot about football having played at the highest level for years. He is pure thick. His contributions to the show consists of inane puns and little jokes that only Alan Hansen finds amusing. It's an insult to the viewers intelligence that he still has a job.

Alan Shearer is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, players to play in England in the last 20 years. That means absolutely nothing when he's put in front of the camera. He has severe problems articulating himself. He says "I seen" instead of "I saw". "I done" instead of "I did", and so on. He is speaking to 4/5 million each week, and a further 10 or so when England play, yet he is not able to string together a coherent sentence. Then there is the fact that he offers absolutely nothing in the shape of a half-decent opinion on the football. He is the single worst "pundit" on television at the moment. He makes Jamie "top, top, top" Redknapp look like a genius.

BBC is woeful for football coverage. It's essentially a way for former players to sit around and half a laugh and a few jokes in front of a couple of million people. This is where Bill is perfect. He would never allow Hansen or Shearer to become comfortable. Shearer would be humiliated if he went on RTE.

Gary Neville is the polar opposite of the BBC panel. He is articulate and is not afraid to speak his mind. His jokes are self-deprecating and most importantly they are funny and rare. His party piece is not his humour but his analysis, and it's pretty brilliant at times.

As for the foreigners point well RTE got in Hamann for the last World Cup and he was very, very good. I hope he's back for the Euros. The BBC got in Adebayor. His only contribution to the coverage was having his phone ring live on air. This provided a great opportunity for Shearer and Lineker to engage in some witty banter though so I suppose he wasn't all that bad.

batistuta9 wrote: »

at least the BBC & ITV will have people who've played the game recently whereas the majority of RTE haven't played in years + bill knows nothing about football & the BBC usually get some new faces/foreigners in like desailly etc.

jens lehmann's doing a bit now wonder is he a mad doing it

The trouble with the guys on the BBC and ITV are (as well as all the issues Jimmy Iorvine brings up) that they're all either mates with the players or doing TV work but still planning on getting back into the game. So they're always unwilling to burn their bridges or criticise the guys who they'll be playing golf with in the week.

That's one thing I like about Paul Merson on Soccer Saturday. He can barely string a sentence together but he knows he's never getting another management job and he lives with his Mum and doesn't socialise with many players now so he just says what he wants.

The contrast between punditry in football and cricket is like night and day.

RVP 11 wrote: »

I do enjoy the RTE lads but sometimes they go OTT just to be controversial.

Oh of course, not arguing that at all.

Anyway back on topic, I'm a big fan of Neville's from what I've seen. His analysis on diving was excellent. And I like the fact that he let himself go and went over the top for Torres' goal

That isn't racism unless he thinks it's impossible for Turkish people to be good referees. It seems more likely that he's played in matches with Turkish officials before and has a low opinion of the standards of refereeing in that country.

Or he could be a massive racist, I suppose.