Media and punditry

[Stevo985]

21 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

...and herein lies the fundamental problem with British pundits, none of them actually know much about football, since they've played it largely at a high level they do not believe they have to do any research at all whatsoever. They simply have to show up, sit back, reel out platitudes and personal biases and get paid handsomely for it. 

I've long been a believer that journalists should be pundits, someone like Tim Vickery knows infinitely more than Ray Wilkins. 

I agree with you. I'd much rather hear what people like Vickery or Jonathan WIlson or Michael Cox etc have to say about a game.

Unfortunately TV companies have to cater to the masses, and Joe Average would rather hear from Mark Lawrenson than some journalist they've never heard of.

[bobzy]

25 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I agree with you. I'd much rather hear what people like Vickery or Jonathan WIlson or Michael Cox etc have to say about a game.

Unfortunately TV companies have to cater to the masses, and Joe Average would rather hear from Mark Lawrenson than some journalist they've never heard of.

I don’t think this is true. Joe Average doesn’t give a shit about Lawro - it’s the old boys hiring club that does.

With people like, for example, Paul Merson, I can see the masses enjoying the entertainment aspect more than any lacked insight. But with Lawro? Nah. 

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

I don’t think this is true. Joe Average doesn’t give a shit about Lawro - it’s the old boys hiring club that does.

With people like, for example, Paul Merson, I can see the masses enjoying the entertainment aspect more than any lacked insight. But with Lawro? Nah. 

Well ok I just threw out a name of a pundit I hate.

But I still think my point is true. People care more about what Alan Shearer has to say than Jonathan Wilson, even though what Wilson says would be far more incisive.

 

 

Ian Wright is often derided but I actually think he is an ok pundit. My reasoning is he does the ex-player pundit role the way it should be done. He doesn't try to talk about intricate tactics that he doesn't understand, he just says stuff like "if I was that player i would..." or "Being a player in that situation would be like this..."

Not always, but he does it better than others.

Imo ex player pundits should be there to do that. Give us a view from the players' perspective. What would it be like in that situation? 
But once you start talking about tactics and manager psychology and all that, the players often seem in over their heads.

 

(disclaimer: that's quite sweeping about all ex players. Some of them make fine pundits.)

[bobzy]

23 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Well ok I just threw out a name of a pundit I hate.

But I still think my point is true. People care more about what Alan Shearer has to say than Jonathan Wilson, even though what Wilson says would be far more incisive.

Do they, though? I mean, if I spoke to my mates, they wouldn’t care about either Shearer or Wilson, but they’d acknowledge that Wilson knows more about the wider game and would provide better analysis. Do people pick to watch MOTD because Shearer and Murphy are on it? I’m not convinced. I think they’d watch it anyway and would rather have more knowledgeable pundits if given the option.

Agreed on Wright by the way. He sort of ticks the entertainment box too.

[Mark Albrighton]

17 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Do they, though? I mean, if I spoke to my mates, they wouldn’t care about either Shearer or Wilson, but they’d acknowledge that Wilson knows more about the wider game and would provide better analysis. Do people pick to watch MOTD because Shearer and Murphy are on it? I’m not convinced. I think they’d watch it anyway and would rather have more knowledgeable pundits if given the option.

Agreed on Wright by the way. He sort of ticks the entertainment box too.

I get what you’re saying and I agree, people watch Match of the Day for the actual highlights, the analysis takes a back seat.

But I think there would be a large number of viewers who would see a writer from the guardian on the panel and think “Who this bloke? What does he know? How many England caps did get?” etc.

I reckon that they get away with having a football writer on that Sunday show as they literally have newspapers on the table in front them, so the writer looks like he’s legitimately there to cover what the media think. But I think the perception is that people just want to hear from Martin Keown.

[Zatman]

I think Shearer is not too bad except his voice. He was awful at the start but he haa grown into it though i havent seen MOTD since we went down

Jamie Redknapp, Danny Murphy and Thierry Henry on the other hand offer nothing

[Stevo985]

47 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Do they, though? 

Yes.

The vast majority of people who watch MOTD will never have heard of most of the journalists that we're talking about, let alone care about what they say.

[bobzy]

17 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yes.

The vast majority of people who watch MOTD will never have heard of most of the journalists that we're talking about, let alone care about what they say.

I agree completely. But do they care about what Danny Murphy says? If Murphy was replaced by, say, Wilson, would there be uproar because Danny Murphy wasn’t the pundit and a football writer they’ve never heard of was?

I’m not convinced. 

[Stevo985]

Just now, bobzy said:

I agree completely. But do they care about what Danny Murphy says? If Murphy was replaced by, say, Wilson, would there be uproar because Danny Murphy wasn’t the pundit and a football writer they’ve never heard of was?

I’m not convinced. 

I think uproar is strong.

But I do think people wouldn't like it.

Those journalists have been tried as pundits on shows here and there over the years and it never takes off. It's not a coincidence. 

[sexbelowsound]

I was watching some clips the other day from BT sport and they were having a discussion about football hard men. They had Steven Gerard, Martin Keown, Gobby Cabbage and whoever the presenter dude is. Anyway, Gobby was sat alongside the footballers, rather than the presenter and just looked completely lost.

He had no input either as a pundit or as an ex-footballer and to be honest i'm not sure what the purpose of him is.

[Dr_Pangloss]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Yes.

The vast majority of people who watch MOTD will never have heard of most of the journalists that we're talking about, let alone care about what they say.

You're right. We live in a society where 'legitimacy' is everything and to have 'never played' the game before certainly goes against the credibility of that individual among the masses. There's a fallacy that because you were good at something that you will have a lot of insight into it, it often doesn't work that way. I can imagine one of the first things that will be said by an ex player if debating an journalist in a TV studio is that the journalist has never played football before therefore doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

[Zatman]

I am sure Ray Wilkins said similar on Talksport to a journalist

[villa4europe]

There's 3 things here imo

the first is be entertaining, the likes of lawro Murphy p Neville etc fall at that hurdle 

Talking about the tactical side of football and trying to analyse what's happening, I'd say it's a bit of a mixture between not being able to do it and at times to be fair reigning it in rather than going off in to something that 90% of their audience doesn't understand

Then finally the thing that really pissed me off...watch football...make me feel like you watch as much football as I do (or at least used to) far too many of them feel like they've been prepped before the game specifically that match rather than just having good football knowledge from watching lots of football (which is easy seeing as it's so available) or reading blogs or going to see games, if you know you're covering utd vs Sevilla I'd expect you to have watched say 10 Sevilla games this season, you're paid really well go watch them live, spend half a day reading match reports online and visiting their forums to get a feel for the club, instead they'll sit in the studio tell a million and one things about utd but very little about the "lesser" club, the CL and international games are the worst obviously but there are loads of times when even merson talks about the villa and you just get the impression sky's go to villa guy watches us about 4 times a year 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

You're right. We live in a society where 'legitimacy' is everything and to have 'never played' the game before certainly goes against the credibility of that individual among the masses. There's a fallacy that because you were good at something that you will have a lot of insight into it, it often doesn't work that way. I can imagine one of the first things that will be said by an ex player if debating an journalist in a TV studio is that the journalist has never played football before therefore doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

I agree. But a decent ex player pundit and a good journo pundit would be perfect together. 

[HanoiVillan]

9 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Then finally the thing that really pissed me off...watch football...make me feel like you watch as much football as I do (or at least used to) far too many of them feel like they've been prepped before the game specifically that match rather than just having good football knowledge from watching lots of football (which is easy seeing as it's so available) or reading blogs or going to see games, if you know you're covering utd vs Sevilla I'd expect you to have watched say 10 Sevilla games this season, you're paid really well go watch them live, spend half a day reading match reports online and visiting their forums to get a feel for the club, instead they'll sit in the studio tell a million and one things about utd but very little about the "lesser" club, the CL and international games are the worst obviously but there are loads of times when even merson talks about the villa and you just get the impression sky's go to villa guy watches us about 4 times a year 

This, yes, this!

They're paid huge sums of money for the basically pretty pleasant job of 'watching football and talking about it' and they absolutely cannot be bothered to even pretend to have done any basic research. For me, it really was a bit of a Rubicon-crossing moment when the nation's pundits seemed to feel that them not having a clue who Marco Silva was or why he might have been appointed was some kind of damning indictment of him, not them. 

[villa4europe]

The example I'd use is Danny Murphy covering our game vs Spurs last season in the cup, it was blatantly a man watching villa for the first time that season, he didn't have a **** clue what he was watching despite us being on tv 8 (?) times that season already, it's just lazy they're so complacent they don't even try but they get away with it

you're paid bare minimum £200k a year to watch and talk about football to bob sat at home...so why shouldn't bob feel robbed when he puts more effort in to task number 1 than you do? 

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

If anyone has seen Sunday Supplement then you’d know that there’s a lot of journalists who talk equally as much shite as some of the ex-pro pundits. 

 

Edited February 24, 2018 by Morley_crosses_to_Withe

[Dr_Pangloss]

19 hours ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

If anyone has seen Sunday Supplement then you’d know that there’s a lot of journalists who talk equally as much shite as some of the ex-pro pundits. 

 

Yep, didn't have those clowns in mind tbf!

[NeilS]

On 23/02/2018 at 12:02, sexbelowsound said:

I was watching some clips the other day from BT sport and they were having a discussion about football hard men. They had Steven Gerard, Martin Keown, Gobby Cabbage and whoever the presenter dude is. Anyway, Gobby was sat alongside the footballers, rather than the presenter and just looked completely lost.

He had no input either as a pundit or as an ex-footballer and to be honest i'm not sure what the purpose of him is.

Haha Savage wasn’t even a hard man, he was a cheating, manipulator of referees and situations, who made the most of his limited footballing ability by reducing the effectiveness of the opposition by winding them up and taking their focus off the game.

[sne]

Have to put my hand up and admit that my earlier post about Freddy Ljungberg might have been a bit premature.

He's actually not half bad and has obviously grown a lot since his playing days.

He's calm and relaxed and doesn't seem to have the need to prove himself by taking too much place. 

You can tell he's had coaching classes and worked behind the scenes for a while now.

I quite like him actually.

Who'd have thunk it? 

Edited February 25, 2018 by sne