Why are football pundits crap and nearly universally ex-footballers?

They are crap. All of them. They get paid a fortune to state the obvious and the obvious is all they know.

Dixon, Wright, Shearer, Savage, Jenas, Lawrenson...they are all paid an absolute fortune to focus on the negative and analyse a game which, when you exclude the variable that is ability, is largely orientated around chaos/random outcomes and psychology.

With perhaps the one exception that is Gary Neville, they don't tell us anything we don't already know. Surely we could just do away with football punditry and focus purely on the highlights or the match?

With an inability to offer anything insightful, or something we haven't heard about a thousand times before, they are turning football into a soap opera.

Reply 1

llys

Original post by TheCitizenAct

With perhaps the one exception that is Gary Neville, they don't tell us anything we don't already know. Surely we could just do away with football punditry and focus purely on the highlights or the match?

Well, they basically do that.

I think the reason why many footballers don't make good pundits or managers is because they have never learned to work (generally-speaking). As (exceptionally talented) players, they could play the game, rather than study it, and as adults they are coming on show to chat, not to work. They try to wing it. These are the same people who miss football because they "miss the dressing-room banter". Nothing wrong with that at all, just a certain type of person. They must be bored out of their minds though, I'm not surprised many ex-footballers turn to alcohol or crime.

Neville is the exception because he is a) obsessed with football and b) exceptionally hard-working and attentive to detail - perhaps something to do with not being the most talented player? I think Carragher is pretty good as well. I actually like Graeme Souness too, just because he doesn't try to play to public opinion.

Reply 2

mojojojo101

Ilys is right, many of these people were good at football they just didn't know why. The truth is most of the players who have the ability to read and analyse games don't waste their time sitting on a couch talking nonsense, they stay in the game proper.

That said I think fans have a big part to play in this. If you want to have commentators/pundits having intelligent conversations first you have to know when to call bull**** on what they are saying, secondly you need to stop being so dismissive about those who do speak about football with a modicum of intelligence.

Reply 3

Aky786UK

Ilys said it all but most disappointing aspect is that, as former players, they hardly add any insight into how they would have handled a certain situation. Neville and Carragher are very good but honestly, Savage on commentary was his audition as a WWE commentator!

Probably why players fail as managers is that they lack the sufficient depth to be thinking about the game incessantly that its hard to transition from player to manager and hence the easy gig, is punditry

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Reply 4

Rad-Reloaded

I always wonder why most of the top football managers are ex-pros, I mean being a top manager takes a completely different skillset to being a top player

Reply 5

llys

Original post by Rad-Reloaded

I always wonder why most of the top football managers are ex-pros, I mean being a top manager takes a completely different skillset to being a top player

I think clubs are full of ex-pros at every level (which is a good thing in a way, taking care of former players), and ex-pros and pros probably don't really respect non-pros, so it is very difficult for people outside the game to make it as a manager. I think in England it is also really difficult to be accepted on a course to do the UEFA A license when you haven't played football at a professional level. I think already UEFA B courses are very selective (and very expensive).

I have wondered though why no performance analysts try to become managers. They already have both feet in the game; of course they would have to switch to coaching, just like former players, but they don't seem to do that (at least I don't know of any cases). Perhaps the required skillset is too complex. PE teachers come the closest and there actually are two or three who became top managers (but two of those were professional at a lower level as well).

Reply 6

richardharrity

Original post by TheCitizenAct

Only Danny Murphy is worth listening to, the rest don't wish to upset present pros , they have mastered the ability of speaking for hours without discussing anything. It's a mixture of anger and frustration that I feel listening to what are essentially critics only willing to praise. They have been mollycoddled the day they joined the academies were some one is employed to clean their bum.