News Views: Why are football pundits rubbish?

Guest written by David McCourt (@daymccourt):

'It’s pretty difficult these days not to develop an opinion on even the smallest of news controversies and debates. Within minutes of a footballer even sneezing a whiff of controversy, it’s trending on twitter and everyone has had his or her say. So it didn’t take long for me to begin contemplating the big Andy Gray/Richard Keys sexism uproar – or as our good friends at The Sun put it “Get Em’ Off.”

I could bore you with an essay on sexism, but this story got me pondering a much bigger issue. Why are all football pundits rubbish? Think about it, can you name a good one? I can’t. The broadcasters are obsessed with ex-pro’s and working managers so scared to offer an honest opinion for fear of ‘losing the dressing room’ or something like that. Cliché’s have become so re-occurring that they all blend into one now. You can set your watch by some of these guys. How many times have you heard “it’s a great time to score” exactly 43 minutes into the first half? It feels like it’s every game.

And the lads in the studio aren’t much better. Alan Shearer shouldn’t be working based on his player knowledge alone. His bemusement at the sight of Hatem Ben Arfa when he signed on loan for Newcastle like he’d come from the French third division or something was cringe worthy. This is a player who was capped for France and only the previous summer had made a big money move from Lyon to Marseille, but you knew that of course, unlike the ‘expert.’ Sam Allardyce gave it his best shot on Monday but lets face it, it’s so difficult to remove him from his alter ego @TheBig_Sam to take anything he says seriously anymore.

As the cliché goes: ‘if you’re going to sack them, who are you getting in?’ Well what about the good guys at Zonal Marking? Or Jonathan Wilson from The Guardian? There are plenty of good football writers out there who can (and do) provide more accurate and professional analysis and they don’t need a 60-inch touch screen interactive replay system to do it.

The pundits will say, ‘but you can’t understand the game until you’ve played it the highest level.’ This argument is ridiculous. Ask Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho how high a level they played the game? Sounds like ex-pro’s worrying about being replaced to me – and they should be.'