The role of the football pundit is a weird one. Clearly most of the viewers or listeners are tuning in primarily to watch the game. Yet you only have to look at twitter during a live game or listen to a lounge full of viewers to know that the co-commentators and pundits can make a massive difference to people's enjoyment of the game.
No doubt who you prefer to listen to depends on your taste. Are you looking for someone who will hype up the excitement? Someone who will add some real insight to the action taking place? Someone with a soothing voice?
For me the best pound-for-pound pundit working on tv/radio is Pat Nevin. When he's co-commentating he's adds insight as well as describing the action in a way that's easy on my ears, when he's in the studio he'll nearly always highlight something interesting from the game and on magazine programmes he's able to be both interesting and do the amusing banter the genre requires. I'd like to think these observations aren't coloured by the fact I know he's got some Everton in his heart.
Coming up on the rails is new boy, the freshly retired Gary Neville. He's contributed more to my enjoyment of Sky games in the last four months than Jamie Redknapp has in the last three years. Aside from Neville (and Redknapp) Sky have some other half decent analysts - Graeme Souness can be interesting when he's not being partisan and Ray Wilkins has a lot to add despite the far too regular shouts of 'my word'! At least he's stealing from a broadcasting legend I suppose!
Where things go really downhill are on our main two terrestrial channels. Somewhere along the line the producers on these channels must have decided that anything too complex will cause the masses to turn-off. The worst two in my book are Jim Beglin and Alan Hanson. I can only assume they must have made a pact to provide shit punditry during retirement over a half-time cuppa in the Anfield bootroom at some point in 1983. If they did, they've stuck to their word.
As far as Beglin is concerned, my main issue is the frankly ridiculous bias he shows in his co-commentary. We're not idiots Jim - we can see Vidic didn't get the ball...he went straight through the back of the Spanish lad like the dirty get we all know he is!
Hanson.....where do I start? If someone else with as high profile media job has gotten away with being so blatantly complacent for so long i'd like to see them. It's gotten to stage where what happens inbetween matches on the saturday edition of Match of the Day cannot even be called analysis anymore. Banal banter, yes. Replaying the goals and describing what we can all see, yes. But analysis, no. Seriously, if someone told me that he didn't even bother watching the highlights (let alone the full matches) it wouldn't surprise me one bit. But what does it matter, you might ask? It's a saturday night entertainment show isn't it? You'd have a point. Maybe your average viewer isn't arsed one bit. But every four years, when England exit a major football tournament at the quarter-finals and the media inquest begins we always ask why it is that the England players just ran around as fast as they could, making sliding tackles, clenching their fists but were eventually pulled to pieces and made to look like footballing neanderthals by Argentina/Portugal/Germany/Brazil. The influence that a high profile programme like Match of the Day could have in explaining the intricacies of the game to the next generation is massive. I'd even argue that some half decent analysis might help to educate the watching public a little more and reduce the howls of derision from the stands every time an England player passes the ball sideways.
I think it says a lot about our attitude to football in this country that decent analysis isn't seen as something for the mainstream. I'm not talking about blinding the viewers with stats, just that rather than telling us that a goal was scored because the full-back got beaten by the winger for the umpteenth time, instead they show us how the team were able to regularly work the ball to that winger and how the player was consistently able to make himself available to receive the ball. That type of thing might actually teach a young lad something. Telling him not to get done by tricky wingers won't.
Elsewhere on ITV and BBC Gareth Southgate, Lee Dixon and even the old stager Mark Lawrenson do at least try. And lastly, a mention for the much maligned Channel Five. Appearing on their Europa League coverage might be a source of much banter and ribbing on the terraces but as a fan, in my opinion you'll be treated some of the best coverage terrestrial television has to offer. You get a classic anchorman in Jim Rosenthal, the plain speaking (but usually sense speaking) Stan Collymore in the studio and often the excellent Graham Taylor on co-commentary. I think my number one, Pat Nevin might even still make an appearance sometimes. In fact Channel Five have been consistently good for years, going back to the early 2000s Jonathan Pearce's Football Night was knocking Football Focus into a cocked hat week after week.
As you can see, my preference would be for a bit more detail in my punditry. If you prefer a screamer or a whisperer, or want jokes about 'unpronouncable' foreign names in your post-match anaylsis you'll probably disagree with me!
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