Hayes shows the lazy foolishness in packing punditry studios with former players
Running 12km twice a week for 15 years should not instantly qualify anyone as a pundit. It's a specialist role, not a next step for ex-pros.www.football365.com
Punditry should not just be a retirement home for ex-pros
Date published: Wednesday 29th December 2021 1:09 - John Nicholson
Running 12km twice a week for 15 years should not instantly qualify anyone as a pundit. It’s a specialist role, not a next step for ex-pros.
Football broadcasting has gotten much better over the last 15 years, but it could still be radically improved. How? By not using so many ex-player pundits and by making punditry and co-commentary specialist artforms that people are trained to deliver.
Next time you’re watching football on TV or listening to it on the radio and the pundits start talking, close your eyes and concentrate. Are they saying anything that anyone else who knows anything about football could not say? Are they offering an insight unique only to them as ex-players? Are they articulating something that is not already commonly known or obvious? On TV, the co-comm is probably just describing what we can see with our own eyes. “He’s nearly got on the end of that”, “that was just a bit behind him” and “he’s hit the first man” are just three of hundreds of examples from this week alone. We get nothing from that.
It isn’t my intention to be beastly to the pundit-class; there’s enough of such unpleasantness online and I have no interest in adding to it by listing those who bring little entertainment and insight. It’s just that I often can’t see what they bring that an expert in the field couldn’t more successfully.
Need to know something about tactics and systems? Well there are proper specialists who can tell you everything about any tactic: how it works, who invented it, who has successfully deployed it in the past, how this version has been tweaked, how specific players work in it and why it is or isn’t successful on this occasion. And they can do so in a clear and articulate manner. They are not usually ex-players. A discussion on stats? Same situation. The stats industry is not staffed with ex-players, some of whom seem cynical about the worth of such analysis anyway.
All assessments of player movement, position and format does not require having run 12km twice a week for 15 years for a Premier League club. Anyone with eyes and an interest in the game can and does do it. Emma Hayes stands out as someone – possibly the only one – who does it as a co-comm and pundit. She also stands out as not having played professionally, going straight from college into coaching. There is no other TV matchday contributor who hasn’t been a player. Yet she is an example of someone who brings insight above and beyond what we might see for ourselves. She offers things to look for and is of a different standard altogether.
I don't know if she has calmed down, but the last time she was part of the commentary on a game I watched she wouldn't shut up, I had to turn the volume off in the end as it was incessant and ultimately became fucking annoying
Notwithstanding the technical accuracy of what she had to say - people like to hear ex pro's observations, because it has the credibility of coming from someone who could actually do it.
Listening to someone who has never played at that level is virtually meaningless to me, because it has no real world credibility.
A balance needs to be found with ex pros who are bright and articulate, as well as having played at the highest level
