- Jan 18, 2011
- 64
- 375
From an ex-pro pundit what I think they should bring to the table to add value is pretty simple - insight which isn't incredibly obvious.
Now and again that isn't possible, because of the nature of the game, but in most cases pundits (and Neville is probably the best at this, though Shearer has his moments as does Murphy to a lesser extent) should be informing the viewer of important factors they may have missed, not understood or need further explanation of while watching the game. Tim Cahill is another very good pundit IMO.
As I say Neville is the current best at this - and not just on MNF with his really in-depth stuff. He'll offer it during commentary, at half time and after games. He'll point out tactical elements that most fans would miss, or not understand the impact of. He'll offer solutions, detail decisions made by managers and often focus on more than just movement and positioning. He'll go into enough detail for fans to get a new insight without spending hours repeating himself. He's at his best during commentary with this I think.
Most other pundits don't do anything like this. They'll say one team was great and one was bad, tell us Player A had a great game and Player B had a stinker, and at most offer some replays of things we've already seen and obviously noticed ourselves. Loads of them (and Scott does this a lot) fall back on the old "If I criticise a player it will look like I know what I'm talking about" strategy and offer up repeated statements of "He's got to do better here" etc. We know all that, we watched the game. They're not offering anything more than if you put the average fan in the chair. Lawro has been getting away with this for decades, but interestingly no-one seems to complain when he's getting absolute dogs abuse on here.
Alex Scott is one of these latter bang average pundits. She offers obvious commentary (state the thing that happened), sub-standard English skills, and generally pleasant banter. Just like most pundits. She's less insightful and less articulate than Jenas, to use one of your examples. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out when some people start blathering on about how amazing she is - she isn't. She's just another pundit in a long list of them. I have nothing against her personally - I don't think any of those average pundits should be commenting on the game because they're getting paid a fortune to not offer us anything. There's no difference between Scott and a hundred other ex-pro's though for some reason she seems to be held up as being far better than she actually is (maybe it's because as several people have said, she's quite fit). The difference is only that Scott gets talked up like she's the new Cruyff and all the others either get ignored or abused.
Of course any suggestion of this gets jumped on by Woko Haram as evidenced by the reactions in this thread.
nobody reacted against any of your aforementioned criticism. they reacted to someone saying that Alex Scott was only picked because she was hot, and Jamie Redknapp would still be picked if he wasn’t. that is blatant sexism and i’m not sure why you’re moving the goalposts to talk about something else entirely unrelated - a la her punditry skills.