Someone doesn't rate Shearer the 'pundit'

[davieG]

From the telegraph

One of the truisms about our world is that it is filled with things Alan Shearer knows nothing about: glaciers, DNA, the Middle East peace process. But you rather hoped Newcastle's new star signing wouldn't be one of them.

Assuming Shearer can operate a personal computer (don't head it, Alan, use your hands), and assuming he hasn't gnawed through his one working telephone line, here are a few facts he could have pulled off Wikipedia about Hatem Ben Arfa:

1) He played for France at every youth level before making his full debut three years ago.

2) He made his Champions League debut for Lyon against Manchester United before signing for Marseille for €11 million.

3) Nobody knows his real name; upon leaving a football ground he dons a long black cloak and simply dissolves into the night.

Actually, I just made the last one up, but for Shearer's purposes it might as well be true.

You may, or may not, have heard of Ben Arfa before he moved here, but then you aren't paid to talk about him on television.

"No one really knows a great deal of him," Shearer asserted confidently as he introduced highlights of Ben Arfa's performance against Everton.

It was an astonishingly deficient piece of analysis, for which his earlier golden nugget of insight – "It's weird seeing Birmingham wear red, isn't it?" – curiously failed to atone.

Perhaps it was just the strain of having to maintain two separate hairstyles, best described as

'Yul Brynner' at the front and 'Weetabix' at the back.

Unless Shearer comes to terms with his receding hairline, before long he's going to be the owner of the world's largest forehead.

Being Shearer must be a strange experience indeed. Clearly, on some level, he is able to perceive certain things.

He is aware that there is a white ball on a screen and that men in coloured clothing are running after it, and he is also vaguely aware that he is expected to comment on this.

But when he tries, his sentences are invariably dim and childlike: "they should have went on and won that game"; "everyone done their job, and they done it very well"; "they should have went two-nil up".

In fact, the easiest explanation is that Shearer is simply a very large, very well-paid child who is somehow directed every Saturday night to a sofa and filmed for television.

The mere act of a team wearing their third kit is enough to put a kink in his sense of reality.Of course, television in general is stuffed to the last pixel with the inane, the irksome and the plain contemptible. But in most cases, we can choose not to watch them.

With football coverage, our sense of grievance is amplified. This is purely because we are compelled to drill through the deadening husk of the studio segments in order to get what we actually came for – the creamy footballing kernels buried within.

And somehow, Match of the Day vexes us most of all. Rightfully, we hold it to a higher standard. After a lacklustre few years, there were green shoots of resuscitation.

Alan Hansen's evisceration of Arsenal's Theo Walcott after he had scored a hat-trick against Blackpool was brazen, persuasive, deliciously controversial. But the large, imbecilic dent Shearer continues to etch in the Match of the Day sofa reminds us that this is a programme that it simply not what it used to be.

Even the cherished Goal of the Month competition has been warped and defiled beyond measure.

There's no prize – not even premium bonds – and the jaunty The Life of Rileythat used to be its soundtrack has long gone, replaced this season by some execrable piece of music that manages simultaneously to channel late-1990s dancehall and a young woman being tickled to death.

Yet it also serves as a reminder of why we keep tuning in every week – great goals, pulsating action and gripping narrative.

The highlight of Saturday's programme occurred not in the studio, but at the Stadium of Light.

Darren Bent's last-gasp winner hit the net, and as 38,000 Wearsiders roared in delight, on the touchline could be glimpsed the glowering, contorted visage of a furious Arsène Wenger.

It was one of those glorious tableaux of drama and disaster that only sport can bestow.

Or as Shearer might put it: "It done great."

[Edmund]

This guy's clearly obsessed or jealous of Shearer's position.

At the end of the day Shearer's there as a sports personality not a fucking english teacher. I like him and would rather have an ex legend over a well educated journalist who has never kicked a ball in his life.

The fact is this article is only taking the piss out of his heritage as he's only speaking as he's been brought up. He's a Geordie afterall

[davieG]

This guy's clearly obsessed or jealous of Shearer's position.

At the end of the day Shearer's there as a sports personality not a fooking english teacher. I like him and would rather have an ex legend over a well educated journalist who has never kicked a ball in his life.

The fact is this article is only taking the piss out of his heritage as he's only speaking as he's been brought up. He's a Geordie afterall

I think he's quite rightly damning about the contents of his input, how about we have someone who's played the game, doesn't have to have been at England level who can actually add something worth while to the discussions, it doesn't have to be a choice between a non-playing journo and a boring international

[Edmund]

I think he's quite rightly damning about the contents of his input, how about we have someone who's played the game, doesn't have to have been at England level who can actually add something worth while to the discussions, it doesn't have to be a choice between a non-playing journo and a boring international

I personally like Shearer and it's never once occurred to me that he comes across as boring or inept at being a pundit.

I've said it many times before, Match of the day is what it is, an easy watching programme showing the days highlights. I don't understand why people would want it to become an intellectual mensa show when it's always been a dumbed down easy watching programme for the masses.

Not everything in this world has to be over complicated and it's okay to have chat hosts who haven't studied at Harvard and Cambridge.

It would be like writing an article criticising Cheryl Tweedy for being a judge on X-Factor when someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber clearly has more musical talent and would therefore be a more suitable judge but that's not the point of the show.

[Dickie Greenleaf]

haha. The guy's got it spot on. Can't stand shee-rah

[davieG]

I personally like Shearer and it's never once occurred to me that he comes across as boring or inept at being a pundit.

I've said it many times before, Match of the day is what it is, an easy watching programme showing the days highlights. I don't understand why people would want it to become an intellectual mensa show when it's always been a dumbed down easy watching programme for the masses.

Not everything in this world has to be over complicated and it's okay to have chat hosts who haven't studied at Harvard and Cambridge.

It would be like writing an article criticising Cheryl Tweedy for being a judge on X-Factor when someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber clearly has more musical talent and would therefore be a more suitable judge but that's not the point of the show.

In between the highlights we have the pundits input, if they've not got anything worthwhile to add or to provoke thought about the game what's the point of them?

Why do you pick extremes to try to justify a point no one's suggested anything at that level as I said a decent level professional who has something worthwhile to contribute, each to their own but I find Shearer's contribution adds nothing in most cases, I'm not looking for high brow intellect but someone who can point out the nuances of the game that us amateurs probably wouldn't have noticed - the boy done well doesn't do it for me.

[Edmund]

In between the highlights we have the pundits input, if they've not got anything worthwhile to add or to provoke thought about the game what's the point of them?

Why do you pick extremes to try to justify a point no one's suggested anything at that level as I said a decent level professional who has something worthwhile to contribute, each to their own but I find Shearer's contribution adds nothing in most cases, I'm not looking for high brow intellect but someone who can point out the nuances of the game that us amateurs probably wouldn't have noticed - the boy done well doesn't do it for me.

Unfortunately that's how t.v works. A legend like Shearer will always be the bigger draw over an average footballer who executes his analysis with thought.

I just feel this article is nitpicking and full of spite. Wether the author likes it or not, Shearer has been placed on the football show because of his ex football status and not his insightful knowledge. That's t.v. for you.

[davieG]

Unfortunately that's how t.v works. A legend like Shearer will always be the bigger draw over an average footballer who executes his analysis with thought.

I just feel this article is nitpicking and full of spite. Wether the author likes it or not, Shearer has been placed on the football show because of his ex football status and not his insightful knowledge. That's t.v. for you.

Spite or not his views as you've just agreed are justified then although I will concede that the journalist does himself no favours and he is to journalism what Shearer is to television only he's expected to be unnecessarily cruel/caustic with his rhetoric whilst Shearer is just a face both there to draw in the viewer/reader.

[lavrentis]

Bring back Adebayor

[Pst]

Darren Bent's last-gasp winner hit the net, and as 38,000 Wearsiders roared in delight, on the touchline could be glimpsed the glowering, contorted visage of a furious Arsène Wenger.

Well at least his research is top notch.

[DB11]

Well at least his research is top notch.

Damn beat me to it!

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

I don't rate Shearer as a pundit, never says anything new, just seems to repeat the same phrases episode after episode.

[dandannieldanok]

Shearer is a dullard but he's harmless enough, after all you watch Match of the Day for the action not the punditry.

[Guest]

Bring back Adebayor

That'd definitely pull the viewers in

[sdb]

Shearer is as good at punditry as he is at management. I'll leave it at that.

[Father Ted]

If Shearer's shit, what about the ITV crew of Robbie Earle and Andy Townsend?

Oh, and Adrian Chiles thinking he knows more about football than Edgar FOOKING Davids. Grade A fat piece of shit.

[Brainy]

1. maybe they're shitter, 2. thats not the case, and 3. i've seen fatter.

[Alexikokopops]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who picked up on his "No one really knows a great deal of him" comment.

He doesn't offend me, but he is rubbish.

[Bert]

Do you really think these people analyse the games? They have people behind the scenes that do all the hard work and they're just scripted.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

I think the more important question here is what is going on with Shearer's hair line - it is simply bizare (someone find and post a pic please)

[lou]

I dont rate him as a person let alone a Pundit <_<

[Guest ttfn]

Do you really think these people analyse the games? They have people behind the scenes that do all the hard work and they're just scripted.

Of course they analyse the games. They come up with the ideas and somebody else goes out and looks for examples of it. Obviously Shearer isn't trawling through 90 minutes of footage and sitting at an editing desk, he's analysing it himself and telling someone else what to look for.

That Ben Arfa oversightis for a professional pundit, let alone for somebody as supposedly obsessed with Newcastle as he is, totally unacceptable.

I'm not sure whether to put this in this thread or the cretins thread but:

Good pundits

Beglin - Obvious but eloquent and charming

Hansen - Always worth a listen

Dixon - Excellent analysis, particularly defensively.

Bad pundits

Townsend - The guy's a tool. For starters, it's "he's had a shot at goal", Andy, not "he's had a shot at goals". Also, he manages to say the exact opposite of what is obvious to everybody else watching. The worst of the lot; it genuinely irks me that he is paid to talk about football - there must be 100 former pro's with more interesting stuff to say.

Claridge - Can barely string a sentence together, has a sketchy knowledge of the lower leagues for someone paid to talk about it, and is bizarrely now being allowed to comment on England/the Champions League on our national broadcaster.

Redknapp - I thought I agreed with something he said the other day, then I realised I must be wrong. At least he tried to say something interesting about Torres the other day, but he was wrong about that too.

[lildave3]

I love me some Jamie Redknapp.

[dandannieldanok]

I raise you Pat Nevin.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

I raise you Pat Nevin.

Well I will raise you John Barnes