Month: January 2018

TV coverage of football in the UK or US has become a multi-camera, technically efficient business. But it is made significantly more or less pleasurable by the ex-player pundits who give their insights on the game, the players and the managers. I’d suggest that Gary Neville and Lee Dixon – both right backs in their playing days – are the cream of the crop.
So, I began to wonder whether the playing position of a pundit is a guide to their style? Do some positions breed the most interesting analysts? And are there any characteristics inherent in the position that might influence their development as analysts?
In the good old days the BBC’s Match of the Day was dominated by the dour efficiency of Liverpool’s duo of Hansen and Lawrenson. The performance reflected their playing careers and the Liverpool of their era. They were solid, consistent and disliked Manchester United with a passion, but they reflected an era which is long gone and eventually, like Liverpool, were knocked off their perch.
As central defenders they were used to patrolling the width of the penalty box but were likely to get a nose-bleed if they went beyond half-way in open play. Usually negative and seldom complimentary they epitomised a football era of hard men, hooliganism, and horrible hair-cuts. They also scored the occasional, spectacular own goal as Hansen’s early season comment about Manchester United’s youthful 1995/96 Championship winning team – ‘you can’t win anything with kids’ – shows.
The wonderfully opinionated Eamon Dunphy summarised the problem when he said of Match of the Day, “They just talk drivel. Whoever is winning is great, whoever isn’t, isn’t. It’s banal. And also semi-literate at times … they never criticise in an intelligent way. Anything that isn’t banal is said to be an outburst. They’ve created this cartoon world where everyone talks like Lineker and says nothing.”
Which brings me to the contribution of Gary Neville and Lee Dixon. The former with twenty major trophies to his name and ten years as his country’s first choice right back. The latter with four league championships, three FA cups and a UEFA Cup win as well as 22 England appearances. They know what it is like to play for an extended period chasing the biggest prizes at the highest level.
But playing in the right back position gave them more. From their corner of the pitch they had a panoramic view of the entire game. They recognised their obligations to defend diligently but also had to spring forward at pace to make critical decoy runs and give pinpoint crosses. Along with the energy to go from box to box like the best midfielders they were expected to be able to cover laterally behind their, usually more ponderous, central defenders.
Right backs know they are never the ‘best’ player in the team (whatever Roberto Carlos might have thought) but perhaps they become the most complete. They are expected to have a crunching tackle, the energy of a Duracell Bunny (Energizer Bunny to US readers) and the humility to pass the ball quickly to a player considered more creative. They also have to be truly multi-skilled and, at the very least competent, in heading, passing, crossing, intercepting and tracking. Above all they have to be able to think flexibly.
Early in their careers Neville and Dixon would have worked out that the game is full of wingers who were faster and trickier than them. So, they developed judgement on when to engage closely and when to drop off or shepherd the attacker down the line. Their position at the corner of the team formation meant they engaged in individual duals but also had to cajole, organise and communicate with team mates to protect the goal at the moments of greatest threat.
Neville and Dixon have very different styles. The former is more intense and focused while the latter is generally relaxed and conversational. But they recognise individual qualities and weaknesses as well as they understand systems, opportunities and threats.
They are self-effacing but confident; organised but flexible; tough but empathetic; thoughtful but communicative. They have taken the lessons of the game, their personal determination to improve and the unique insights of their playing position to become informed and clear communicators for TV viewers world-wide. They are able to make a caustic comment as readily as they committed a tactical foul but also know how to tread the line between yellow and red card.
Other players seem to carry the limitations or burdens of their position and skill set with them. Strikers like to be the centre of attention, midfielders are either destroyers or too cool for school and even Rio Ferdinand has been unable to shake the view that central defenders should be seen and not heard. Goalkeepers reflect philosopher/keeper Albert Camus’ dictum ‘that a ball never arrives from the direction you expected it’ and treat every opportunity to comment as if it is a trick question.
Some examples from the modern day to flesh out the theory?
Central strikers Alan Shearer and Ian Wright – or ‘chippy’ and ‘chirpy’ as I think of them – encore their playing days on TV. Aggressive, efficient Shearer bulldozes his way past alternative opinions, takes every chance to settle personal scores and does not willingly pass opportunities to colleagues. His most famous quote appears to be “Football’s not just about scoring goals – it’s about winning.” He could do one pretty well but not the other as Gary Lineker once pointed out.
The hyperactive Wright on the other hand seems totally charming. Full of energy, lively runs and little dinks. But as an instinctive goalscorer living on half-chances and hunches there is no sense of strategy and he misses the mark too often at the very top level. Even then he is more interesting than Michael Owen whose analysis is a sad reminder that he lost a vital extra half-yard of pace in his final years.
It is rare to see a world-class midfielder sitting regularly in the pundit’s chair, although some might argue the case for Glenn Hoddle who has become a staple of the England national team’s TV appearances. He brings to the role the same mix of laid-back ineffectiveness, occasional laser-beam accuracy and bizarre fringe beliefs (nobody should forget the faith-healing and karma incidents) that disrupted his career as England player and manager.
Whenever an outstanding midfielder does appear, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes are occasional cameo performers, their mastery of the game seems to tell against them. They could ping a ball 40 yards onto a sixpence, hit stunning volleys into the top right-hand corner from outside the box, and control a game . But in the pundit’s seat they look bemused, stilted and unable to articulate why others do not find it so easy.
Roy Keane and Graham Souness, midfield geniuses of a different type, just seem angry at everyone and everything. Perhaps their experiences as modestly successful managers has made them long for the days when they took direct, preferably immediate, personal retribution on the field and scared the living daylights out of opposition and team-mates alike. One imagines their final contribution to punditry might be a disagreement in the studio that ends with a Cantona kung-fu kick , a Zidane head-butt (readers of a nervous disposition may choose not to follow the next two links)… or a Keane or Souness red-card tackle.
NBC in the US has opted for midfield dependability, and people called Robbie, with the duo of Mustoe and Earle offering solid professionalism from careers including long stints at Middlesborough and Wimbledon respectively. Their insights come from many hours on the pitch but it’s difficult to see the pairing offering too much on players’ psychology as they chase Premier League and Champions League silverware. That said they are both thoughtful and considered and a credit to the world of Robbies which is more than can be said of Robbie Savage, whose comments are often as misguided and deserving of a red card as his hairstyle, passing and tackling.
I recognise that this sample is notably short of women football pundits. This is down to the woeful coverage of women’s soccer in the UK up to and including the current day, as well as the relatively limited opportunities contenders have had to settle into the role. Sue Smith was among the first to come to prominence and for the 2017 Women’s European Championship Channel 4 put together a team of Aluko, Smith and O’Reilly with Lucy Ward in commentary. All of them midfielders or forwards!
Given my view about right backs the current England players Lucy Bronze and Rachel Daly may have great futures on TV ahead of them when they retire. Although Steph Houghton could bring a new dimension to my theory from her position at left-back. Her comments after matches and her broader You Tube presence show a keen football brain and strong communication skills.
It is difficult to see beyond Neville and Dixon as the best of the bunch. The former has even forced Jamie Carragher to raise his game when they share the screen at Sky. There may even be new stars emerging from the next World Cup. But for now – right backs rule.