Football Food For Thought / Dan Fitch / 05 May 2009 /

As Alan Shearer proves he's no football manager, Dan Fitch points out he's no football pundit either and goes on to look at the good and the bad from amongst the so-called football experts on TV.

There is a joke doing the rounds at the moment, of which the comic premise is that the difference between Newcastle United and Alan Shearer, is that Shearer will be appearing on Match of the Day next season.

The joke may make some people chuckle, depending on how many times they have heard it recently, but personally, it just makes me shudder.

In these days, when it is quite common for two live Premier League games to be shown on a Saturday, pubs to be showing dodgy foreign coverage of games at 3pm, Sky showing highlights at 9pm, all the goals being beamed to your mobile phone and the possibility that I might actually attend a game; it is rare occurrence at 10.30pm on a Saturday that Match of the Day isn't a complete irrelevance to me.

When I do watch it though, I'm normally falling asleep within a few minutes and one of the chief reasons for this is the droning, monosyllabic style of Alan Shearer, as he points out the bleeding obvious.

If Shearer is currently proving himself to be a less than inspirational manager, then he at least still has the chance to turn things around and save his reputation.

As a television pundit, Shearer has already proved that he has nothing to offer. Newcastle are currently [1.64] to be relegated, with their price dropping quicker than the ratings for a remake of a classic 1970s sitcom.

Shearer falls into a trap that ensnares many a footballer-turned-pundit, which is the misconception that he is broadcasting on radio, rather than television. For that is surely the only explanation for Shearer thinking that punditry merely requires him to describe the action taking place on screen, as if the audience can't actually see it for themselves.

It's not Shearer that I blame for the fact that he is rubbish on TV, any more than anyone should blame him should he eventually prove himself to be rubbish as a manager. Like the chairmen of football clubs, broadcasters tend to give jobs to people on the basis that they were once brilliant players, regardless of whether they are actually capable of doing the job for which they have been employed.

A couple of weeks ago on Soccer AM, I watched a fawning interview in which Helen Chamberlain probed Jamie Redknapp about why he is so good on television. I can't have been the only one screaming, "but he's not" at the screen.

Jamie sits there every week in his tight fitting black suit, with his legs akimbo, looking like someone who's just been fired from the cast of Reservoir Dogs, because he was too good looking to be plausible as a gangster.

The only possible reason that Redknapp has managed to carve out a television career for himself, is that Sky Sports did some kind of focus group in which they found that their reluctant female viewers wanted some kind of eye-candy. Redknapp is the male Georgie Thompson and shouldn't be surprised if he gets the sack, when his eyes start going all droopy like his dad's.

The most insightful television program about football is Sky Sports' Sunday Supplement, in which newspaper journalists debate the issues of the day. Shockingly, it features a panel of men who have never played the game of football professionally, but who... gasp... still manage to understand it.

Well why shouldn't this be the case? You don't get Film 2009 being presented by Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. In boxing, the most respected pundits are men like Bert Sugar, Larry Merchant and the writer of On the Waterfront, Budd Schulberg. That none of them ever laced a glove, isn't seen as an impediment to them being great interpreters of the sport.

I'm not saying that ex-professional footballers can't make good pundits, because there are many out there. I just wish that our broadcasters would be more selective in who they bung on our screens.

Too many ex-players-turned-pundits, are hampered by not wanting to upset their old mates, or potential future employers, when commenting on the game. Give me a panel comprised of Eamon Dunphy, the Times' Patrick Barclay and Tony Cascarino any day, over Shearer, Redknapp and other 'big names'.

With just three points separating Newcastle from West Brom, the Magpies are an attractive [8.2] to finish in last position in the Premier League, in Betfair's 'Rock Bottom' market. Should Newcastle be demoted and Shearer return to the BBC, expect their coverage to sink to similar depths.

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