General Commentary/Punditry Moaning Thread

[Whoopy D]

40 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Watching on the screens out here in bars and fan zones it’s all beIN Sports so I have to put up with Keys and Gray in the studio before, during and after games  

Welcome break tonight as I’m having a quite one in and watching the last two games on ITV Player though….

We’re stuck with the beIN coverage too and Keys in particular is awful. You could forgive his complete lack of knowledge if he was a good host but he’s not even good at that, he frequently breaks up the flow of the conversation with some asinine comment or snide remark. 
 

I quite enjoy Nigel de Jong though. 

[Smallen]

I think McCoist can be ok but I think the novelty has worn off now. The salivating over Ronaldo is a red flag.

[Carninho]

Eni Aluko is just so mardy. nothing warm or likeable about her really. 

heard Shearer on radio 5 and he was a different person, seemed to be enjoying himself lol

Laura Georges has been the find of the tournament for me. She even made Jenas sound half decent earlier today. BBC need to get her on as much as possible.

Andros Townsend is bringing so fresh insight, just a shame he sounds like a chav 

Dion's ok nothing special and he only gets the **** games so I can live with chatting with 'JP' and bring no insight

Sam Twatterface actually ruins the games for me. he just needs to call the action and nothing else, too many attempts to look smart. his opening monologues are just embarrassing and you know full well he's spent days writing them. 

 

[SouthCoastRed]

I thought the BBC and ITV split these games equally, seems to have been loads more on itv this time, sadly, Pougatch overload

[Weezer]

42 minutes ago, Whoopy D said:

We’re stuck with the beIN coverage too and Keys in particular is awful.

Plus he looks like a potato.

Agree on De Jong.

[Smallen]

Hal Robson-Kanu's liked tweets are interesting:

https://twitter.com/RobsonKanu/likes

CBA going further but that's barely over a week's worth of interesting stuff.

[The_jagster]

Incoming "account was hacked" excuse.

[Coulthard's Jaw]

Robson-Kanu, Tyler Roberts and Rabbi Matondo were all sent home from the Wales squad in March 2021 after breaching COVID-19 protocols.

-------

In August 2018, Robson-Kanu founded The Turmeric Co. brand, selling a range of turmeric-based shots made from natural ingredients.[88] Robson-Kanu has hailed turmeric as his 'secret weapon', claiming that using turmeric as a nutritional supplement saved his footballing career and helped him to recover from a cruciate knee ligament rupture.

---------

I'll be honest, not great vibes from this lad.

[pearcey_90]

40 minutes ago, Smallen said:

Hal Robson-Kanu's liked tweets are interesting:

https://twitter.com/RobsonKanu/likes

CBA going further but that's barely over a week's worth of interesting stuff.

Despite never clicking on the profile, now got that woman coming up as a recommend tweet  

[Smallen]

I'm all for opposing views and that, but getting someone on to pundit who doesn't mind a bit of antisemitism and thinks the world is ran by disciples of satan is probably a bit excessive. 

[Coulthard's Jaw]

19 minutes ago, Smallen said:

I'm all for opposing views and that, but getting someone on to pundit who doesn't mind a bit of antisemitism and thinks the world is ran by disciples of satan is probably a bit excessive. 

I always think with football pundits, there are no shortage of ex-footballers who can do it, simply no need to take on the problematic ones!

[Pukey]

Discussed plenty in the match thread, but my word ITV have upped their game tonight haven't they? Just outstanding levels of awfulness.

[The_jagster]

The big that got me was Souness moaning that a lack of definitive images would mean people will consider it a conspiracy, when only he was suggesting it was a conspiracy

I don't know why they need to show why it was definitely in, surely they need to find a still showing it was definitely out to disallow the goal?

[Weezer]

Watching the build up to Brazil v Cameroon in a bar here on beIN and the pundit line up is Richard Keys, Andy Gray, Gary Neville and John Terry 

How’s that for a line up of *****?

[Wolf_pd]

The Dutch have Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart. Not exactly entertaining, or pundits. The only one who profits is the doner kebab shop around the corner.

[Baptista_8]

We all know awful pundits are in abundance but Aluko is comfortably the worst.

[The_jagster]

I can forgive arithmetic errors if they tell me something different about the football.

[Pukey]

In fairness I think she's just misspoke than anything else and missed out "every other" from her sentence. It does sound daft but it's easy done for some people. 

[Coulthard's Jaw]

[Lucas]

14 hours ago, Baptista_8 said:

We all know awful pundits are in abundance but Aluko is comfortably the worst.

Not a fan either but definitely things about ITV's coverage I'd change before Aluko as a pundit.

You couldn't really have a more irrelevant punditry line up than those three for the games on at the World Cup.

[SouthCoastRed]

So onto the quarter finals, and ITVs number 2 commentator heads for home, bye Clive, not saying you were great but the prospect of wall to wall Matterface from here is terrifying 

[Astafjevs]

Jon Champion still there isn't he? They've got both QFs on Saturday and I don't think Matterface will do two in a row

[Icondacarver]

On 05/12/2022 at 18:48, Baptista_8 said:

We all know awful pundits are in abundance but Aluko is comfortably the worst.

Clearly misspoke there. The bigger crime was the clichéd stat line that she was aiming for.

[McBruce]

Watching from Canada, I have to say that TSN's coverage of our nation's first visit in 36 years has been almost criminal.  At halftime in the Belgium game, they analyzed one of many ungiven penalty decisions, the one where the Canadian player had gotten a full step ahead of the defender inside the box and had turned towards the goal and been stepped on, and decided that attempting to turn and face the goal after passing the defender was 'looking to draw the foul.'  No other country has media like this that will so consistently take the side of the opponents in any dubious decision.  But the worst was yet to come: after the 1-nil loss the coach was interviewed and said "I told them that we'll just have to 'F' Croatia."  No sane person would ever interpret this as a slight to the country, with two exceptions: the Croatian tabloid that picked up on the story and front-paged an outrageous fake photo of Canada's coach without clothes, and TSN, which for the three days between the Belgium match and the Croatia match, spent roughly 179 hours of broadcast time bleating on about how simply telling the truth of what he had just told his players post-match was the worst decision in the history of international soccer, and that Croatia would come out ready to tear Canada to pieces.  The coach was made to face the press again to state the perfectly obvious, that he had not meant the comment as any sort of criticism of Croatia as a country, or even as a criticism of their team, but simply stating the obvious: Canada needed a result that would, if gotten, take Croatia out.  Then the Canadian reporters managed to question the Croatian coach with interpreters about the comment, and of course he took the opportunity to stick the knife in further.  The notion that Croatia, having managed only a draw against an African side in their first match, needed a result to avoid potentially going out at the group stage (at kickoff they were three points behind Morocco and two behind Belgium, who was their next opponent), might be the real motivation for them to seek a strong result (even after Canada opened the scoring in the match) was buried deep under the wave of self-loathing that the Canadian media reserves for the team it is covering, at least in this sport.  If TSN had given this kind of coverage to the Canadian team in the World Junior Hockey Championship, a Boxing-Day thru early January tournament that they promote incessantly for months before, there would be an outright revolt.  But in football we are expected to lay down and accept our place.

Canada did just fine.  We lost our backup GK to injury in the MLS final a few weeks before the tournament, and our #1 had a rather poor tournament compared to qualifying, perhaps because he was told not to risk being injured and forcing the deep drop to the next GK on the depth chart.  Unlike in 1986, Canada was very competitive against Belgium in the opener, scored a beauty against Croatia, and scored against Morocco (an own goal, but one conceded on a real chance, and the only one they have conceded so far as I write).  In 1986 we played three games mostly in our own half trying to keep from being crushed.  But to hear TSN tell it, we were outclassed and our coach was responsible for motivating Croatia to the result they needed.  What rot.  Stick to hockey, TSN.

[Citizen Sandman]

On 05/12/2022 at 18:48, Baptista_8 said:

We all know awful pundits are in abundance but Aluko is comfortably the worst.

since this she's even worse, not a natural talker.

 

Really don't understand why they have 3 people in the studio, then 3 women on the sidelines, really weird. 

[kopsy101]

On 28/11/2022 at 20:01, Weezer said:

I’m still convinced he never had it in the first place.

He’s the co-commentator version of Peter Drury, people bang on about how great he is but I find it all nonsense tbh.

Late to the party, but i'm glad it's not just me. Irritating.

[Pukey]

4 hours ago, McBruce said:

Watching from Canada, I have to say that TSN's coverage of our nation's first visit in 36 years has been almost criminal.  At halftime in the Belgium game, they analyzed one of many ungiven penalty decisions, the one where the Canadian player had gotten a full step ahead of the defender inside the box and had turned towards the goal and been stepped on, and decided that attempting to turn and face the goal after passing the defender was 'looking to draw the foul.'  No other country has media like this that will so consistently take the side of the opponents in any dubious decision.  But the worst was yet to come: after the 1-nil loss the coach was interviewed and said "I told them that we'll just have to 'F' Croatia."  No sane person would ever interpret this as a slight to the country, with two exceptions: the Croatian tabloid that picked up on the story and front-paged an outrageous fake photo of Canada's coach without clothes, and TSN, which for the three days between the Belgium match and the Croatia match, spent roughly 179 hours of broadcast time bleating on about how simply telling the truth of what he had just told his players post-match was the worst decision in the history of international soccer, and that Croatia would come out ready to tear Canada to pieces.  The coach was made to face the press again to state the perfectly obvious, that he had not meant the comment as any sort of criticism of Croatia as a country, or even as a criticism of their team, but simply stating the obvious: Canada needed a result that would, if gotten, take Croatia out.  Then the Canadian reporters managed to question the Croatian coach with interpreters about the comment, and of course he took the opportunity to stick the knife in further.  The notion that Croatia, having managed only a draw against an African side in their first match, needed a result to avoid potentially going out at the group stage (at kickoff they were three points behind Morocco and two behind Belgium, who was their next opponent), might be the real motivation for them to seek a strong result (even after Canada opened the scoring in the match) was buried deep under the wave of self-loathing that the Canadian media reserves for the team it is covering, at least in this sport.  If TSN had given this kind of coverage to the Canadian team in the World Junior Hockey Championship, a Boxing-Day thru early January tournament that they promote incessantly for months before, there would be an outright revolt.  But in football we are expected to lay down and accept our place.

Canada did just fine.  We lost our backup GK to injury in the MLS final a few weeks before the tournament, and our #1 had a rather poor tournament compared to qualifying, perhaps because he was told not to risk being injured and forcing the deep drop to the next GK on the depth chart.  Unlike in 1986, Canada was very competitive against Belgium in the opener, scored a beauty against Croatia, and scored against Morocco (an own goal, but one conceded on a real chance, and the only one they have conceded so far as I write).  In 1986 we played three games mostly in our own half trying to keep from being crushed.  But to hear TSN tell it, we were outclassed and our coach was responsible for motivating Croatia to the result they needed.  What rot.  Stick to hockey, TSN.

The "**** Croatia" stuff was some of the most overblown nonsense I've ever seen in my life.