Lazy Punditry Just Needs to Stop...

After another Christmas of not doing especially a fat lot, I decided to take my usual place on the sofa and tune into a Boxing Day feast of football which comprised of the usual dose of Soccer Saturday followed by Match of the Day.

Whilst this for me is pretty much a perfect Saturday and nothing can quite beat the sound of Chris Kamara shouting "Unbelievable Jeff" or Paul Merson screeching "He's hit the Beans on Toast!!", one thing which has persistently frustrated an annoyed me about these programs is the ridiculous amount of bias that the pundits and presenters show towards the "Bigger Teams" and also the "London Teams" in particular.  In my view, the punditry at times is incredibly "lazy".

By lazy, I mean the fact that for example , in the pre-match chit chat for Soccer Saturday which is a whopping 3 hours, the ex-professionals' debate on the games is incredibly lop sided in terms of how much time they assign to each team.  For example, a Man Utd vs WBA game will be treated to say 20 mins of chit chat with 18 mins dedicated to Man Utd with discussions of Wayne Rooney's hair cut to Gigg's antics and then a mere aside saying that WBA will be hopeful of a point or such like.  Is this really fair?  Where is the detail and analyis of the other team involved in the equation?  And don't even get me started on their insistence of calling the  big teams players names by their first name or even their nickname.  I even heard Kamara refer to Gerrard as "Stevie G"  on Saturday afternoon. Unbelievable(!)

Are these pundits too lazy to actually do any research into every team in the Premiership?  Or are they only bothered about the old pals act they have going on with their former clubs?  These guys have the whole week to study games and facts and yet it appears only Monsieur Stelling takes anything in and he really is an exception to the rule.

An example of this sheer arrogance and know it all behaviour of this was on Saturday's MOTD after the Wigan Vs Man Utd game.  With the game fairly well poised Connor Sammon received a harsh red card and then the game was pretty much a non event.  After the game, Lawro said that the result was unlikely to have changed despite the sending off which was probably a fair comment.  However, he then added to this by saying that Wigan were never likely to win because they had lost every game in the Premiership to Man Utd prior to that. I am not a Wigan fan but if that comment had been made about my team I would have been fuming!  Is the guy a bookie or a pundit? I am all for opinions but assuming Wigan would lose just because of previous games was a ridiculous thing to say. This was a team which had taken good points of Chelski and Liverpool in recent games. Prior to yesterday, WBA had lost every boxing day in the Premiership.  Did that mean that because of that Lawro expected the Baggies to forfeit the game and hand the 3 points to City?  Because it's just as well we didn't isn't it?

These clowns will also spend 5 hours spunking themselves silly over a decent goal from say a Rooney or a RVP yet almost completely dismissing a perhaps even better goal from a player who is from a smaller or lesser known team (for example, see Morrison for WBA vs Blackburn on Youtube..how many of you were aware of that goal?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVRHXMP2Ak

It cannot be denied that Sky can be just as bad, and you can almost guarantee that a a 4-4 draw between Bolton and Norwich would not be Game of the Day if Tottenham managed to beat Blackburn 3-1 in a fairly drab game.

This nonsense has been going on for many years now, with every time a top 4 team fails to win , it too often being blamed an "off day" without any credit given to the opposition. I would expect this sort of behaviour off managers and players alike but certainly not the neutrals in the studio who are receiving a large wedge of our license fee money to pay for their too often useless opinions.

Sunil