Well guys the new football season has started! For those of us who can watch the BBC, you have the dubious honour of being able to listerned to Lawro, who for some reason the BBC seem to think knows everything about football! Lawro said we are going to struggle to score goals this season. So far he has been way of the mark. Couple of links for everyone, in case you havent seen the, which lets you test yourself in the prediction stakes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4786707.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/predictor/default.stm Dont rate Lawro's commentary either, full of crap jokes. United seem to be under represented on the panels.
United are pretty underepresented on the panels, and its weird because one of the few people I've seen that have been a bit pro-united this season on TV is Jamie Redknapp..he was all fired up about Rooney's situation for example.
I watch Footie Focus, MOTD 1 & 2 religiously and the only true Red to be on there was Schmeichel 2 seasons ago. On MOTD it'sHansen and Lauro, s you get Scouse wisdom, and then cheek from Lineker. We'll prove them wrong.
To be fair, Hansen and Lawro are loathed by the scouses, they are always harsh against liverpool, and always predict them to lose in the big matches.
I've always wondered why United's more analitcal minds don't get into commentary after leaving the game. Then I think of all the teams they manage and grin to myself laughing at the losers who hate on United because they were inferior to us on the pitch and then even after leaving the game they are still clearly inferior. Bloody Brilliant.
im yet to find many pundits on the english game i actually like. Ian Wright is always amusing, and i like Peter Schmeichal (sp?) however the rest often seem to irritate. Andy Gray especially, with his nack of loving whatever team is on top at the current time
Complete an utter scouse lovin prick -Him and hansen are too much to bear really! I dey r not goin on about how great liverpool are- its about what someones performance cud mean to englands world cup chances (AND THEY AREN'T ********IN ENGLISH!!!) England fans, your all twats you got so excited Stick ur england up your arse coz we are man united
I noticed that too, he seems to be more balanced in his views this season and is less afraid of telling it like it is. He still winds me up a little as every game he's on where Chelsea or England feature there's a 90% chance of him referring to John Terry as a "modern-day gladiator". Get some new phrases damnit. We do have Gordon McQueen who does a fair bit of work for Sky or on the radio, mostly United and 'boro games. He doesn't tend to be that biased which I respect. For example, he was going off his head the other night when Chelsea weren't awarded a free-kick against 'boro when Davies went through Drogba to get to the ball. Pally used to do a fair amount of tv work but it's been a while since I've seen him. As for Lawro, on the whole I like my pundits/commentators to have passion. It's probably wrong of me to judge a man by his voice but his effeminate tones put me right off. Maybe I put too much emphasis on people having to get excited or shouting to show passion as there are other ways but when the guy's basically being paid to offer his opinion on a fast-paced, exciting sport I like to hear someting with a little more 'umph'. But passion alone doesn't make a good commentator/pundit in my eyes otherwise Jonathon Pearce, especially in his Channel 5 days would be the best in the world. He took it waaaaaaaaaaay too far for me and ended up sounding ridiculous. You can throw Ian Wright into this category too as far as I'm concerned. Passion without knowledge is the worst combination for me. Edit: Thinking on, I think I might have a thing for blokes with celtic accents, lol as quite a few of the ones that I like are either Irish or Scottish. It seems to be cool to hate Andy Gray, especially with United fans but I've got a lot of time for him. He's one who definately shows passion, has a good voice for broadcasting and is knowlegeable imo. Hansen isn't as exciteable but their is an air of authority in his voice and although he has his Liverpool connections is someone who I can listen to about the game and is someone I respect. To a lesser degree but along the same lines I'll throw in Souness as another who talks alot of sense to me. On the Spanish football commentary on Sky I also have a lot of time for Gerry Armstrong. He's not the best commentator in the world as he sometimes calls things wrong and has a bit too much love for the big two in Spain for me but his knowledge of players is exceptional and he's like a walking football encyclopedia, picking statistics and past results out of thin air. I know commentators/pundits make alot of notes but his recollection skills are immense, he's like an elephant who never forgets.
too make it even more complex, Hansen loves to lick Carrick's balls at every opportunity and they all pee themselves over Rooney. one of the things you need to remember about organisations like the BBC (and the same applies to newspapers like the gaurdian et al) is that they are national, and even international. and to get ratings, they need tension and story. if they just stated the reality, which is that teams like Utd are odds on to win or at least draw almost every single game they play in the league, that doesn't make for much drama does it? So given that only a fraction of the viewing public is from manchester, it doesn't make much sense for them to be pro utd in an editorial sense. As murdoch has proved over the years, it makes more sense for them to be anti - with whatever angle they can get. crap for a so called impartial broadcaster but you see it time and again. this is how Utd can be "in crisis" while finishing second in the league this is how Chelsea can have "failed" for not winning the champions league A counter to this, which we've seen in the so called "information age" is that fans now prefer to get partial news slanted in their own favour from sources with clear bias. e.g. Manchester United TV. e.g. Fox 'news'. or even Big Soccer.
I'm guessing it was on ESPN. Meh, Tommy would pick whoever was in the best form after the first three games without looking at much else. We're not even through 10% of the season yet... still a lot of football to play.
I would guess that too, but they never show Premiership analysis on ESPN. It would have had to have been some online clip or something on ESPN International that we wouldn't get here in the states.
No, it was before the season started. Out of the mouths of babes and idiots ........ ESPN run a half hour program called ESPN Presspass twice a week here (Asia-Pacific)
what do u expect, people to guess 100% of the results...u want a boring presenter who just reads stats and shit? lawro is decent, hanson too, but he has favoritism to liverpool who actually thought u wouldnt struggle to score as much without ruud, your biggests corer in the padt few years its logic
They show a shorter version of that on ESPN News every so often. Don't know what it's normal schedule is, and frankly don't want to know. Tommy Smyth is just plain worthless, doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Another one of those, "Oh he's got an accent, he must know about football, lets give him a job" types that you see on American sports TV.