They Have Not Got a Clue

It was once again an incredible weekend in the Barclays Premier League. This season in my opinion is turning into possibly one of the most exciting in years. Controversy has not been to far away from the games this season, if you follow my regular column for the boys at Pitch Talk. One very important aspect of the televised coverage is the roll of the co commentator and the comments they can invariably make. After all, unless you have refereed or played the game, you need these guys to guide you. Let us just say for argument sake,you have arrived from the planet Pluto and you have never seen a game of association football before, these are the guys to educate and tell you what is going on. Well let me tell you these boys have not got a clue and in some cases are going along with a certain criteria the TV station is pushing. This weekend saw the meeting of Stoke and Chelsea and on the mic was Niall Quinn, now Quinner like myself is from Dublin and a very nice lad and anytime I have met him when he is home he comes across as a very nice person, but for a lad who has played the game at the highest level his co commentary skills are in my opinion non league standard. By the way that is no disrespect to the non league guys it is just making a point about Niall. Let me below have a look at two incidents in the game that Niall gave his opinion on and let me tell you why in my opinion he was talking out of his backside.

So don't forget you have arrived from the planet Pluto and you are now settling down to watch your first ever live soccer match on TV. Well if you are looking for proper input from the pundits you may as well just switch off the TV, as ex players very rarely knew the rules when they played and now that they have finished playing they even know less. The other evening Niall was going on about John Walters been in an offside position in the build up to the winning Stoke goal. Absolute garbage, under the rules for offside John would have never been flagged, not even last season. The Stoke player was not, I repeat not offside. It was also very interesting to hear Niall,s opinion on the incident involving the Stoke keeper and Remy. Niall praised the Chelsea player for staying on his feet and not diving to try and gain a penalty. Well in my opinion if he had let the keeper hit him I am sure referee Anthony Taylor would have awarded a cast iron penalty. It says something when a co commentator is praising a player for not diving, which in my opinion is a cancer in the game, I am sure Mr.Mourinho was screaming at his TV when he saw what Remy tried to do. Now I know this seems like I am picking out Niall for criticism but in fact my angle on this issue is that pundits are misleading fans with there views. A lot of the ex players struggle to understand the laws, let alone the interpretation to apply them by the top referees in the country.

These guys get paid a lot of money for their views and in some cases they call it totally wrong. To try and explain these big refereeing decisions for the boys at PitchTalk it helps that you have had to be on many occasions been involved in the middle of a game with a white hot atmosphere and called them correctly. Ex Players should really stick to talking tactics and stay away from the world of refereeing, which in my opinion is something they know nothing about. Until next week if you are out and about at a game, enjoy yourself and as I always say, I do hope I am not blogging about a bad decision against your team in my next blog. Bye for now.