Guest Article – English Players Get An Easy Ride From Pundits

Time for another guest article now and we have a debut from the guys at the brilliant website psfootball – They raise the point as to why English players seemingly get an easy ride from pundits. A very interesting piece, so guys it is over to you

It always annoys me when pundits on shows like MOTD just point blank refuse to criticise English players. This issue came to the fore again during last week’s midweek Premier League fixtures.

In Middlesborough’s game against Hull their young captain Ben Gibson had an absolute shocker. He got his feet in a mess trying to clear the ball for Hull’s first goal and then horribly misjudged 2 challenges and lost his man in the build up to the Tigers’ second.

Ian Wright described both incidents as being unlucky. You’re paid to provide honest analysis Ian, he made two errors that led to 2 goals in one of his club’s biggest games of the season, I’d call that a nightmare.

So often when players like Joe Hart drop a clanger or Rooney misses a sitter pundits react with the most on the fence type of critique going, it’s usually a case of ”normally you’d expect him to do better” or the mild ”he’ll be disappointed with himself there”. Whereas if the exact same situation occurs, but involves a foreign player, it’s ”poor”, “sloppy”, or “not good enough”. If it had been Hull’s young Italian defender Ranocchia who made the same errors as Gibson the other night it’s very unlikely that Wrighty would have been so lenient in his analysis.

It’s not just MOTD either, the boys over at Sky Sports are just as bad. Although Gary Neville has essentially taken punditry to a new level since joining MNF, his few years as England coach made for some painfully bland analysis of mistakes involving England players.

He reserved his most stinging criticisms for Johnny Foreigner of course. Can you imagine the type of stick the Neviller would have given David Luis if he had dropped anywhere near the amount of bollocks that John Stones has done this season. The one shining light in this regard, it has to be said, is Jamie Carragher who quite rightly says exactly what he thinks with little regard for upsetting anybody.

Part of the problem is definitely that many of the most high profile pundits know they will more than likely end up back in the game at some stage so they are very careful in terms of who they criticise. There is also the fact that the world of professional football in England is quite a tight knit group, meaning that several players and ex-players may share the same agents, management, business partners or even groups of friends. It’s an everybody knows somebody kind of thing. Let’s have a look at Gibson’s case and see as why perhaps Wrighty really didn’t want to criticise him.

Now to be fair to Gibson he has had an excellent first season in the Premier League which has earned him a call up to the full England squad. He is also the captain of a Premier League club having just turned 24, which is no mean feat, but lets be honest, it helps when your uncle is the owner and chairman of said club.

Being the nephew of Boro owner Steve Gibson will also mean that young Gibson would have grown up having regular contact with now England boss Gareth Southgate due to his role as Boro manager between 2006-2009. Friends in high places indeed, but I’m sure that had nothing got to do with Southgate’s good friend Ian Wright not criticising him on live TV.

Recently several news outlets reported that all 6 clubs at the top of the Premier League are considering making a £25-30 Million bid for the young Boro Captain. Again I’m sure it’s nothing to do with his highly placed agent asking his friends in the media to plug the story.

Personally, as I said, Gibson is a good player but nowhere near the level required to play for a Champions League chasing club. He is a very English centre half, good in the air, strong in the tackle, full of heart but ultimately hugely limited on the ball. He has been playing in a team that sets out to defend, so obviously he’s had ample opportunity to showcase his ability to defend as that is pretty much all this Boro side have done all season.

If he goes for anywhere near £25 million it will just be another classic case of the so called English Premium at work as you could easily pick up a more technically proficient centre half from La Liga, Bundesliga or Serie A for half that price.

I find the whole charade pretty insulting at times, it’s like the pundits think the general footballing public don’t actually realise they are partaking in a game of professional fence-sitting when it comes to their analysis of English players.

It’s the same generation of pundits that find it easy to criticise young players for their lifestyles, haircuts, dabs and goal celebrations but at the same time they go out of their way not to criticise them for the very thing that they are paid to analyse, their performances on the pitch.

It is often levelled at younger players that they can no longer handle criticism or to be “dug out” in footballing parlance, yet the very people who are paid to give an honest analysis of these players’ performances week in week out duck out of “digging” them out at every opportunity. It’s time to practice what you preach Mr.Wright and co.

Do you agree with what has been written over at PS Football HQ, let me know in comments and also once again thanks for the content guys

If you would like to get involved then feel free to send your work over to realfootballmanwordpress@gmail.com and I’ll make sure it has a home here at Real Football Man HQ.