ITV football coverage: Urge To Kill Rising

So difficult.

The FA Cup's on ITV now is it? No wonder I haven't been able to find it all weekend. As for your question, all of them are too bland to inspire hatred. Add in MOTD pundits, then you'd have a poll

Tyldo for all time.

It's a tough decision, but Tyldesley

Really fancy voting Smith or Rider

I had to stop watching before my team were even shown. Curbishley really was like they'd gone "Ha! BBC think they've found the most boring and inspidid Alan in the world to talk about football; we are going to make Shearer seem amazing."

Voted Smith at random in the end.

Bring back Matt Lorenzo (crusing in the Benzo) imo

voted Townsend. But I'm fairly conflicted. Lot of strong candidates.

Townsend for me. I've hated him ever since he began saying we should get rid of Sven, apparently for no particular reason other than Sven not being English (pretty rich coming from Andy Townsend...)

Pleat, easy. The Seth Pecksniff of football punditry.

Tyldsley, has to be.

Is it me or has he got this weird sort of overly careful attitude when commenting on non Man U games? It's like he knows people know he's a Man U fan so he has to kind of be overly insipid if Liverpool or Arsenal are playing. But he still comes off like he's kind of chiding.

He also fancies himself as very showbiz and is a real foghorn. He has a high opinion of his own wordplay and is anything but low key.

Clive "1966" Tyldsley

Jim Beglin. He's a twat. But really, ITV should never get to cover any football ever, everyone they ever employ to talk about it is shite.

the girls i make watch soccer with me, they all wanna fuck Earle. so he gets my vote.

Pleat for causing my friend to make progressively more boring kerbcrawling zings at the TV every fucken time whenever we watch football together

It's gotta be hard being David Pleat, and having your entire existence boiled down do a) kerb-crawling b) effeminate dancing c) being a fucking idiot.

I gotta that at a stretch you could have some kind of moderately entertaining conversation with most of these guys, but having to spend any prolonged amount of time with Steve Rider would properly fucking ruin your day

gotta think

Andy "he's got cramp in both groins, Clive" Townsend.

It's like he knows people know he's a Man U fan so he has to kind of be overly insipid if Liverpool or Arsenal are playing. But he still comes off like he's kind of chiding.

He was very generous and praiseworthy of Liverpool on That Night In Istanbul.

And the thing is that Bob Wilson is far preferable to most of these apart from Robbie Earle (he's the kind of man you'd want in the trenches, assuming your survival in said trenches involved heading in corners from around 12 yards out). Townsend surely worst though.

Anyone who also works for Talksport is an automatic choice. So that's Townsend.
Anyone voting for Smith, Earle or Beglin is a mentalist.

Surprised that Townsend has never appeared on I'm A Celebrity, tbh.

Beglin's voice has this monotone to it. He's not the worst tho, just a bit of a bore.

Townsend is indeed an idiot. INNIT BOLO

Matt Smith has the most awkward, irritating, downright crap presenting-style in the history of all things ever and but for the strength of competition would be a shoe-in for me. He just seems like the work-experience kid kept on for 20 years and given a backwards autocue to solve.

Rider is actually evil, is what we must consider.

Channel 5 TV coverage v's ITV.

Channel 5's has Nevin, Ian Holm, the Martin O'Neill presenter clone, so it's already won by a street

the Martin O'Neill presenter clone

Radio 1's Colln Mrry?

Steve Rider is the most perniciously patronising, condescending, lug-headed, Daily Mail-esque, loathsome presenter in the history of sport and my vote is swinging towards him, but this will still require more consideration

oshit yeah that Fighting Talk guy a female friend of mine is obsessed with, him

he's really quite good isn't he

I've warmed to him a bit lately, having basically loathed him for most of his time at Radio 1. He does a decent job on Fighting Talk, certainly; trouble is, he can get rather badly out of his depth when he's dealing with the non-regular members of the panel - their Euro 2008 episode when he had Gabriele Marcotti at the other end of a phone line in (I think) Switzerland was kind of painful. He also commentates on poker for Five, which is serious marks off albeit that I've basically found televised poker fairly unwatchable since they started fucking with the basic Late Night Poker template to the extent that you now know what everyone's hand is all the time, which just takes all the damn fun out of the thing. That and they're all basically sweaty Norwegians.

But yeah, Drury's cobblers, this should not be ignored.

Drury is really, really bad, aye. All the ones I picked are really bad, hence why Brackley was omitted. Doyle I can't really envisage tbf but I'm sure he's shit, plus I think he might be that eejit who did the BBC's 2004 Olympic coverage

words cannot express how annoying i find Drury and his portentous guff.

Doyle makes a much better fist of presenting The Championship than Townsend (this is not to say anything at all)

I voted Robbie Earle for his unbelievably pathetic blandness, but it was a tough choice.

This really is missing an 'all of the above' option.

There are plenty of reasons to vote for Townsend: his capacity - like Shearer on BBC - to state the bleedin' obvious and do nothing other than talk us step-by-step through what we've just all seen (you never see Townsend telling us what *will* happen), as well as his patronising attitude to non-'big four' members, and Earle can be anodyne in the extreme.

I like Pleat - not only for his Spurs connections, but because he's the one pundit who has a genuinely good knowledge of players and clubs outside of the narrow 'received wisdom' parameters (Barcelona are stylish, Italian clubs are hard to break down, eastern European clubs are technically sound etc) even if he can't pronounce their names properly.

I also like Beglin as he isn't afraid to criticise English players when necessary - something the MOTD pundits are desperately unable to do.

For me, the urge to kill is with Drury. He takes all the worst elements of every commentator ever and makes it his own - his portentous delivery (Davies), his pre-prepared and painful bon mots (Motson), his 'shock' at the way 'small' (ie: from 5th place down, or non-Spanish/Italian/English clubs in Europe) clubs refuse to lie down and be beaten by 'big' clubs (Clive T). And his contrived yelp whenever a half-chance gets scuffed vaguely close to the goal. I hate him.

yeah, although Pleat is one of the most annoying broadcasters imaginable, he does give off this Graham Taylor-like impression that there is an actual deep knowledge of the game being partially obscured by his obvious senility

dismissed Beglin on the same pointless 20-20 hindsight analysis grounds as Townsend

have a tiny bit of time for Tyldsley based on him being asked in an interview what he thought of people thinking he was complete shit, and responding with good humour and not being a prick about it

yes, d-Pop, anodyone is the word I was looking for to describe Earle. And it's precisely that inability to offer any valuable analysis or criticism that winds me up about UK coverage of football.

Yep Daniel.

What TV football so badly needs is some genuine argument. I've never actually seen RTE's covearge of football but based on the huge amount of second-hand evidence, the kind of sometimes pertinent, sometimes ill-founded, but never irrelevant comments by Dunphy, Giles and co is something British TV desperately needs.

In contrast, what we have is merely lip service. MOTD's idea of discussing issues is Shearer and AN Other (Dixon, Lawro, Bright etc) essentially slagging off either refs or foreign players. They never criticise British players, nor those they a) have played with or b) may one day manage.

The nadir of this was when Shearer was asked about Rooney's stamp on that Aaalborg player and whether he'd be banned for it - Shearer replied "Well, it didn't look good... but I hope he gets away with it." As of course Shearer himself did. No attempt to look at the wider issue and talk about how five years into his career he's still a liability to his team etc.

My favourite Townsend moment was back in the days when Arsenal were annoyingly unbeatable and were playing, I dunno, Southampton or someone.

Des: "So Andy, 4-0 down at half-time, did Southampton get their tactics wrong?"
Andy: "No Des" (proceeds to bang on about how you have to go at teams like Arsenal etc etc)

ITV FA Cup coverage the most strangely boring and affectless thing I've seen on TV since I made the mistake of trying to watch one of those Lord of the Rings films

Dixon's alright xp - one of the few pundits who, rather than thinking his job ends when he's found a cliche, actually goes on to try to explain it. He did a feature on Walcott's poor decision-making last season - pointing out what the poor decision was, what the option was he should have chosen, and what he might have done to create the maximum options for himself - that was one of the best pieces of punditry I've seen for years

Dixon's best on MOTD2 though, he seems a bit intimidated when he's got a big man on the couch beside, waiting to point out that they all had more hair back in the day

Even I now accept that Dixon is pretty good.

Re: Dixon - I didn't mean to accuse him of the same crimes as Shearer and co, merely to say that he sits alongside AS when he does - in actual fact he's, as has been said just now, by far the sofa pundit who has the most interesting things to say.

was Big Ron better than all of these apart from the racism?

Don't know who d-pop is, but OTM

I was in the pub the other day after the live Sunday game had finished, and they showed Andy Gray's post match programme. Now he really puts the anal into analysis, and too many on-screen arrows comes across a bit 'the day today', but I was impressed by the things he chose to focus on and it actually appeared that he was attempting to explain to the viewer why (in his opinion) the outcome of the match was as it was. Compare that with, for example, Robbie Earle's immortal 'they got an early goal, just what they needed' on Saturday night!

Fuck Andy Gray

ok. You go first.

OK, I'll rephrase it, Fuck An Andy Gray

^^^helpfully including the terrible, awful, lumpen, crappy, root-of-many-problems Charlton striker

he was banging them in for me on FIFA. Admittedly he had me whipping the pinpoint crosses onto his head

I like Andy Gray, he so desperately wants you to know more about football. Alan Hansen just wants you to know that Alan Hansen knows about football

Annoyman, he can head the ball in from close range and occasionally do similar with his feet, but stick him up against a half-decent defence and he'll a) waste possession like a lottery winner and b) not engineer himself any chances, but depend on people to land it on a plate for him

Also, his purchase was a horrible, terrible direction for our inward transfers, and I'd argue it's contributed strongly to our decline

yeah I mean he has his limits, that's why I signed for Valencia at the end of the season

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

If there's ITV coverage tomorrow evening, that shall decide my vote once and for all.

who is the studio host for the FA cup highlights? that guy's awful

Steve Rider, the greased-up condescending paedo-avuncular platitudinous cliche-mill

what you guys need is some Ray Hudson

No wait, jergins, Steve Rider's the live host

The studio guy is the aforementioned overgrown work-experience kid Matt Smith, to whom cadence, charisma and rhetoric might as well be glasses where one side flips the view upside down

My vote is between those two, to be honest.

I've never seen ITV coverage but it can't possibly be worse than some of the clowns that cover MLS/internationals/Champions League in the US. Andy Gray shows up now and again and is much better in comparison. The main problem with US announcers is they NEVER STOP TALKING in a vain attempt to cover up for the fact they don't know a very much about the game. It's actually sad that ESPN fired former USA int'l Eric Wynalda, because he was a loudmouth who routinely brought the lols -- and that was what got him fired.

Is American coverage the kind of "And he's kicked into the goalbag, that's 1-nothing to the Manchester Reds!" we always assume it is over here?

Ray Hudson, on the other hand, knows his shit *and* brings the laughs. For example:

“Matador. Look at him, so languid, look at him walking. He’s like a big, beautiful zombie, Riquelme, like a big, beautiful zombie. He just strolls around languid like, like smoke off a cigarette, you know. And then he jump out and just draw your blood.”

xp Sort of. They definitely say 1-nothing, and they definitely aren't shy of saying shit like "the old onion sack".

his 'shock' at the way 'small' (ie: from 5th place down, or non-Spanish/Italian/English clubs in Europe) clubs refuse to lie down and be beaten by 'big' clubs (Clive T).

This is one of THE most infuriating commentary habits. Even the actual pitch Tyldo or Drury's voice goes to in a situation where even a vague underdog is putting it up to a G14 one is intensely grating. And the incessant "NOBODY TOLD ROTOR VOLGOGRAD TO READ THE SCRIPT TONIGHT" etc. Do they actually think when you watch Liverpool scrambling past some team with an awful performance you're sitting at home in shock and awe at what's happening. It's practically what you expect!

What TV football so badly needs is some genuine argument. I've never actually seen RTE's covearge of football but based on the huge amount of second-hand evidence, the kind of sometimes pertinent, sometimes ill-founded, but never irrelevant comments by Dunphy, Giles and co is something British TV desperately needs.

Maybe but people idealise the coverage on RTE. There are occasions when Dunphy or Giles just make negative points because it's their selling point, like an exact inverse of Sky. EG after Liverpool beat Besiktas 8-0 last year they both slated them, and a long tedious "but they won 8-0" argument began.

Similarly Dunphy will randomly spew "Ronald/Torres/Pele, he's a nothing player, FOUND OUT this evening, right here, live on RTE". Or he has a real penchant for just hyping the fuck out of fashionable prospects like Aguerro or someone, "this guy is the real deal, the bees knees" etc when you know Dunphy has never seen him play.

so basically: challops, the football show

Townsend, just because he was a nasty fouling cunt as a player.

^^^this guy needs to post more to the Premiership thread

Me?

Yeah, with the zingmaster crushing kittenforce that you bring. Bad attitude towards certain players always helps.

I think that everyone idealises the sports coverage outside of their own nation, but I do think that the Irish Challop Roadshow, the Italian "IT'S OFFICIAL: MILAN IN CRISIS" after they "only" take 10 points from four matches, or the American "Here's 7,000 stars that obscure everything else on the screen" styles are all preferable to the UK coverage.

Anything is preferable to the anaemic gushing of the obvious tbh

I was about to say "I don't mind MotD" but then I remembered that I ALWAYS fall asleep during it. But I generally am full of wine when it's on, and last Saturday night I'd had sex before it even started so fuck knows how I only missed the Everton footage.

Managed to watch Casualty, though.

I was about to say "I don't mind MotD" but then I remembered that I ALWAYS fall asleep during it. But I generally am full of wine when it's on, and last Saturday night I'd had sex before it even started so fuck knows how I only missed the Everton footage.

When did Lawro start posting on ILX?

ok lol

I said Townsend, but also Beglin, as he's always moaning and I've no idea who he is. Did he play football?

I see Andy Gray crept nastily in further up - he is more evil than any of the ITV pundits. I actually hate him.

I like Pleat, both for his refreshing pronunciations of foreign players' names and his generally cheerful and generous analysis of the game, and of course his 'Evening Clive, evening everyone' opener.

The winner is - Andy Townsend - for he is utterly useless, as has been pointed out above - that awful thing of describing the replay to you that you can see in front of you on the tv in front of you, only surpassed by the time I saw the generally likable Hasselbaink describe quite a lengthy slo-motion replay of a goal thus

'And he passes it and.... er.... that's the goal!'

Beglin is indeed tiresome, a cut price Gerry Armstrong.

Andy Gray is awesome.

Hmmm. I hate him. I hate his mean spirited 'what they should have done' commentary, I hate his continual carping about officials (if officials made as many bad calls as he did in his commentary they'd quickly find themselves confined to their static in Zeal Monachorum), I hate his smugness borne of everyone else pandering to him the whole time, I hate his laughs intended to show humour but which are actually because his nasty bitter reductive little soul can't bear being thought of as the nasty bitter reductive little soul it is. I hate his smile. I hate his pseudo-authoritative BULLSHIT. I hate his pointless use of computer graphics. I hate the way he appears in the pre-match flummery, the commentary and the post-match over-analysis. I hate the way he gives himself all the excuses as to why his opinions are wrong and shit, and no one else the excuses ever. I REALLY REALLY HATED when he was called upon to talk about the run in last year and upon his face wore an expression of such SHITTINESS compounded of self-regarding wisdom and gratified but self-deprecating humility that it almost made me smash the tv in with my fist and instead made me crash my fist down on the table causing me to bruise my knuckle. I like the story about him in his tartan socks and him saying 'it's only a little scottish willy' but only because it makes me laugh and also hate him even more. I really really fucking hate Andy Gray and his voice and his face and him.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

that night in barcelona

Gama, please by all means hate Andy Gray, but his analysis is at least analysis (and, on the rare occasions I've caught it, quite plausible analysis) and not just a re-run of the goals with an '...and that's a great finish' voiceover. I do agree with you, though, about the tedious ref-baiting, not just on the part of Andy Gray, but among TV pundits in general; who needs endless replays in order to prove that the officials got it wrong? That doesn't shed any light on why my team lost and why our manager got his tactics wrong again.

Not sure I'd agree with taking Gray to task on ref-baiting. I don't have sky any more, so he may have got worse over the years, but he certainly used to be the one pundit who criticised referees sensibly, by things like:
- realising that they have a pov of their own, even using a ref's-view-cam graphic on occasion
- expressing the view that where e.g. an offside is marginal, the ref is entitled to call it either way (a massive conceptual leap in punditland, where the orthodoxy now is that the ref can't do anything unless he's 100% sure)
- saving his greatest wrath for pedantic 'booking for shirt off'-type refereeing

All other pundits/commentators are worse. I hate Jonathan Pearce most - his sanctimonious outrage when, five minutes after some passage of play that passed without comment, a lackey comes up with a replay that suggests that maybe the ball brushed a hand during the build-up

Gray's worst innovation was calling players by their first names. I don't want cosiness, I want pundits who don't care whether the platers like them or not. That's where it sounds like RTE have it nailed

haaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaaaa

I was about to bump this :)

Aye, me too. Fucking class. Well done.

the commentary itself is fucking infuriating...they speak way too much but never say anything worthwhile. also after gerrard limped off to hear them carping on in worried tones for 20 mins must infuriate both sets of fans.

lovely dream sequence interview with gosling there.

http://italy.theoffside.com/files/2008/01/intermission.jpg

lol another fuck up.

the sellotape connecting the news to the football match has torn

Christ, they don't know what the fuck they're doing now.

please cut to townsend smoking and drinking a can

it's what rte would do

somewhere, a hamster lies dead inside a cog

they need to take the snowed in workplace approach to this and just shut the place down if it's not resolved in five minutes

And now, embarrassingly, a clock...

jesus, I'm actually hoping this gets a cheeky Lineker zing on Saturday

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLX100000000000000

itv fuckin it up 1987 style

also like that Tyldsley went on about what an amazing seasoned pro finish Gosling's winner was when it deflected off Mascherano's hand onto Skrtel's shin on the way in

I went to itv.com to see if post match interviews were up and got

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shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.

* Please contact the web site owners to inform them of this problem.

useless bastards

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ok what actually happened here? i watched it in the pub and, yeah, it looked like they were going to a break but footage was back on within about 5 seconds and we all to clearly saw the jammy goal. dunno what went on afterwards either, did they lose it again?

Game was ongoing, they cut to ad break (the wee sponsorship ad then couple of adverts) then straight back to the game in time to see lots of Everton players piling onto each other in celebration.

wtf

Internets suggesting that how long they outed for depended which ITV region you were watching on. I was watching ITV London, which was what was on that YouTube clip above, though other sources (including or something up there) suggest they rectified it quicker in other areas?

yeah Ailsa, I was watching on Granada (albeit not in NW England - long story) and they managed to cut back to the football just as the winger was about to cross. Still, it was remarkably inept.

I'm pretty sure this was an accident. They wouldn't have deliberately scheduled an ad break for 2mins before the final whistle.

Apparently there's two centres of broadcasting in the UK, one in Leeds and one in London, hence the two different streams.

I'm pretty sure this was an accident. They wouldn't have deliberately scheduled an ad break for 2mins before the final whistle.

Credit crunch, advertising revenue drying up, Carol Thatcher etc

I was watching on Granada (albeit not in NW England - long story) and they managed to cut back to the football just as the winger was about to cross.

Ah, right - so most Everton fans saw the goal and most Liverpool fans didn't. Sorted.

*high five*

The BBC did a similar thing during the epic Aberdeen vs Celtic match the other day that made it to 12 penalties a piece. Earlier on we'd had to switch from BBC1 to BBC2 for something, then in the middle of the (admittedly very very long) penalty shootout they switched back to BBC1 without warning! Thankfully we were watching at home, and could quickly change the channel, but I bet there was a lot of pubs having to do some quick channel changing to avoid riots.

An ITV spokesman said investigations were under way as to the cause and it was too early to say if the weather was to blame.

ba ha.

CraigG, how much of that Celtic game did you watch without being able to tell the difference between Aberdeen and Dundee Utd :-)

That was totally different as they did warn that they were switching channels for the news (it's not that unusual for over-running matches to jump between channels, they'd done it in the last round when Partick took Rangers to extra time as well). Unscheduled ad breaks in the middle of a game is a whole different kettle of fish.

I think with the semi-final they switch channels twice and didn't warn anyone the second time, which was in the middle of the shoot-out.

Ah, OK.

Andy Townsend thinks that Dawson is better than Gallas, Palacios is better than Song, Bale better than Nasri, Lennon better than Theo and Defoe better than Arshavin. And this guy gets paid to write and talk about football. I'll give him Gomes over Almunia though. This guy can go eat a fucking dick.

Dawson, Gallas- Haven't seen enough of Gallas to say. Dawson plays more, and is our third choice centre back. He's been good (often great) this season, but is always one step from disaster. Meh- I'll probably agree with you here.

Palacios is a better DM than Song, but then I don't think Song's a DM.

Bale is more useful/productive than Nasri, I think- certainly on the left.

Lennon is better than Theo.

Defoe seems to be a lot more useful than Arshavin, who I've heard a huge amount of complaints about from Arsenal fans this past season.

Gomes is better than Almunia.

Townsend can indeed eat a fucking dick- even aged 9 I always thought he was shit for Ireland and he's a shit commentator/pundit.

His 'tactics truck' was the single most embarrassing thing I have seen on sports-related tv.

Townsend is terrible but I gotta say, Arsenal-tinted glasses are on full display there, Sam

I should maybe underline that I'm willing to debate all of those except for lennon and gomes, but there's no way that even a majority of them are clear cut arsenal wins.

really the article is just toss though.

but while i'm winding sam-

woodgate or king vs vermaelen (esp king, ceterus paribus) debatable

at lm, modric > either bale or nasri

no room for thudd- deeply uneasy about this, but not moving fabregas even on challopday

thudd vs rosicky imo

no wait

diaby

thudd >>>>>>>>>> diaby

sorted

and oh yeah corluka sagna also debatable. i'd go for corluka myself.

so what i'm saying is that, depending on formation, we'd have fabregas, clichy, van persie and maybe vermaelen

and wenger. i would take wenger- that's kinda U&K

forgetting kranjcar, he's a classy & beautiful guy

bale >>> clichy

I think Townsend is right on the majority of those.

Arsh's unwillingness to perform for most of this season has been heart-breaking, frankly, but I wouldn't say Defoe is "better". "More useful" might well have been les mots just tbh.

   gomes
sagna woodgate vermaelen bale
         song
     nasri fabregas
lennon             arshavin    
       van persie

that wd be for a super attacking team
shitty basis for an article tho really

totally replacing song with palacios and nasri with modric in that team fwiw

i'm not claiming bale > clichy at LB tbh, bale still very ropey in defence.

xp 'timely piece' but yeah shitty article i think we're all agreed.

xp nasri for modric for sure

and clichy ISN'T ropey in defence?

Top flight full backs aren't supposed to be able to defend in the 21st century

apparently

sort of shitty that the manchester derby is so poor that i'm scribbling formations comprising of two other also-rans

hahaha nice

clichy's defensive ropiness- twine

bale's defensive ropiness- frayed string

my bad i forgot modric.

          Gomes

Sagna Corluka Verm Clichy

         Song wtf darragh even you have spent the past 6 months saying Palacios has been shit while Song is more important to Arsenal than Cesc these days

     Cesc                 Modric

Nasri                         Arshavin, sure he can annoy but he's still fucking! Arshavin

            van Persie

Subs: Szchzchzhzchzhchy, Gallas, Eboue, THUDD, Krancjar, Theo, Defoe.

Manager: The one who wouldn't get them all arrested for tax dodging and stealing Cassius Clay's pills, he needs 'em more, ya know.

palacios having a shit 6 months is just gonna have to be allowed, tbh. he's still the best defensive midfielder we've had in....years, and tbh i've only been following spurs since 1993 or so, but imo I have to go back at least that far.

i like song. he's not a defensive midfielder! i'm not saying palacios > song in this, but picking an 11 then fabregas is unquestioned, and in the interests of actually balancing a midfield then it's wilson all day.

king, dawson, woodgate and prob bassong all stronger at centre half than corluka- sorry, but sagna dropped.

nasri on right ahead of lennon? nope.

arshavin on left I'll allow, as i will van persie lone striker.

ok, how are negotiations going?

How is Song not a defensive midfielder? I don't get this. Is this because he can also *shock horror* pass the ball?

Also Lennon cannot do this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tx-R5jxpr4

Also Corluka must be a better defender than 2 retired hacks and Dawson. He's just classier than Gallas and Bassong. Plus I'm working on the matter that you need a tall handsome man in defence these days to succeed, also known as the Gerald Pique Principle.

no, it's because he can't tackle and doesn't really sit back.

iirc, retired hacks make cf in your team.

The FA Cup's on ITV now is it? No wonder I haven't been able to find it all weekend. As for your question, all of them are too bland to inspire hatred.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, January 4, 2009 3:49 PM (1 year ago)

How did I ever think this? SB'ed self.

tbh i think i'd take bendtner&crouch over defoe&pav&keane&broken-ed

tbh wtf

'good w/ his feet' + fabregas a winning combo?

Adrian Chiles to anchor this summer's World Cup coverage, then disappear to the same island Des Lynam went to.

ITV's World Cup coverage will include pundits such as Patrick Vieira and Francois Pienaar joining new anchor Adrian Chiles, a new James Corden show and a "dual screen" link-up with ITV.com.

The broadcaster, which will air 32 live games from the event in high definition for the first time, will field a presenting lineup including Vieira, Marcel Desailly, Kevin Keegan and Edgar Davids.

ITV has also signed Pienaar, who captained South Africa to their Rugby World Cup win in 1995, to join the presenting team for the opening ceremony and the first match between South Africa and Mexico on 11 June.

Lead presenting duties will fall to Chiles, who signed with ITV last month following a rapid exit from the BBC after it emerged that Chris Evans was to replace him on Friday nights on The One Show, with Matt Smith to present some games and highlights programmes.

Not that Matt Smith, surely?

Francois Pienaar

A friggin' Rugby player, fuck right off

Pathetic

tell you what edgar

James Corden's World Cup Live

Just had the shuddering realisation that we are a maximum of four years away from the inevitable James Corden comedy football song.

Unless he dies.

It could happen.

He is fat

Lotta strain on that hilarious roly-poly heart.

Other TV programming will include ... Gazza's Tears - The Night That Changed Football

Imagine what this is going to be like and then imagine watching it with a friend/relative from any other nation on earth with even a remote interest in football

Incidentally BBC3 had a programme on last night called England's Worst Ever Football Team and I'm wondering who got in it. Apart from Phil Neville, which was the bit I saw.

Dipped in out of it. Shit prog of course. Let me see:

Paul Robinson
Warren Barton
Phil Neville
John Terry (capt.)
Keith Curle (!?!?!?)

Carlton Palmer
Neil Hodge

Michael Ricketts
John Fashanu

... couple missing there

should surely have franny jeffers in that XI. Although one appearance one goal is a decent record!

Hold on it wasn't Robinson, it was Peter Bonetti

Oh I saw the bit with Kieron Dyer in it as well. Can't deny he merits his place really.

Kieron Dyer! Joey Barton!

By the way, far worse players played for England in the 70s, they didn't qualify for the World Cup for 12 years after all

Just had the shuddering realisation that we are a maximum of four years away from the inevitable James Corden comedy football song.

Dizzee Rascal and James Corden are reportedly planning to cover a 1980s song as an unofficial World Cup single for this summer's tournament in South Africa.

According to The Sun, the collaboration has been planned by X Factor boss Simon Cowell.

It's gonna be World In Motion with new verses and Corden doing the John Barnes bit, right?

Well anyone can rap, according to Corden

Is 'Neil Webb' Neil Webb or Steve Hodge? If the former, then yes - he was dire. Steve Hodge, however was excellent in Mexico 86 after Robson's injury and Ray Wilkin's suspension.

What's the premise of this team anyway? Is it the worst players per se to have represented England? Or the worst performers in an England shirt?

Either way to have P Neville in there is pretty unfair as he's a decent player and is unfairly remembered for giving away that penalty that stopped us going to Euro-whatever. Bonnetti, was a fine, fine goalkeeper, again unfairly remembered for one bad game in Mexico 70. Carson was as bad vs Croatia.

Bonetti probably was a very good keeper, but that one performance was so significant - you were World Cup holders, 2-0 up against Germany, lost 3-2, and he was to blame for at least two of the goals, and you didn't qualify for another World Cup for 12 years!

Nah P Neville wasn't decent, he just brought comedy fouls wherever he played. Gets away with murder in the tackle, always has done.

Much worse players have played for England than Phil Neville. They didn't have a single good full back, on either flank, throughout most of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

yeah they were all playing for us iirc

and you didn't qualify for another World Cup for 12 years!

Obviously Bonnetti's fault.

Some who would could make my team (criterion being that they were not International class):

Carlton Palmer, Mark Barham, Ricketts, Barton, Garry Birtles, David Nugent, Mike Duxbury, Michael Gray, Jeff Blockley, Mick Harford, Mike Phelan, Gavin McCann, Alvin Martin, Nicky Shorey, Michael Thomas, Andy Gray (Spurs), Ian Walker (has to get the keeper's spot), Paul Walsh, Brian Stein, Graham Roberts

Zat Knight has an England cap as well.

It'd make for a shit TV programme though.

anthony gardner has a cap, but he scored iirc

Mark Barham

I have no idea who this is. And I didn't realise most of those you listed had played for England. Didn't know Keith Curle had either.

Am I right in thinking these are mostly 80s players? I couldn't have been paying much attention to England then. Didn't know who Tony Daley was either.

My god

David Nugent scored as well. It was probably the most school football team 'goal' I've ever seen from an England player.

Noone's complaining about JT being in the team I see.

Wow, some of those names take me back.

Garry Birtles

He was really shit too when he came to Man U iirc.

That's daft too, they felt they had to have a "captain" (xp)

Baffling exclusion of Danny Mills.

Danny Mills / Mick Mills combination would have been perfect

Heather Mills as well.

Danny Mills did not play that badly in 2002 iirc. It was probably the last time he did anything of note in football.

yeah he was a big success in that tournament

For an Englishman, yes

Mark Barham was a Norwich winger in the late 80's IIRC. Didn't Keith Curle go to Euro 92?

Other shitehawks: Andy Sinton (a winger without pace), Stewart Downing (ditto), Gary Bailey (fat goalie), Neil Ruddock (very fat stopper), Steve Froggatt (fragile headless chicken), Richard Wright, Terry Fenwick (slow clogger), David White, Darius Vassell (fast in a straight line, without the ball)

Stuart Ripley? I know he got injured but was he any good?

OK, David White is drawing a total blank. Steve Froggatt?

You really need to raise your game wrt knowing about Villa players from 1993.

Vassell was another shit player with a good record for England, until his missed penalty in 2004.

What a cast of Villans

You really need to raise your game wrt knowing about Villa players from 1993.

Pre-Premiership, English football wasn't as all pervasive as it is now, plus Scottish football wasn't as shite

Well, Villa have provided more England players than any other club, so it's natural that a significant portion of the players who have crushed the national self esteem with their ineptitude over the years would be Villa boys.

did they build up the numbers in the 70's and 80's?

David Nugent scored as well. It was probably the most school football team 'goal' I've ever seen from an England player.

hahaha it was 6 inches out and going in anyway wasn't it

heskey would have blocked it

Remember that West Ham goal where Tevez blocked the ball on the line in an offside position and they gave a goal? That may actually be the worst decision ever.

not while mendes is still breathing (just)

Remember that West Ham goal where Tevez blocked the ball on the line in an offside position and they gave a goal? That may actually be the worst decision ever.

And there was a handball. That was to beat Blackburn, in their pact-with-devil escape which they deserve terminal financial ruin for

I figure Mendes is like a pair of aces in bad decision terms, but the West Ham one is like some Royal Flush of comprehensive wrongness

ok on consideration it trumps mendes, yeah

Wasn't there a goal given this season where the ball visibly didn't even come close to going over the line?

There was the Reading-Watford one in 2008 that went wide.

It went wide.

Hahahahaha omg amazing. Is it on Youtube?

Wasn't there a goal given this season where the ball visibly didn't even come close to going over the line?

there was one of these too, i think it was last season though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0YiuSbBdaQ

also lolwarnock where the ball came off the back off the net/stanchion and the goal didn't stand- some kid's debut goal or something?

if Palace had gone down I'd have posted that one about 40 times by now - against B City iirc

There was a Southampton one in the 90s that hit the advertising hoarding through the net and bounced out again.

Is 'Neil Webb' Neil Webb or Steve Hodge?

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I reckon 'Neil Webb' is Neil Webb.

xp that's right temurii ketsbaia lost a week's wages on the outcome and a terrible vendetta was born

can't believe Matt DC isn't already thoroughly acquainted with the Jon Eustace Phantom OG - it's part of footballing lore. Stuart Attwell was the referee. The young one.

That's classic - how the hell did he give that. There was one in the 70's where Stevie Kember of Palace (later of Chelsea) hit the outside of the stanchion and it was given until Kember told the ref that he'd missed.

xp - Neil Webb desrves to be in there. Very very slow.

Talking of Palace - John Salako.

john salako is a fucking legend

This is a legend:

Peter Bonnetti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM7Smaue7Q4&feature=related

aw he's so little

This is fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4b7flwMTwM&feature=fvw

Some classic Barthez screw-ups, but Taibo (or whatever he was called) is the best - it's the first one.

Back to the matter in hand: Dave Beasant. A career based on one fecking penalty save in the cup final.

Tyldsley and Gray commentating on ITV's coverage of pro-celebrity matches is a masterclass in how not to be self-aware in any way whatsoever and kind of wonderful in a bizarro way. It's like a live action episode of Billy The Fish.

haha, it is, isn't it? I particularly liked the bit where they basically suggested that Cheryl Cole was available for shagging any fit celeb/footballer.

i only wanted to watch this for woody, but i haven't seen him once

Injured in training by Buzz Lightyear

YES

IT IS, ITS WOODY HARRELSON

Woody Harrelson cracked onto a friend of mine in a bar on Thursday night and gave her two free tickets to this game. She didn't take him up on either offfer.

classic Woody

okay woody is going to score the winner isn't he

bah

COME ON WOODY

WOODY TO WIN IT

LOL

lolol

"WOODY FROM CHEERS"

I only watched the shootout but that was classic shit.

it really was

any England shootout this summer will come nowhere near that level of drama

Pro-celeb football is like watching Mahler's 8th played by a deaf clown orchestra.

You suddenly realise quite how good even really shit professional footballers actually are.

Peter Drury is the worst. He needs to die, rather urgently.

Absolutely fucking shit from start to finish. A real-life Alan Partridge.

Clive Tyldesley is much, much, much, much more acceptable as a commentator and a human being, than Drury, and I hope this is becoming apparent. NB I do not like Clive Tyldesley

but also Beglin, as he's always moaning

just watching highlights, tyldo w/

SPURS SHOWING SOME GOOD OLD JOE JORDAN DETERMINATION

http://i.imgur.com/oqsCuRh.png

The results of this poll always seemed quaint in the years since, strange that people had such a strong collective delusion that Clive was anything other than a professional and broadly listenable broadcaster

This latest development does call his personal judgement into question though, hmm

Mark Bowen the other night though, fucking hell. Fucking hell.

Mark Bowen sounded like he'd been ambushed after spending all afternoon in a pub and miked up with barely any knowledge of it. Tyldesley however does this as a job and seems to get every ITV big gig now. He's become more hateful than Drury and should have been sacked for at least two particular comments this summer.

"Justice for the England eleven"