I try not to listen to the punditry as much as I can these days. I hear some of it when City are on because I want to hear Pep's post match interview but that's it.
I changed the way I viewed football on tv during the 2018/19 season, more specifically in the final month or so of the season. It was mainly due to Jamie Carragher. It was the tightest and therefore most stressful run in I'd experienced in my life and I was on edge about our results.
Before the late derby at Old Trafford, my lad's Sunday league team (that I coached) needed another team to lose a game in hand to stay up. Instead of sitting down to watch the gibbering scouse imbecile, cheering United on, I went to watch this under 12's match with my assistant who was a red but wanted us to win the league. The result went our way which put me in a good mood and we arrived at my house as the teams walked out of the tunnel at (Really) Old Trafford.
In that one decision, I realised that I don't need the fuckwits they pay to bore us all with their inane ramblings trying to tell me what to think and raising my stress levels.
If I'm at a mate's house now and they have a match on, I hear it because it is right there. Some of the absolute clowns that get work across the channels are staggering. I'm thinking Paul Merson on Soccer Saturday, Carragher, Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, Steve McManaman (who openly admits that he'd rather be somewhere else as soon as full time arrives, Eni Aluko, Clinton Morrison, Joe Cole and many others who I can't think of.
The better ones are Roy Keane (I know he plays the pantomime villain but he says what he sees at least), Alan Shearer mostly (although he does have moments like when he told Mario Balotelli to come back when he'd won something - erm, he's won as many Premier Leagues as you Alan as well as the FA Cup, Serie A, Champions League...), Jill Scott, Nedum Onouha and Graeme Souness (although he does like an agenda). Emma Hayes knows her stuff but that droll, Eastenders style drawl that she has, added to her boring all and sundry to death with tactical notes during the Russia World Cup has turned me off listening to her for good.
Joey Barton has gone absolutely loco over the past month or so. We always knew he was a head the ball but this weekend in particular, he's gone after Philip Schofield, ITV, Gary Neville, parts of the black community, Union Berlin, the nation of Germany and fuck knows who else. He seriously needs help before he does or tweets something that lands him in all kinds of shit.
There's no doubt whatsoever that a lot of pundits are there to tick boxes but for Christ's sake Joey - go after all of the shit ones instead of just the female ones. Anyone thinking he's doing well in all this because he's gone after Gary Neville (decent when he sticks to football instead of trying to be the spokesperson for all and sundry and using his platform to incite riots) need to have a lie down.
Joey Barton is a nasty, vindictive piece of shit who simply doesn't know when to stop digging.
