[Albion] In football terms, to get brushed aside and blown away by Brighton was a disaster. It was

[zefarelly]

In punditry terms, spending more than a second or two contemplating the considered opinion of Mr Merson is disastrous in the extreme.
The man has the insight, intelligence and analytical skills of a jacket potato.
And that's probably being unfair to jacket potatoes.

Most pundits are ex players
Most ex players are stupid
Most punditry is diabolically bad

I like your analogy and it is extremely accurate, however, we're more likely to get chastised for berating vegan foodstuff than calling facts on ****tarded eejits spouting utter cobblers on the telly these days.

Sausage roll anyone?

 

[Easy 10]

Its quite depressing that this bloke actually gets given fasands (I won't say "earns") for spouting semi-literate, ill-conceived, zero-researched pig-ignorant bollocks of the type you'd here from some slurring, drooling, slack-jawed coked-up moron, swaying there in his piss-splashed shoes and a baseball cap, propping up a bar in some tragic burnt-out urban hellhole with sticky floors in front of a dead-eyed knocked-up half cut barmaid vacantly shoving stale pork scratchings past her smeared slipstick, slowly chewing on them like a neglected cow on cud.

Yet Sky STILL see feet to strap this bewildered ape into a suit and tie, shove him in front of a camera, and allow him to bestow the nation with his half-baked drivel. I must be missing something.

 

[Mackenzie]

It's great that Sky have given him a chance, it's not hard to imagine where he'd be without his media stuff.

 

[nickjhs]

Some of the pundits are waking up to the fact that you cannot learn anything about how we are going to perform based upon last season. Merson is obviously in the (shrinking) group that would focus on what went wrong with the other 19 teams, if we were ever to win the PL.

 

[Falmer Flutter ©]

Merson’s on The Debate on Sky Sports 1 just now, analysing the weekend’s results.

He can barely string two words together.

When he does, he repeats himself to emphasise his point and to fill the void. He just told us about 8 times that “Poch is a top manager”. Everything is “massive, massive”.

Oh god, the repetition! He's unbearable as it is, but once you notice how he repeats every single thing he says it just makes me want to rip my scalp off (I have no hair to tear out).

 

[Bold Seagull]

Tough crowd Paul.

We had a few threads and a few poster’s saying very similar things prior to the weekend (#pray4spence). We were all getting a bit edgy after all our draws and unable to turn possession into goals in recent games. We were abject at Chelsea, toothless at City, lacking a real threat at Newcastle .I’m as shocked as Merson we stuck 3 unanswered goals passed anyone, let alone a champions league outfit.

I suspect he’s only echoing what many thought about Saturday’s result. He is what he is, no point getting worked up about it.

 

[yxee]

He's not saying getting beaten by Brighton is a joke. He's saying getting blown away by Brighton is a joke. I took it as a comment on our dominance rather than the result. From a Spurs fan perspective it probably was pretty worrying.

The 3-0 comment was unfortunate though.

 

[B-right-on]

And tipped us for relegation in our first Premier League season on the basis he did not know any of the players we signed.

He really is a grade A plonker

He tips us for relegation every season.

He's just a knobhead with a Microphone.

 

[Seasider78]

 

[grubbyhands]

Its quite depressing that this bloke actually gets given fasands (I won't say "earns") for spouting semi-literate, ill-conceived, zero-researched pig-ignorant bollocks of the type you'd here from some slurring, drooling, slack-jawed coked-up moron, swaying there in his piss-splashed shoes and a baseball cap, propping up a bar in some tragic burnt-out urban hellhole with sticky floors in front of a dead-eyed knocked-up half cut barmaid vacantly shoving stale pork scratchings past her smeared slipstick, slowly chewing on them like a neglected cow on cud.

Yet Sky STILL see feet to strap this bewildered ape into a suit and tie, shove him in front of a camera, and allow him to bestow the nation with his half-baked drivel. I must be missing something.

Stop pussy-footing around FFS, say wha you really think!

 

[Springal]

Spurs were in the Champions League final a few months ago, while we couldn't buy a win at home and had only won 1 game this season. We beat Spurs 3-0, that is a disaster for a club with Top 4 aspirations.

Had we not won on Saturday we'd be in the bottom 3 would we not? And yes our previous win was 3-0 against Watford... who are rooted to the bottom of the table.

Can't see much wrong with this?

 

[Bish Bosh]

Its quite depressing that this bloke actually gets given fasands (I won't say "earns") for spouting semi-literate, ill-conceived, zero-researched pig-ignorant bollocks of the type you'd here from some slurring, drooling, slack-jawed coked-up moron, swaying there in his piss-splashed shoes and a baseball cap, propping up a bar in some tragic burnt-out urban hellhole with sticky floors in front of a dead-eyed knocked-up half cut barmaid vacantly shoving stale pork scratchings past her smeared slipstick, slowly chewing on them like a neglected cow on cud.

Yet Sky STILL see feet to strap this bewildered ape into a suit and tie, shove him in front of a camera, and allow him to bestow the nation with his half-baked drivel. I must be missing something.

It's Donald Trump syndrome. Merson is successful in getting work because he can connect with morons, being one himself.

Many football fans - as in all walks of life - are morons. Newspaper owners realised this a long time ago...there is a lot of money to be made feeding ignorance.

 

[Gritt23]

I do wonder whether it could be step 3 on the ladder in the Premier League. The days are long gone of Watford coming up and immediately finding themselves at the top of the table, as a new young team playing a different brand of football under Graham Taylor. Wolves were the nearest we've had in ages, and in truth, finishing 7th in your first season up, wouldn't have been such a big story back in 1983. That reflects my age, that reflects my early football years which sets the barometer for a lot of things. But that can't be done now, the steps are much smaller these days.

Step 1 - promotion. But everyone predicts you are going straight back down.
Step 2 - survival. Not by much though, and pretty much everyone still has you as one of the teams battling again next season.
Step 3 - acceptance. I think of this as when you stop hearing the team being automatically rolled out as the pundits tip for the drop, but maybe it's more subtle, maybe it's when you stop becoming a #teamslike whenever you beat someone. Bournemouth are there, Wolves jumped straight to this, but the majority of us get there a step at a time.

beyond that.

Step 4 - push on. People stop talking about survival, and start suggesting you can move further up the League, top 10 even.
Step 5 - Europe! You could be tantalising close to Europe, but should you get there, you are so worried about the extra games causing you to slide down the table, that for all the effort to get there, you abandon the Europe League anyway, resting players up for the crucial trip to Watford at the weekend.
Step 6 - Cups. Happy enough that you are safe from the drop, that you can actually entertain the idea of putting out a strong side in Cups and maybe even winning something.
Step 7 - Gamble. The only way you get beyond Step 6 is to bet the farm on pushing on further. Whether that is gambling everything you have, or handing things over to a mega rich egomaniac who may turn out to be a Sugar Daddy that pumps in whatever it takes to go further, or he may turn out to be a mad chicken farmer from Indonesia who ends up being wanted for serious fraud and has his financial assets frozen.

Enjoy the ride.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Its quite depressing that this bloke actually gets given fasands (I won't say "earns") for spouting semi-literate, ill-conceived, zero-researched pig-ignorant bollocks of the type you'd here from some slurring, drooling, slack-jawed coked-up moron, swaying there in his piss-splashed shoes and a baseball cap, propping up a bar in some tragic burnt-out urban hellhole with sticky floors in front of a dead-eyed knocked-up half cut barmaid vacantly shoving stale pork scratchings past her smeared slipstick, slowly chewing on them like a neglected cow on cud.

Yet Sky STILL see feet to strap this bewildered ape into a suit and tie, shove him in front of a camera, and allow him to bestow the nation with his half-baked drivel. I must be missing something.

Elegant. Which reminds me. I haven't seen anything of NSC's other great Hunter S. Thompson tribute act, [MENTION=5076]Bevendean Hillbilly[/MENTION] for a while. I hope he hasn't run away to join a cult.

Bact to the topic, I actually think that many ex footballer pundits are decent. I enjoy listening to the long shows during the week on 5 live, and the post-match programmes. I am even beginning to warm to Sutton (although sometimes it would be best if he and 'Bruce' just nip off to the bogs for 10 minutes of rumpy pumpy rather than continually flirt like a pair of sweaty play-fighting over-sexed 15 year olds in a boy-scout tent at Small Dole).

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Tough crowd Paul.

We had a few threads and a few poster’s saying very similar things prior to the weekend (#pray4spence). We were all getting a bit edgy after all our draws and unable to turn possession into goals in recent games. We were abject at Chelsea, toothless at City, lacking a real threat at Newcastle .I’m as shocked as Merson we stuck 3 unanswered goals passed anyone, let alone a champions league outfit.

I suspect he’s only echoing what many thought about Saturday’s result. He is what he is, no point getting worked up about it.

I love the smell of people pretending to be new to NSC in the morning

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I do wonder whether it could be step 3 on the ladder in the Premier League. The days are long gone of Watford coming up and immediately finding themselves at the top of the table, as a new young team playing a different brand of football under Graham Taylor. Wolves were the nearest we've had in ages, and in truth, finishing 7th in your first season up, wouldn't have been such a big story back in 1983. That reflects my age, that reflects my early football years which sets the barometer for a lot of things. But that can't be done now, the steps are much smaller these days.

Step 1 - promotion. But everyone predicts you are going straight back down.
Step 2 - survival. Not by much though, and pretty much everyone still has you as one of the teams battling again next season.
Step 3 - acceptance. I think of this as when you stop hearing the team being automatically rolled out as the pundits tip for the drop, but maybe it's more subtle, maybe it's when you stop becoming a #teamslike whenever you beat someone. Bournemouth are there, Wolves jumped straight to this, but the majority of us get there a step at a time.

beyond that.

Step 4 - push on. People stop talking about survival, and start suggesting you can move further up the League, top 10 even.
Step 5 - Europe! You could be tantalising close to Europe, but should you get there, you are so worried about the extra games causing you to slide down the table, that for all the effort to get there, you abandon the Europe League anyway, resting players up for the crucial trip to Watford at the weekend.
Step 6 - Cups. Happy enough that you are safe from the drop, that you can actually entertain the idea of putting out a strong side in Cups and maybe even winning something.
Step 7 - Gamble. The only way you get beyond Step 6 is to bet the farm on pushing on further. Whether that is gambling everything you have, or handing things over to a mega rich egomaniac who may turn out to be a Sugar Daddy that pumps in whatever it takes to go further, or he may turn out to be a mad chicken farmer from Indonesia who ends up being wanted for serious fraud and has his financial assets frozen.

Enjoy the ride.

Very good points. But you missed out step 8:

You reach a point where you are 'too good to go down' and are immediately and unexpectedly relegated

 

[Bry Nylon]

Is he back on the drugs?

 

[el punal]

In punditry terms, spending more than a second or two contemplating the considered opinion of Mr Merson is disastrous in the extreme.
The man has the insight, intelligence and analytical skills of a jacket potato.
And that's probably being unfair to jacket potatoes.

Then, convert that into potato waffle.

 

[el punal]

The lazy journalism of a coke-sniffing alcoholic wife-beating bum. The ****.

Thanks Jeff Stelling!

 

[el punal]

Its quite depressing that this bloke actually gets given fasands (I won't say "earns") for spouting semi-literate, ill-conceived, zero-researched pig-ignorant bollocks of the type you'd here from some slurring, drooling, slack-jawed coked-up moron, swaying there in his piss-splashed shoes and a baseball cap, propping up a bar in some tragic burnt-out urban hellhole with sticky floors in front of a dead-eyed knocked-up half cut barmaid vacantly shoving stale pork scratchings past her smeared slipstick, slowly chewing on them like a neglected cow on cud.

Yet Sky STILL see feet to strap this bewildered ape into a suit and tie, shove him in front of a camera, and allow him to bestow the nation with his half-baked drivel. I must be missing something.

Excellent! Do you write the scripts for Eastenders?