(bumped) Ronnie Whelan is as big a **** as Dunphy and Giles.

[Red Chilli]

Playing the game and opining about it/offering insight are totally different matters. Look at Redknapp FFS! Gifted footballer, ****ing clueless when it comes to understanding managers’ decision, tactics etc. There are hundreds of examples. Gascogine is one. Unbelievably talented player, but the guy couldn’t get an under 14s side keeping clean sheets and winning games.

They must have insight into the game. Expressing an opinion IS a different matter, maybe he has trouble getting his point across, but he MUST have insight.

Gazza is different as is anyone who is a chronic substance abuser with obvious psychiatric disorders.


PS: fredo agrees with you

[BFG]

I was gonna say the same. Just because someone has played at the highest level, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he has any sort of insight into the game.

The reverse also applies, with people like Mourinho, Wenger and Rafa all proving extremely knowledgeable without having played the game at the highest level.

A number of top class players have gone to become abominable managers. Whelan has become an abominable pundit. He spouts endless streams of hyperbolic, kneejerk crap without ever backing it up or explaining himself with good reason. The call for Benitez to be sacked and replaced by Mourinho – as highlighted by Dhav – is a perfect case in point.

Footballers are like any profession, some will be astute and intuitive, some will be less so and therefore won't be able to analyse the game in the same way, even though they have the physical and enough mental capacity to play the game very well.

[Red Chilli]

Footballers are like any profession, some will be astute and intuitive, some will be less so and therefore won't be able to analyse the game in the same way, even though they have the physical and enough mental capacity to play the game very well.

But....

Could they play the game 'without any insight' at that level? I doubt it

[Dhav]

They must have insight into the game. Expressing an opinion IS a different matter, maybe he has trouble getting his point across, but he MUST have insight.

Gazza is different as is anyone who is a chronic substance abuser with obvious psychiatric disorders.


PS: fredo agrees with you

They should have insight into the game, it doesn't necessarily follow in my book that they do, particularly if they are as clueless and moronic as the likes of Merson and Redknapp. In their cases, perhaps they do have insight, but it is so minimal it is almost negligible

[Shaggy]

They must have insight into the game. Expressing an opinion IS a different matter, maybe he has trouble getting his point across, but he MUST have insight.

Gazza is different as is anyone who is a chronic substance abuser with obvious psychiatric disorders.

What’s Redknapp’s excuse then?!?! Robbie Earle’s? Tony Gale’s? There are literally dozens who aren’t substance abusers!!

Some footballers are notorious. Talented with a ball at their feet but clueless about ‘game management’, learning, taking on board instructions etc. In fact a guy I used to play with was like that – a lethal centre-forward but as thick as pig ****. Understood nothing about the game. He had to be coached endlessly to bend his runs and stay onside, but when he did he stuck the ball in the net routinely. Finding space came naturally to him but he couldn’t explain to anyone how to do it. It was instinctive.

Ronnie Whelan’s job is to offer considered opinion and insight, yet he fails to deliver. He just spouts ill-informed, knee-jerk crap. Continuously.

[BFG]

But....

Could they play the game 'without any insight' at that level? I doubt it

I'd say yes because they're being told to do specific things. That's a lot different to analysing something and being able to work out the best course of action independently. Even dogs can be 'trained' into doing specific things in a faultless manner. Doesn't mean the dog could tell you the best way to throw the ****ing ball.

[Jan Molby]

[QUOTE=ShaggyAlonso;1172252]I was gonna say the same. Just because someone has played at the highest level, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he has any sort of insight into the game.


wow.
what a statement!
surely they would have a better insight into the game than me, you or most people on these forums, a former pro footballer??????
come on

[Red Chilli]

It's a small point, I think we all agree with the main point that calling Whelan a cunt is cuntish behaviour

I believe that to play football professionally, at world cups winning dozens of caps under a manager like Jack Charlton, whilst playing for decades in the most successful team in Britain under managers like Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish and being involved in teamtalks with the likes of Dalglish, Souness, Neal, Rush, Hansen etc you must have some insight into the game

[Shaggy]

[QUOTE=Jan Molby;1172284]

I was gonna say the same. Just because someone has played at the highest level, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he has any sort of insight into the game.


wow.
what a statement!
surely they would have a better insight into the game than me, you or most people on these forums, a former pro footballer??????

You would think so but it’s far from always being the case.

Steve Claridge bases his entire outlook as a pundit on the premise “if you haven’t played the game at the highest level, then you nothing about it” – which is patently bollocks. I’ve given examples above.

I’ve drunk regularly in a pub with a couple of ex pros (not highest level, granted – but blokes who played hundreds of games in the lower leagues) and they haven’t a ****ing clue about the game.

[Red Chilli]

[QUOTE=Jan Molby;1172284]

I was gonna say the same. Just because someone has played at the highest level, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he has any sort of insight into the game.


wow.
what a statement!
surely they would have a better insight into the game than me, you or most people on these forums, a former pro footballer??????
come on

It was a strange statement

[Jan Molby]

Ronnie Whelan’s job is to offer considered opinion and insight, yet he fails to deliver. He just spouts ill-informed, knee-jerk crap. Continuously.

incorrect, you are wrong, that is exactly what he did last night, and if some gob ****es with red tinted glasses on a poxy forum cant see that because they dont wanna here it, then thats there problem

[Shaggy]

Clearly not a strange statement ("it doesn't always follow" - hardly black and white) and I've given lots of examples that back my statement up.

[Shaggy]

incorrect, you are wrong, that is exactly what he did last night, and if some gob ****es with red tinted glasses on a poxy forum cant see that because they dont wanna here it, then thats there problem

I didn’t see him last night but you’d better explain to me why I am wearing “red-tinted glasses” because I strongly disagree with the following incredulous Whelan claims:

1. Benitez should be sacked and replaced by Mourinho.
2. Benitez can’t spot a player.
3. Mascherano is poor.

[Red Chilli]

Clearly not a strange statement ("it doesn't always follow" - hardly black and white) and I've given lots of examples that back my statement up.

Who?

Gazza? Merson? Claridge? All alcoholics, that makes their opinions highly dubious.
Redknapp? Well didn't get ANYWHERE CLOSE to achieving what Whelan achieved. I'd argue he never played at the highest level (World cups, european cup/champions league, and domestic champion)

[Shaggy]

Who?

Gazza? Merson? Claridge? All alcoholics, that makes their opinions highly dubious.
Redknapp? Well didn't get ANYWHERE CLOSE to achieving what Whelan achieved. I'd argue he never played at the highest level (World cups, european cup/champions league, and domestic champion)

Steve McMahon
David Platt
Bryan Robson
Ruud Gullit
Alan Mullery
Alan Shearer

I could go on.

I suppose they’re all alcoholics too.