Robbie Savage Confused By Arsenal New-Boy Per Mertesacker
By Alan Duffy
Football punditry is a cushy number indeed. Apparently, you don’t even have to know anything about the actual footballers you are talking about, particularly if they are “foreign chaps”.
From Paul Merson and the Sky Soccer Saturday crew to Match Of The Day’s Holy Trinity of Lawrenson, Hansen and Shearer, ignorance is apparently bliss. Why swot up on world football when you can swan into the studio and spew a clichéd stream of (un)consciousness?
Blonde-bonced Robbie Savage is the latest ex-pro to highlight this endemic lack of knowledge, getting into a right muddle over his German centre-halves on BBC 5Live yesterday evening. Responding to news of German giant Per Mertesacker’s cheap-as-chips move to Arsenal, the Welsh terrier questioned the quality of the Gunners’ new signing, pointing to his poor spell at Real Madrid. Except, Mertesacker hadn’t played for Los Merengues. That was Christoph Metzelder.
Admittedly the latter is also German, a centre-back and has a second name which begins with an “Me” and ends with an “er”, but is this really good enough for a professional football “expert”? The eternally modest Savage did eventually admit on Twitter that even a great man such as himself wasn’t perfect – “There you go tweeps I’m human !! Lol”, but his error had already been shovelled onto the mountainous, steaming pile of memorable punditry aberrations.
However, until prospective pundits are required to do some kind of entrance exam before embarking on a media career, expect another season of gaffes, goofs and gross embarrassment.
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Yup, and Dowie (on SSN) insisted on saying Jack “Wiltshere” all night…
Those foreigners and their funny names.
Still find it hard to believe anyone would want Robbie Savage ad a pundit in the first place, after all, he hasn’t had the most successful playing career…….
@ David Allison Ya but he’s been a REVELATION since he broke in the Arsenal team. Must have said it ^^^^^^^^^^ a hundred times
Savage is an idiot.
Robbie Savage is making quite a career out of mocking Arsenal just listen to him every weekend on 606!!
hoppla!
Didn’t hear it myself but apparently Alan Brazil was shouting on talksport that Joe Cole was taking a step down in going to Lille (French champions and in the CL), and should have gone to QPR or West Ham.
Also, Savage really is an insufferable cock, I used to enjoy 606 but he just makes it unbearable, Mark Chapman doesn’t help matters either, I don’t enjoy his continued presence on 5live.
Welcome to Rafa’s world.
Zonal is rubbish, according to Andy Gray. Pepe Reina stole his 3 Golden Gloves. But with man-to-man at least you know who to blame. Apparently the goal doesn’t count if you know who to blame. Or it never happens again. Or something
Rafa left a worse squad than he inherited, according to Alan Hansen. He’d take Dudek, Henchoz, El Hadji Diouf, Sissoko and Baros over Reina, Agger, Kuyt, Lucas and Torres all day long.
He spent over £200m on a mediocre squad, according to all pundits. Notwithstanding I’ve spent over £50,000 gross on cars in my time but still only own a £5,000 car, that’s the squad which got 2 Champions League finals and an FA Cup before Hicks & Gillett showed up and even under their asset stripping managed 9 goals more than anybody, only two losses, doubles over Utd and Chelsea and a 4-0 hammering of Real to go with the 4-1 at OT.
He was too defensive. 9 goals more than anybody with all that high pressing is what Roy Hodgson was all about, too.
Henry Winter in the Times said Rafa was coldhearted for remaining in Japan at the World Club Cup when his father died. Winter went on to praise Tony Pulis for showing up at half time after his mum died when he was just down the road. A shining example of the British media’s attitude to “foreign chaps.”