The coverage of Premier League football had been crying out for a new wave of pundits
Football fans love talking about football. Whether you consider yourself an expert or you just like to keep up to date with who’s good and who’s not, there’s nothing better than talking absolute shite about the sport with anyone who’s willing to listen.
So when you’re watching a match on the TV, you might be interested to hear what the extremely well-paid pundits have to say at half-time and afterwards.
And sometimes it’s worth your while.
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have some brilliant debates that have the potential to genuinely change the way that you might feel about a subject, and Match of the Day analysis is often insightful, and helps you understand why certain players have done what they have done.
Listening to some of the best players to have ever played the game talk about football is always going to be interesting.
Thierry Henry was really good at Sky, before becoming Monaco manager, and the less said about that the better. Rio Ferdinand can be brilliant when he’s not talking nonsense about Newcastle, and even Michael Owen has his moments…
But there has been one star of the game this season, and that is Sky’s Alex Scott.
Scott retired from football with 140 caps for the England women’s international team, and over 140 caps for Arsenal’s women’s team.
She won five Premier League trophies, a Champions League, seven FA cups, and that’s just scratching the surface with regards to her honours in the sport of football.
But none of this matters, nor should it matter, when it comes to her ability to analyse the game of football. Some of the best footballers I’ve ever met have had some of the worst footballing opinions I’ve ever heard, and vice versa.
What matters is that Alex Scott is really good at her job.
But because she is a woman, people instinctively feel like she doesn’t deserve her seat at the table. You know, the same table that Graeme Souness sits and moans about Paul Pogba all day at, like an old man who’s driven mad by any sign of joy or happiness.
She is at an immediate disadvantage every time she’s on air, because she’s different to what we are used to. So she’s constantly under a microscope, and she has delivered every single time.
There has been a certain level of criticism of Alex Scott’s performance on Super Sunday last weekend, and it seems completely unjustified.
It got to the point that she had to come out in defence of herself on Twitter, saying that “There is room for us all to rise”.
Im not out here trying 2 be better than any Male/Female. There is room for us all to rise! I’m just trying to be the best ‘I’ can be in the role I am ‘employed’ to do.Have fun along the way, learn from people around me, grow/be better! FYI..back in the studio the weekend,haha😉 pic.twitter.com/mkUNrl8AoU
— Alex Scott MBE (@AlexScott) February 5, 2019
The fact that she even felt the need to defend herself against the keyboard warriors that took issue with her – that issue being that she is a woman talking about men playing a sport – is a sign that she never stood a chance in the current climate.
Sky have put out the same old tried and tested formula out time and again, where former footballers and boring pundits agreed with each other for half an hour after every game. Neville and Carragher have changed things up a bit, and the introduction of people like Alex Scott will only further the positive change.
Long may it continue.
