Graeme Sourness | Retires from “punditry”

The racism/unconcious bias claims are too simplistic. No doubt both exist...but especially when we're talking about somebody like Neville - somebody who's views have been very clear since the day he entered the public eye - there are more likely explanations.

Gotta remember Rooney got a huge amount of shit for the 'angry and confused' City flirtations. It never really left him, it was always used as a stick to beat him with and it even dampened his legacy in the eyes of some fans.

tjb said:
You have too many pundits with too many friends and biases that are allowed to be aired on TV.
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This is closer to reality. Some players, and their teams, simply do a lot more media work - and I'm not talking on camera. They form relationships with influential journalists, brands and TV personalities. It's a two way street...they get positive media coverage and in exchange the journalists and pundits get exclusive interviews (Neville's weird golf thing?), training ground & transfer gossip...and anything else that might come in handy.

Kane and his team work to form these relationships. Rooney certainly didn't. Pogba certainly doesn't.

It's the same reason Neville is accused of having an English bias. He has a bias for players who've formed a working relationship with him. Most of them happen to be English - but there's a load of English players he doesn't give a shit about and regularly hammers. Shaw was one of them for a LONG time.

Samuel Luckhurst did an interesting article a few weeks back, talking about what it's like dealing with players and their PR teams. He made a point to note that Shaw, or nobody connected to him, has ever complained about media coverage...he's one of those players that just does his work on the pitch, and the bare minimum obligatory stuff off it. He doesn't play the game with the likes of Neville. That's why he never got the 'English player protection'.

You can bet that Souness's 'I've been told that it didn't go like that' story came directly from the Kane camp.
 
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People are talking about racism but I think it's different (although the nuance gets lost in the shouting sometimes). For me, it's as clear-cut as xenophobia.

English players get a much easier ride than foreign ones, even when the levels are way different. For example, I know TalkSport are basically a shit-stirrer media but I cannot imagine that comment about Ben White and Varane being made if the nationalities were reversed.

It happens on this forum as well - before last year Martial was doing as well as Rashford and yet it was constantly Martial in people's mouths when it came to who's lazy.
 
Brightonian said:
Pogba has failed to shut his agent up. Kane has refused to show up to training and is creating a situation where his manager cannot choose him in the starting XI. The subtleties of either situation are irrelevant: what Kane is doing is massively more unprofessional than anything Pogba has ever done at United.

And of course race comes into it. The problem is that people can't distinguish between 'race is an element in this discussion' and 'Gary Neville is a racist and so are you!'. It's not the same thing. No-one is being accused of being a 'racist' in the old-fashioned sense. But the reason Harry Kane's reputation is surviving something Pogba's never would in this country is that Kane is a 'nice respectful English boy' and Pogba is a 'flash, cocky urban French kid who is too keen on being friends with rappers'. And if you can't hear how racially codified that is, you're deaf.
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When was the last time Railoa spoke about Pogba leaving? Pogba clearly has told him to tone it down
 
lsd said:
It's a bit sad that Richards is the only one that can see the comparison to criticism of English players to non English players

We can remember Gary Neville and his weekly tirades of Martial not so long ago and it's sad to see how quick he was to back Souness here

Maybe it is racism I would like to think it's not and Souness has another reason for his dislike of Pogba
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Also can't help but noticing it's the one black panellist talking about how a black player is treated differently to a white england player and being shut down by 3 white guys.

I don't think it's racism but it is unconscious bias - Pogba is black, french and originally from Gabon. I think these old commentators just find it very difficult to relate to him and so they keep making random assumptions about him. For Kane they see someone who feels much more like them, so they try to imagine what it must be like for him in a way they don't for Pogba.

It's really frustrating watching Sky go on about how fans being racist in football is a disgrace when I think a lot of the material that those (obviously disgraceful) fans base their racism from is Sky's quiet (and possibly unconscious) reinforcement of racist tropes. I doubt any of the decision makers at Sky give a shit about genuinely dealing with racism in football, just in using instances of racist fans to get them clicks.
 
Rightnr said:
People are talking about racism but I think it's different (although the nuance gets lost in the shouting sometimes). For me, it's as clear-cut as xenophobia.

English players get a much easier ride than foreign ones, even when the levels are way different. For example, I know TalkSport are basically a shit-stirrer media but I cannot imagine that comment about Ben White and Varane being made if the nationalities were reversed.

It happens on this forum as well - before last year Martial was doing as well as Rashford and yet it was constantly Martial in people's mouths when it came to who's lazy.
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This. It feels more like xenophobia than anything else. Kane being the England captain is also a big bonus for his cred.
The day he swore on his daughter's life for a goal he didn't even score showed me how much of a cnut he truly is
 
pratyush_utd said:
Just look at his body language when he gets called out. I don't know how he is allowed to be a presenter. Ole really needs to call this out.
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He is a deeply disturbed and bitter person that send out a very hostile projection. It's quite awful to watch him personally target players to make farcical, stereotypical and very biased attacks. This latest one was particularly troublesome. He has some angry demons inside of him and you can tell he is struggling to control his poor temper. The man's best before has passed a long time ago and he should be replaced.
 
villain said:
This is a dangerous attitude imo, we wonder why racism & abuse in social media is so normalised and fans don't seem to get educated, and nothing seems to change.
It's no surprise that football fans tend to parrot commentary they see elsewhere by 'experts' and the like - if those same experts are being unconsciously biased, then it leads to a further division that we see right now.
The treatment that Pogba receives in comparison to others, is frankly inexcusable.
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Yes, it takes a lot of work to ignore the visuals of two white media men dismissing and shutting down a Black man when he's trying to discuss the contrast between media treatment of a specific white man and a specific Black man. I don't love this word, but are they completely oblivious to the optics? I find it hard to believe that they don't, on some level, know what they're doing.
 
Mercurial said:
He is a deeply disturbed and bitter person that send out a very hostile projection. It's quite awful to watch him personally target players to make farcical, stereotypical and very biased attacks. This latest one was particularly troublesome. He has some angry demons inside of him and you can tell he is struggling to control his poor temper. The man's best before has passed a long time ago and he should be replaced.
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Someone remind Pogba of who Souness is, really seems to tick him off that the man who lives rent free in his head can't even be bothered to know who the feck he is.
 
@Martial'sEmergingSmile
The reason Rooney's comments got so much hate (at least for me) was that he was transferring between two teams that were both competing for the same league and regularly going deep in the CL. He came back from an awful World Cup overweight and out of form, got excuses made for this by his manager, and then asked to leave.

I think Pogba's one open transfer request that came from his own mouth was at the end of 18-19. He came back as a world cup winner, helped keep Jose - who was calling him a virus - in the job for as long as possible with some big performances, and exploded into great form after he left. He then got personally booed and heckled by fans on the final day.
We finished 6th and he was looking for a move to a team that had just won 3 CLs, a clear upward shift in a sporting sense, not like Rooney to Chelsea.


Raiola's comments last year complicate it. Madrid are better but no longer such an obvious upward move, and he's throwing a very supportive manager under the bus. Ole has dealt with it somehow, and Pogba has been professional and performed well since those comments, and Raiola has shut up, so far so good.
 
I keep meaning to say, though, how much I love the fact that every time I try to write Souness's name, my autocorrect wants me to write Sourness!
 
Brightonian said:
Pogba has failed to shut his agent up. Kane has refused to show up to training and is creating a situation where his manager cannot choose him in the starting XI. The subtleties of either situation are irrelevant: what Kane is doing is massively more unprofessional than anything Pogba has ever done at United.

And of course race comes into it. The problem is that people can't distinguish between 'race is an element in this discussion' and 'Gary Neville is a racist and so are you!'. It's not the same thing. No-one is being accused of being a 'racist' in the old-fashioned sense. But the reason Harry Kane's reputation is surviving something Pogba's never would in this country is that Kane is a 'nice respectful English boy' and Pogba is a 'flash, cocky urban French kid who is too keen on being friends with rappers'. And if you can't hear how racially codified that is, you're deaf.
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This was the point I was getting at, thanks for smarting it up.
 
villain said:
This is a dangerous attitude imo, we wonder why racism & abuse in social media is so normalised and fans don't seem to get educated, and nothing seems to change.
It's no surprise that football fans tend to parrot commentary they see elsewhere by 'experts' and the like - if those same experts are being unconsciously biased, then it leads to a further division that we see right now.
The treatment that Pogba receives in comparison to others, is frankly inexcusable.
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You wanna see what Ronaldo got from RTE
 
Rightnr said:
That 1-minute clip is enough for me to know I don't want to watch Sky's shite.

What a bunch of entitled little boys, shutting down Micah Richards. It's bordering on bullying on TV and it pisses me off.

Neville has gone down another notch in my estimation of him. Bloody hypocrite.
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It's that and the way they talk to him, the body language and all. It just feels like they're looking down at him but lets be honest, Micah had a point, they felt like idiots and wanted to change the subject.
 
Vanrouge said:
Yes, it takes a lot of work to ignore the visuals of two white media men dismissing and shutting down a Black man when he's trying to discuss the contrast between media treatment of a specific white man and a specific Black man. I don't love this word, but are they completely oblivious to the optics? I find it hard to believe that they don't, on some level, know what they're doing.
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I think they are clueless because the subject of racism is just completely foreign to them. Even if they're not (as it's a pretty serious accusation), like you said, the optics are terrible. At best they see Micah Richards as a clown who needed to shut up and at worst....
 
Brightonian said:
Pogba has failed to shut his agent up. Kane has refused to show up to training and is creating a situation where his manager cannot choose him in the starting XI. The subtleties of either situation are irrelevant: what Kane is doing is massively more unprofessional than anything Pogba has ever done at United.

And of course race comes into it. The problem is that people can't distinguish between 'race is an element in this discussion' and 'Gary Neville is a racist and so are you!'. It's not the same thing. No-one is being accused of being a 'racist' in the old-fashioned sense. But the reason Harry Kane's reputation is surviving something Pogba's never would in this country is that Kane is a 'nice respectful English boy' and Pogba is a 'flash, cocky urban French kid who is too keen on being friends with rappers'. And if you can't hear how racially codified that is, you're deaf.
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Well said. This distinction is key. You're absolutely spot on.
 
berbatrick said:
Raiola's comments last year complicate it. Madrid are better but no longer such an obvious upward move, and he's throwing a very supportive manager under the bus. Ole has dealt with it somehow, and Pogba has been professional and performed well since those comments, and Raiola has shut up, so far so good.
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Is Madrid even a better option now? I couldn't understand Mbappe, Pogba, or Haaland going to Madrid now unless it was all three of them at once because I would rather be at United now than Madrid, personally. Although with the treatment Pogba gets in England, I wouldn't blame him for wanting to get the hell out of there.
 
This guy should get absolute ZERO attention. I really wonder why he keeps getting invited he's very dumb and bitter human being. Surely they must have noticed that on tele by now?
 
kouroux said:
I think they are clueless because the subject of racism is just completely foreign to them. Even if they're not (as it's a pretty serious accusation), like you said, the optics are terrible. At best they see Micah Richards as a clown who needed to shut up and at worst....
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Yes, they don't see the realities of racism every single day as many people of colour do. It's a kind of obliviousness because they can afford to be oblivious.
 
laughtersassassin said:


Look how they shut Micah down cause they don't like they're hypocrisy being pointed out.

Sounness stamping his feet, turning his back and begging to change subject cause he has no retort to the situation.

It's irrational hate or its the R word that I know people don't like being pointed out on here!

Neville feeds into the situation too. How they can't spot the difference in treatment is insane! Kane not turning up for training is literally miles worse than anything Pogba has ever done!
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Arrogant hypocrite turning away.

Even resorts to making out Kane did not miss training for obvious reasons.
 
Vanrouge said:
Yes, they don't see the realities of racism every single day as many people of colour do. It's a kind of obliviousness because they can afford to be oblivious.
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But beyond that, even if Micah was a white man, what he said never deserved their reactions. They made it seem like he was absolutely nuts for going against their agenda
 
I’m out. I watch the match and then turn it off. I’ve no need for such bland and utter nonsense from sourness and the others
 
GreenFieldsGoldenBarley said:
Also can't help but noticing it's the one black panellist talking about how a black player is treated differently to a white england player and being shut down by 3 white guys.

I don't think it's racism but it is unconscious bias - Pogba is black, french and originally from Gabon. I think these old commentators just find it very difficult to relate to him and so they keep making random assumptions about him. For Kane they see someone who feels much more like them, so they try to imagine what it must be like for him in a way they don't for Pogba.

It's really frustrating watching Sky go on about how fans being racist in football is a disgrace when I think a lot of the material that those (obviously disgraceful) fans base their racism from is Sky's quiet (and possibly unconscious) reinforcement of racist tropes. I doubt any of the decision makers at Sky give a shit about genuinely dealing with racism in football, just in using instances of racist fans to get them clicks.
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Good post. It captures the subtleties well. My question is where does the line between unconscious bias and plain old racism become blurred? At one point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt? Not saying we've reached that moment here, but I wonder about it in the bigger picture. It takes work for white people to understand some of these subtleties, whereas if you're Black you have little to no choice seeing it and getting it.
 
Sayros said:
Is Madrid even a better option now? I couldn't understand Mbappe, Pogba, or Haaland going to Madrid now unless it was all three of them at once because I would rather be at United now than Madrid, personally. Although with the treatment Pogba gets in England, I wouldn't blame him for wanting to get the hell out of there.
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When Raiola said it, Madrid were defending champions and top of the league, we had finished a distant 3rd and were barely top 10 (in some part due to Pogba's form).

By the end of the season - very unclear, but they had a real title challenge till week 38 and a deep CL run, while we messed up the Europa final and there was no title race. Madrid slightly better but on an uncertain trajectory, a sideways move I think.
 
kouroux said:
But beyond that, even if Micah was a white man, what he said never deserved their reactions. They made it seem like he was absolutely nuts for going against their agenda
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Yes, for sure. There's a lot going on here. I have no doubt that part of it is that Micah's newer to the punditry game. They were top dogs trying to put the new pup in his place. That and all the other unconscious stuff that's likely happening.
 
Rightnr said:
People are talking about racism but I think it's different (although the nuance gets lost in the shouting sometimes). For me, it's as clear-cut as xenophobia.

English players get a much easier ride than foreign ones, even when the levels are way different. For example, I know TalkSport are basically a shit-stirrer media but I cannot imagine that comment about Ben White and Varane being made if the nationalities were reversed.

It happens on this forum as well - before last year Martial was doing as well as Rashford and yet it was constantly Martial in people's mouths when it came to who's lazy.
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It wasn't Talksport, the radio station, that said it. It was specifically Shaun Wright-Phillips, the thirsd generation afro-carribean son of an Arsenal legend who himself grew up supporting Arsenal. You'd might as well be highlighting AFTV to make the point.

It's not much different from Arsenal fans thinking Reyes was better than Ronaldo, or United fans thinking that RvN was better than Henry.
 
kouroux said:
I think they are clueless because the subject of racism is just completely foreign to them. Even if they're not (as it's a pretty serious accusation), like you said, the optics are terrible. At best they see Micah Richards as a clown who needed to shut up and at worst....
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Remember Gary Nevilles cultural education for Cavani...him and sourness are the same
 
golden_blunder said:
You wanna see what Ronaldo got from RTE
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I haven’t seen it, but I fail to see how that takes away from the topic at hand here, because my comment wasn’t about a singular incident, but rather the current punditry climate.
 
Brightonian said:
Pogba has failed to shut his agent up. Kane has refused to show up to training and is creating a situation where his manager cannot choose him in the starting XI. The subtleties of either situation are irrelevant: what Kane is doing is massively more unprofessional than anything Pogba has ever done at United.
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Great post - the one thing I’d say as it seems to have gone unnoticed is Pogba quite clearly has shut his agent up. He has one year left on his deal, he’s in negotiations with us and was widely linked to PSG - and I haven’t heard a single thing from his agent since November. In fact his agent literally said in his last big interview he did when he acts the big man and discusses all his clients and where they’re going next that he isn’t allowed to speak about Pogba. Someone has obviously had a word.
 
Dante said:
It wasn't Talksport, the radio station, that said it. It was specifically Shaun Wright-Phillips, the thirsd generation afro-carribean son of an Arsenal legend who himself grew up supporting Arsenal. You'd might as well be highlighting AFTV to make the point.

It's not much different from Arsenal fans thinking Reyes was better than Ronaldo, or United fans thinking that RvN was better than Henry.
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To me, it's pretty clear the ex-pro pundits on TalkSport get paid to peddle certain 'opinions' and so I blame them. Given the numerous examples of this in the past, it's obvious to me at least.

They're owned by Murdoch and they're behaving just like how I'd expect one of his media outlets to behave.

Bringing in AFTV in all of this is completely non-sensical. The power and reach of that bottom-feeder Murdoch that has ruined and continues to ruin whole countries completely dwarfs Robbie and crew.
 
Rightnr said:
To me, it's pretty clear the ex-pro pundits on TalkSport get paid to peddle certain 'opinions' and so I blame them. Given the numerous examples of this in the past, it's obvious to me at least.

They're owned by Murdoch and they're behaving just like how I'd expect one of his media outlets to behave.

Bringing in AFTV in all of this is completely non-sensical. The power and reach of that bottom-feeder Murdoch that has ruined and continues to ruin whole countries completely dwarfs Robbie and crew.
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It was Shaun Wright-Phillips, not some nameless ex-pro. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch gave SWP a script with what to say?

AFTV is relevant because SWP was doing his best impression of Ty when he compared White and Varane. Delusional Arsenal fan thinking his club's shit smells of roses.
 
Dante said:
It was Shaun Wright-Phillips. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch told SWP what to say?

AFTV is relevant because SWP was doing his best impression of Ty when he compared White and Varane.
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If you think AFTV and TalkSport are the same, I can't help you any more.
 
Rightnr said:
If you think AFTV and TalkSport are the same, I can't help you any more.
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Why do you refuse to talk about Shaun Wright-Phillips being the source of the quote? He has a name.

Whether it's a delusional Arsenal fan on a youtube channel or a delusional Arsenal fan on a radio station, they amount to the same thing.
 
Rightnr said:
People are talking about racism but I think it's different (although the nuance gets lost in the shouting sometimes). For me, it's as clear-cut as xenophobia.

English players get a much easier ride than foreign ones, even when the levels are way different. For example, I know TalkSport are basically a shit-stirrer media but I cannot imagine that comment about Ben White and Varane being made if the nationalities were reversed.

It happens on this forum as well - before last year Martial was doing as well as Rashford and yet it was constantly Martial in people's mouths when it came to who's lazy.
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Don't remember the press being easy on Sterling to be fair. For me the bias is clear. Pogba is getting a harder treatment due to his skin colour, just like Sterling. I am sure of it.
 
Rightnr said:
Neville has gone down another notch in my estimation of him. Bloody hypocrite.
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No, no......when you do that with footballers, like he said about Pogba, and when you do things like that about a man like Harry Kane, I've kept really quiet, but I'll tell you something, he went down in my estimation when he said that.
 
Dante said:
Why do you refuse to talk about Shaun Wright-Phillips being the source of the quote? He has a name.

Whether it's a delusional Arsenal fan on a youtube channel or a delusional Arsenal fan on a radio station, they amount to the same thing.
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This is like blaming the writers in the Sun for the Sun being a rag since its inception. They contribute but the large fault lies with the owner who sets the direction (despite claims to the contrary, reality proves it).

The whole issue just goes higher than that. There's plenty of other shocking opinions from TalkSport (I'd be surprised if Lazy Martial is not one of them but I don't follow TalkSport because I want to preserve my brains cells) that back up my claim. I mean we just had Mourinho over the summer trying to WUM by mentioning Shaw and again they knew what they were doing.

AFTV might be toxic but it's exclusive to Arsenal. TalkSport is listened up and down the nation by your average white van man.

arthurka said:
Don't remember the press being easy on Sterling to be fair. For me the bias is clear. Pogba is getting a harder treatment due to his skin colour, just like Sterling. I am sure of it.
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This is true but I didn't want to go further into detail.

There's English versus foreign and then there's proper English versus the 'wrong' English. Again, it's very correlated to racism but Grealish also wasn't a favourite because he wasn't a good one.

Hoof The Ball said:
No, no......when you do that with footballers, like he said about Pogba, and when you do things like that about a man like Harry Kane, I've kept really quiet, but I'll tell you something, he went down in my estimation when he said that.
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I'm sorry but this looks to me like the written equivalent of that famous Phil Jones header on the floor.
 
berbatrick said:
When Raiola said it, Madrid were defending champions and top of the league, we had finished a distant 3rd and were barely top 10 (in some part due to Pogba's form).

By the end of the season - very unclear, but they had a real title challenge till week 38 and a deep CL run, while we messed up the Europa final and there was no title race. Madrid slightly better but on an uncertain trajectory, a sideways move I think.
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Yes, at the time I could understand, but that's the past and a lot's changed since then. They've lost their CB pairing, another added year to their aging core, an over-dependence on Benzema. With Bale off the books next season (IIRC), they'll have more flexibility and with the right moves can quickly get back to being a better prospect than United, but at the moment I think he will stick around with United. Regardless what some might think, Pogba does love this club and while I don't think it'll ever be a deal-breaker in him moving, I do believe he'll have some regret about leaving without ever winning a PL with United.
 
Let’s not fecking forget Harry Kane playing Golf with Gary Neville and doing a fecking full on one hour interview about how he wants to leave.

Imagine the fecking scenes if Pogba did that? Like, seriously. He’s walking around with a golf club telling Gary Neville that he wants out
 
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