Paul Merson Pundit Thread
- Thread starter VanGaalEra
- Start date
Stop judging me damn you
Thompson is a fecking idiot as well.
Le Tissier is the best one.
He is the only one who speaks sense
Why does good old Charlie get away with it? He claimed we would sell Martial this Jan in the buildup to the fecking Boro match and claimed Ibra was as good as Cantona only he's surrounded by ordinary players.
That is outstanding. I don't want Mockney to get jealous but I'd believe it if someone told me Charlie Brooker wrote that.
At least he has the excuse of being a biased scouse bellend, so it's understandable.
Genuinely incredible post. Hats off.
I loathe Paul Merson. From his 'magic man' nickname to the fact he is paid well to talk shit every day. It is genuinely incredible that someone who has been involved in football at the highest level can possess such a fundamental lack of understanding for the game.
Great post, one that should be sent to sky sports. Such a shame such ignorance and stupidity from pundits/commentators is allowed.
That is the best tldr post I've read. @Alex99
Can't believe they couldn't come up with one proper name.
Can't believe they couldn't come up with one proper name.
Its actually quite an incisive piece on the subject and on both Merson and Thompson who are making an absolute flaming show of themselves. When you look at it its actually symptomatic of the underlying idiocy which has gripped much of the UK in recent times. Another thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was that Merson even went on Talksport later to back up his comments. When the utter gobshite that he is was pressed to name some British managers that are being overlooked he said and I quote ''Off the top of my head, Thierry Henry''
watching it made me think it was all a bit entitled, xenophobic and a bit nationalistic. Hull's last foreign manager was nearly 15 years ago. They have had 10 managers since then, all british (8 English) and they are having a hissy fit because they have "gone all foreign." Without doing research and just looking at the table, I believe within the last 3 seasons, most premier league clubs have had British managers at some stage, bar the top clubs
Yes Merson to be fair is pretty much just an idiot ignorant but no real harm in him
Thompson however came across as a real bigot and not for V the V first time either .
Brilliant post. Always hated this buffoon as a pundit, bumbling idiot.
He's clearly only employed by Sky for comical reasons, Sky know that people will tune in to see what absolute dross he comes up with next. It's quite cleaver by them actually.
I know one of the pundits who is on the Soccer Saturday panel very ocassionally and he tells me that the usual bunch on there (Merson, Thompson, Le Tissier and Nicholas) are absolute bellends. They strut around like they are footballing geniuses and think anyone elses opinion is simply idiotic. Merson is a die hard Chelsea fan and is very bitter towards Arsenal behind the scenes. This makes sense if you listen to him speak about Arsenal on Sky. Also, Paul Jewell is the biggest bell in football apparently.
So, did Merson really go on Talksport and say Hull should have hired a deserving british manager... like Thierry Henry?
That cant be true... right?
That cant be true... right?
Good post but Chris Hughton was actually born and raised in Forest Gate.
Wondering if Hull were ignoring calls from Tuchel, Ancelotti or Emery for that manager post.
High time Merson actually put off drugs and alcohol, again.
High time Merson actually put off drugs and alcohol, again.
And yet, Irish.
Magnifique!
Merse, Thompson, Le Tissier and Nicholas are all a bunch of twits.
Shocked they're still there on the panel. BT were smart to pick up Jenas, who is far more sound a pundit than anything Sky have to offer outside Neville and Charrager.
Paul Merson is a tube of the highest order and has somehow made a very good living from basically spouting total rubbish that might have been accurate in the early 90's but has long since become completely out of touch. Can't stand the moron.
http://www.football365.com/news/mediawatch-special-merson-thompson-and-marco-silva
An excllent article, not too dissimilar from ALex99's points about these embarrassing pundits and their appalling views.
On Saturday, the Sky Sports Gillette Soccer Special panel was given the chance to discuss Marco Silva’s arrival into English football at the Premier League’s bottom club, Hull City.
We can assume that presenter Jeff Stelling was aware that Paul Merson and Phil Thompson both held strong views on the appointment by the way he phrased his initial question, but what then followed was a truly astonishing rant. Astonishing enough to provoke Mediawatch into sleepy weekend action anyway.
Initially, Stelling tells Merson that Silva has good pedigree as the ex-Olympiakos and Sporting Lisbon manager. We’ll let the pair take over from there:
Merson: “I could win the league with Olympiakos. They’ve won it 107 times and it’s only been going 106 years.”
Paul Merson’s managerial career to date consists of a 94-game spell in charge of Walsall. He was appointed with the club in the Championship and he left them 19th in League One and with supporters protesting against his continued employment. No comment on Silva’s successful Sporting tenure or getting Estoril into the top flight and becoming the first manager in over five years to win a league game at Porto, you understand.
Merson: “The thing is, why does it always have to be a foreign manager? I’ve got nothing against foreign managers, but…”
But what? You just don’t want them at English football clubs? You don’t like them? Them getting jobs at English clubs makes you so angry you have to wipe spittle from your mouth?
Merson: “These ex-footballers are spending four or five years getting their badges, and what for? None of them are getting a chance.”
Ex-footballers like Mike Phelan, you mean? Who was given a chance by a little-known club called Hull City, completely failed and was quickly replaced?
Merson: “This is a good job. Hull are a good team, great stadium, some very good players.”
Clever this, from Merson. So now Silva is in charge Hull are a good team with very good players, and therefore if he fails, it is his fault.
Weird then that Merson’s last ten Premier League predictions for Hull have seen them draw one game, lose nine and concede 25 goals. Not so good after all.
Merson: “What’s he know about the Premier League? What’s he know?”
Given that Merson readily admits to not knowing much about Silva himself, we can reasonably estimate that he also doesn’t know much about how much Silva knows about the Premier League, if you’ll forgive the horribly extended sentence. You may detect a slight insinuation that Silva knows nothing.
Silva himself addressed this issue in his first press conference, of course: “In Greece I was already thinking about the next step – learning English was part of that. The Premier League is the biggest league. Now my biggest ambition is this miracle.”
So we can assume that having learned the language, Silva might also have done plenty of research on the league. ‘Three points for a win is it? Any extra points for scoring with your head? No? Grand.’
Thompson: “It’s totally astonishing that they have plumped for someone like this. It’s baffling. When there are a lot of people out there who know about the Premier League, about what’s required to dig in. He’s not got a clue.”
And there we have it, the motherlode: The assumption that foreigners can’t know about the Premier League? Check. The grouping together of all foreign coaches under the umbrella of ‘people like this’? Check. The accusation that foreigners are unable to ‘dig in’? Check. They’re all too busy drinking their strong coffee, kissing each other on the cheeks and shrugging to learn about pashun, after all.
Thompson: “It’s manna from heaven for him, with this CV, to be given a job like this.”
From a fine job at Estoril to Sporting to Olympiakos, where he managed in the Champions League. And Hull City is supposed to be improving Silva’s CV? That City of Culture tag really did wonders for the place.
Merse (when asked if Gary Rowett would even have taken the job): “Any manager of the world, unless you’re at Barcelona, Real Madrid and probably Atletico Madrid, every manager out there wants to manager in the Premier League. It is the ultimate.”
Sure, but the job on offer here wasn’t just a generic ‘managing in the Premier League’, was it; it was ‘Hull City manager’. And that’s slightly different.
But this really is golden. Can anyone truly be so obsessed with the Premier League that they believe managing Hull City is more attractive than Bayern Munich, Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund, Paris St Germain and a list of about 200 other sodding clubs? If so, we have a real problem on our hands.
Still, “probably” not Atletico, eh?
Merson: “This guy’s name will be known all round the world in two weeks. It’s a worldwide league.”
Presumably Merson has not spotted the irony in his own words. He thinks the Premier League is great because it’s a worldwide league and known around the world, but doesn’t want managers from around the world to come here unless they are in the top five in the world.
At this point, Matt Le Tissier (very much the hero of the hour) then points out that Mauricio Pochettino wasn’t that well-known to Merson or Thompson when he joined the Premier League, something that causes something of a silence amid our Brit devotees. That silence is broken by both squawking “Six months! Six months!” in reference to the length of Silva’s contract.
So is that the real problem here? If so, it’s not that weird to think that a short-term contract makes sense given that relegation is the likely end result for the worst team in the Premier League. Presumably if Silva had been given a four-year deal, Merson and Thompson would have been happy?
Thompson: “It’s just another slap in the face to British coaches and managers, and what they have done to make this appointment for six months is just embarrassing.”
It’s at this point that Stelling asks Thompson for a name other than Rowett; no answer is forthcoming. Instead, Thompson says any manager in the Championship or below, because ‘they know the league’. Mediawatch isn’t quite sure why all of them would know the league more than Silva if they’d never managed or played in it, but that doesn’t matter does it? As long as it’s British jobs for British clubs, all is well.
So let’s look at the top of the Championship, and the ones who ‘should be given a chance’: Rafa Benitez (foreign), Chris Hughton (had a chance in the Premier League), Jaap Stam (foreign), David Wagner (foreign), Garry Monk (had a chance in the Premier League), Carlos Carvalhal (foreign), Steve McClaren (had a chance in the Premier League), Paul Heckingbottom (Barnsley’s youth team coach a year ago and would be twice the gamble Silva is), Alex Neil (had a chance in the Premier League) and Slavisa Jokanovic (foreign)…
That’s the truly embarrassing aspect of all this. Hull City are a club whose owners have treated the fans appallingly, of that there is no doubt. But to use this appointment to champion the downtrodden British managers and dismiss a coach on the basis of his nationality is ludicrous. Since taking over in 2010, Hull’s owners have employed Nigel Pearson (young British manager), Nicky Barmby (young British manager), Steve Bruce (British manager) and Mike Phelan (British manager). It’s hardly astonishing that they might want to try something different. When you’re left siding with Assem Allam on football matters, the alternative argument must be truly rotten.
To end, Mediawatch will simply remind you of the quote from Lawrie McMenemy, when Pochettino was appointed at Southampton. You might spot a pattern: “With due respect to Pochettino, what does he know about our game? What does he know about the Premier League? Does he speak English?”
Silva may well not succeed in the Premier League; that is not the point being made. The point is that dismissing title-winning coaches with Champions League experience, after they are appointed at a club as relatively modest as Hull City, based solely on their nationality is unhelpfully xenophobic.
Perhaps if British coaches would consider moving abroad, they too could win titles and domestic cups. Until then, it’s probably easier to just to moan about Johnny Foreigner taking our jobs.
Mediawatch makes no apology for wishing Marco Silva all the very best.
We can assume that presenter Jeff Stelling was aware that Paul Merson and Phil Thompson both held strong views on the appointment by the way he phrased his initial question, but what then followed was a truly astonishing rant. Astonishing enough to provoke Mediawatch into sleepy weekend action anyway.
Initially, Stelling tells Merson that Silva has good pedigree as the ex-Olympiakos and Sporting Lisbon manager. We’ll let the pair take over from there:
Merson: “I could win the league with Olympiakos. They’ve won it 107 times and it’s only been going 106 years.”
Paul Merson’s managerial career to date consists of a 94-game spell in charge of Walsall. He was appointed with the club in the Championship and he left them 19th in League One and with supporters protesting against his continued employment. No comment on Silva’s successful Sporting tenure or getting Estoril into the top flight and becoming the first manager in over five years to win a league game at Porto, you understand.
Merson: “The thing is, why does it always have to be a foreign manager? I’ve got nothing against foreign managers, but…”
But what? You just don’t want them at English football clubs? You don’t like them? Them getting jobs at English clubs makes you so angry you have to wipe spittle from your mouth?
Merson: “These ex-footballers are spending four or five years getting their badges, and what for? None of them are getting a chance.”
Ex-footballers like Mike Phelan, you mean? Who was given a chance by a little-known club called Hull City, completely failed and was quickly replaced?
Merson: “This is a good job. Hull are a good team, great stadium, some very good players.”
Clever this, from Merson. So now Silva is in charge Hull are a good team with very good players, and therefore if he fails, it is his fault.
Weird then that Merson’s last ten Premier League predictions for Hull have seen them draw one game, lose nine and concede 25 goals. Not so good after all.
Merson: “What’s he know about the Premier League? What’s he know?”
Given that Merson readily admits to not knowing much about Silva himself, we can reasonably estimate that he also doesn’t know much about how much Silva knows about the Premier League, if you’ll forgive the horribly extended sentence. You may detect a slight insinuation that Silva knows nothing.
Silva himself addressed this issue in his first press conference, of course: “In Greece I was already thinking about the next step – learning English was part of that. The Premier League is the biggest league. Now my biggest ambition is this miracle.”
So we can assume that having learned the language, Silva might also have done plenty of research on the league. ‘Three points for a win is it? Any extra points for scoring with your head? No? Grand.’
Thompson: “It’s totally astonishing that they have plumped for someone like this. It’s baffling. When there are a lot of people out there who know about the Premier League, about what’s required to dig in. He’s not got a clue.”
And there we have it, the motherlode: The assumption that foreigners can’t know about the Premier League? Check. The grouping together of all foreign coaches under the umbrella of ‘people like this’? Check. The accusation that foreigners are unable to ‘dig in’? Check. They’re all too busy drinking their strong coffee, kissing each other on the cheeks and shrugging to learn about pashun, after all.
Thompson: “It’s manna from heaven for him, with this CV, to be given a job like this.”
From a fine job at Estoril to Sporting to Olympiakos, where he managed in the Champions League. And Hull City is supposed to be improving Silva’s CV? That City of Culture tag really did wonders for the place.
Merse (when asked if Gary Rowett would even have taken the job): “Any manager of the world, unless you’re at Barcelona, Real Madrid and probably Atletico Madrid, every manager out there wants to manager in the Premier League. It is the ultimate.”
Sure, but the job on offer here wasn’t just a generic ‘managing in the Premier League’, was it; it was ‘Hull City manager’. And that’s slightly different.
But this really is golden. Can anyone truly be so obsessed with the Premier League that they believe managing Hull City is more attractive than Bayern Munich, Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund, Paris St Germain and a list of about 200 other sodding clubs? If so, we have a real problem on our hands.
Still, “probably” not Atletico, eh?
Merson: “This guy’s name will be known all round the world in two weeks. It’s a worldwide league.”
Presumably Merson has not spotted the irony in his own words. He thinks the Premier League is great because it’s a worldwide league and known around the world, but doesn’t want managers from around the world to come here unless they are in the top five in the world.
At this point, Matt Le Tissier (very much the hero of the hour) then points out that Mauricio Pochettino wasn’t that well-known to Merson or Thompson when he joined the Premier League, something that causes something of a silence amid our Brit devotees. That silence is broken by both squawking “Six months! Six months!” in reference to the length of Silva’s contract.
So is that the real problem here? If so, it’s not that weird to think that a short-term contract makes sense given that relegation is the likely end result for the worst team in the Premier League. Presumably if Silva had been given a four-year deal, Merson and Thompson would have been happy?
Thompson: “It’s just another slap in the face to British coaches and managers, and what they have done to make this appointment for six months is just embarrassing.”
It’s at this point that Stelling asks Thompson for a name other than Rowett; no answer is forthcoming. Instead, Thompson says any manager in the Championship or below, because ‘they know the league’. Mediawatch isn’t quite sure why all of them would know the league more than Silva if they’d never managed or played in it, but that doesn’t matter does it? As long as it’s British jobs for British clubs, all is well.
So let’s look at the top of the Championship, and the ones who ‘should be given a chance’: Rafa Benitez (foreign), Chris Hughton (had a chance in the Premier League), Jaap Stam (foreign), David Wagner (foreign), Garry Monk (had a chance in the Premier League), Carlos Carvalhal (foreign), Steve McClaren (had a chance in the Premier League), Paul Heckingbottom (Barnsley’s youth team coach a year ago and would be twice the gamble Silva is), Alex Neil (had a chance in the Premier League) and Slavisa Jokanovic (foreign)…
That’s the truly embarrassing aspect of all this. Hull City are a club whose owners have treated the fans appallingly, of that there is no doubt. But to use this appointment to champion the downtrodden British managers and dismiss a coach on the basis of his nationality is ludicrous. Since taking over in 2010, Hull’s owners have employed Nigel Pearson (young British manager), Nicky Barmby (young British manager), Steve Bruce (British manager) and Mike Phelan (British manager). It’s hardly astonishing that they might want to try something different. When you’re left siding with Assem Allam on football matters, the alternative argument must be truly rotten.
To end, Mediawatch will simply remind you of the quote from Lawrie McMenemy, when Pochettino was appointed at Southampton. You might spot a pattern: “With due respect to Pochettino, what does he know about our game? What does he know about the Premier League? Does he speak English?”
Silva may well not succeed in the Premier League; that is not the point being made. The point is that dismissing title-winning coaches with Champions League experience, after they are appointed at a club as relatively modest as Hull City, based solely on their nationality is unhelpfully xenophobic.
Perhaps if British coaches would consider moving abroad, they too could win titles and domestic cups. Until then, it’s probably easier to just to moan about Johnny Foreigner taking our jobs.
Mediawatch makes no apology for wishing Marco Silva all the very best.
An excllent article, not too dissimilar from ALex99's points about these embarrassing pundits and their appalling views.
Hang on, so Merson, whose entire point rested entirely on what appears to be the incredibly misguided notion that there are a number of young, British managers, with a wealth of relevant managerial experience being overlooked for Premier League jobs, when pressed to name someone that fitted the bill, named Thierry Henry? Surely a man paid handsomely to deliver his views on football, specifically English football, did not name a Frenchman whose managerial career consists of less than 6 months as the assistant of the Belgian international team?
That's exactly what it was. For his stupidity or ratings, it's the same basis of his argument.
I can only think that anyone who employs him is simply trolling for viewers.
That is excellent.
A cursory Google search has revealed that Thierry Henry isn't even qualified to manage a PL team. He only completed his UEFA A early last year, and there was even controversy around that, and you need the Pro to manage a top flight side.
Merson's idea of a young, British manager that's been working his socks off to get a PL job is an under-qualified Frenchman.
Merson's idea of a young, British manager that's been working his socks off to get a PL job is an under-qualified Frenchman.
Excellent from @Alex99 and football365. Hate witch hunts but hate Merse and his shite too. This diatribe wasn't just him being dense, it is unpleasant and xenophobic.
Merson, and those who employ him, have clearly done their job if people are talking about the show and are bound to tune in in future to deride it.
This is Sky, it's what they do.
Besides which, Merson is there to be laughed at, which, I'm not sure he's even aware of. He's the joke that keeps on giving, and as long as the backlash, or his comments don't get too inflammatory, he'll be there for a long time yet.
This is Sky, it's what they do.
Besides which, Merson is there to be laughed at, which, I'm not sure he's even aware of. He's the joke that keeps on giving, and as long as the backlash, or his comments don't get too inflammatory, he'll be there for a long time yet.
Merson and the rest of the lads are going back on their thoughts of Marco Silva, saying "they have nothing against him and that" except they completely dismissed all the achievements he achieved in the first place...
I think I'm starting to hate the lads on Soccer Saturday now, except possibly Le Tissier who can speak sense.
I think I'm starting to hate the lads on Soccer Saturday now, except possibly Le Tissier who can speak sense.
The problem is Silva next 5 matches, 4 of them are against Chelsea, United, Arsenal and Liverpool.Merson and the rest of the lads are going back on their thoughts of Marco Silva, saying "they have nothing against him and that" except they completely dismissed all the achievements he achieved in the first place...
I think I'm starting to hate the lads on Soccer Saturday now, except possibly Le Tissier who can speak sense.
In a month we will see what they say if he loses all the matches.
I'm late to this party, but this is the best post I've read on here in years.
Looks like Paul Merson is wrong again, this time on Marco Silva..
"I could win the league with Olympiacos" Classic Merson.
"I could win the league with Olympiacos" Classic Merson.
Gary Rowett wouldn't have dropped a point with them yet, though, and would have beat Utd to the cup final.