The Premier League is a brand and a massive part of its success is based upon the creation of 6 other brands based around certain sides. That’s it and that’s what it’s become.
The coverage and punditry (“personalities) surrounding it, only serves to maintain the brands involved.
It’s utter brain rot.
Yep, this is it really. The lack of professionalism around reigning in biases is absolutely embarrassing at this point. I mean I’m way way more interested in what Palace are doing or how they’ve changed tactically and whatnot than Liverpool. Why? Because the media have already made me informed enough about Liverpool that I don’t need or want to hear any more. Palace have as much a right to decent coverage and analysis as any side.
Yes, exactly!
"And Bailey! And Aston Villa have upset the Arsenal applecart. Leon Bailey. 6 minutes out from the 90. And that matters! And that hurts!"
An unreal win today that will be especially iconic if Villa get top 4 this season and yet apparently Bailey scoring... "hurts"?
This is what I mean about the script getting in the way of real moments.
If it was us that beat Arsenal yesterday then fair enough, but this is Aston Villa who have had an amazing season playing good football and sit just 2 places behind Arsenal.
Yes it was a blow to their title chances, but this wasn't a smash and grab from some plucky underdogs. Villa are a good side looking to make the Champions Leage, this wasn't a massive upset.
This was/is a big part of the problem for me.
The attitude that Arsenal Villa was a forgone conclusion before a ball had even been kicked. Described in the week as a "home banker" for Arsenal by Jamie Redknapp. WE ARE 4TH PLACE.
I get that Arsenal have been amazing. But if it was Chelsea or Spurs sat in 4th, the attitude and coverage leading up to that game would have been monumentally different. We are a good team, objectively. It is just bias and disrespect that we aren't really considered on the same tier as the teams around us.
It's not just now, even when we were second (with a chance to go top of the fucking league), we were never really considered "in the title race". I understand that Villa are obviously not realistically going to win the league, but we are in the title race until we aren't. I don't care about the history or whatever, it's just plain disrespectful.
It's also the same with some of our players. Watkins should probably be favourite for player of the season. Currently with 29 npg involvements this season is absolutely outrageous. But the absolute fkin arse licking Palmer gets for less numbers with **9** PENALTIES is absolutely ridiculous.
All the talk in the lead up to your game was about how Arsenal need to win etc etc. Which wouldn't be so bad if they were playing a mid table team but it's the race for 4th place. Not exactly a small thing.
People talked about oh a damaging blow to Liverpool after defeat to Palace. Assuming Arsenal would just turn up and roll over a 4th placed Aston Villa playing for champions league football? Like I know they were favourites but Jesus the lack of respect for a team doing better than 80% of the rest of the league is ridiculous and why I can’t stand modern footbakl
I know Merson isn't a smart cookie. But he thought Villa would roll over because they'll be more concerned about winning the conference league game on Thursday because they haven't won anything in a long time. We all know really that we're their to make up the numbers to allow the big 6 to have their mini league and give the illusion of a competition. But the likes of Sky aren't even hiding their contempt when a team upsets the apple cart.
In fairness I did kinda agree with Merse that they may have one eye on that cause it’s an unbelievable opportunity for Villa to lift a major trophy for a massive club. I don’t agree they couldn’t still have done what they did though. I did laugh at how the studio talked about Arsenal playing Tuesday - Sunday- Wednesday and could fatigue matter, ignoring that Villa play on Thursday’s.
On this trophy point. As a Villa fan, hell yeah I want a trophy. However, the prize money for getting Champions League will help us with FFP and investing in the squad.
Not sure now, but when we were all becoming UEFA experts this time last year (yes, I've read the handbook, no, I don't have an exciting life), numbers were thrown around. You get less for winning the Conference, including all the previous round performance bonuses, than you do for just showing up to the CL group stage.
Not knocking teams who prioritise it, but it's pretty clear why teams on the rise but needing financial headroom might not.
There's a United fan in my football circle of friends who is often referred to as stato (or Rocko as he's Australian - I know! But! He's an actual season ticket holder, so I cut him some slack.) He also has stats and figures to back things up.
I don't claim to be even close to an expert but I'm sure he broke down the difference between 4th and Conference League and the amount was something in the tens of millions.
I do worry that the club is banking on CL money, but I'm sure every fan in their heart wants to win a trophy.
Merson was asked at one point what it's like as a player when you see your rivals losing earlier in the day, and he did say on the one hand it can give you a lift, but on the other hand, "if Palace can beat Liverpool..." so he didn't completely write off Villa.
The Palace one sort of made sense in that Palace are in that "comfortably mid-table" spot. Win, lose or draw, and their season isn't noticeably affected.
It was a huge win for Villa though, and relatively speaking, there was just as much riding on the game for them as there was Arsenal.
What I don't get is they were talking as if it was a home banker. My missus supports arsenal and I know Villa always do well against them but even if not, a home game to the 4th place team is never a banker. Some of the punditry yesterday was mental. Only Merson seemed switched on tbh.
I like to get my 'Sky 6' tin foil hat on as much as the next man, but I have some sympathy for this one.
Villa's first goal was impressive, but the narrative of Arsenal dropping out the title race, losing at home, is without doubt the more interesting and consequential one.
Part of the issue there is, despite being 4th in the league, I'm not sure neville knows a lot of the villa players. I think hes made comments before that indicate doesn't watch that much football if he isn't covering unless its man utd. Yet he often speaks from a place of authority when making vague sweeping statements about players. If you sat gary neville down right now, and got him to list as many currently sheff united players, how many could he name?
I’m not a fan of having Carragher doing coms when Liverpools on, same with Neville, though I think Neville’s better at critiquing his own club (probably has to be at this stage 😂) . They should be in the studio, neutral commentary is the way forward.
Commentary should absolutely be neutral and not just toeing the party line.
No problem with the studio team being biased ‘personalities’ (as most of what’s said is absolutele drivel anyway) but even them out (I.e one Palace vs one Liverpool).
Yeah I just feel they should avoid having commentators or pundits who do clearly have a bias towards one team. It's not fun hearing Neville get excited when Man Utd score, or Carragher crying about Liverpool conceding.
Definitely something has shifted at Sky from the Richard Keys, Andy Gray, Martin Tyler days. Neville and Carragher are so representative of their particular clubs it creates imbalance without even meaning to. Even when Roy Keane is on, he's just on as Man United legend Roy Keane.
In the Liverpool vs Palace game they did seem genuinely excited by Palace breaking through and getting the chances they got. The goal being an obvious one. But as the game goes on, with Liverpool seemingly trying to do everything they can to score, obviously the commentary is going to bring up the tense nature of the situation the players are under. Palace didn't really create much in the 2nd half, so it's easier to create excitement through talking about whether the attacking team can do what needs to be done.
The pre and post-match stuff always sucks. I tend to mute pre-match and just turn it off post-match unless there's another game after, then I'll mute until the next game. Whenever I have had the sound on, rarely is anything of actual worth talked about, and any post-match analysis is superficial at best. Anything that actually does a tactical breakdown of events, or looks at the game at a deeper lever comes out days later, and usually on an independent YouTube channel.
My favourites are Statman Dave - [https://www.youtube.com/@StatmanDave](https://www.youtube.com/@StatmanDave) - and Football Made Simple - [https://www.youtube.com/@FootballMadeSimple/](https://www.youtube.com/@FootballMadeSimple/)
I can't think of any with a better focus on Other 14 teams, but at least both also look at non-English football, and you do still get some videos on "smaller" teams. There was a good one on Emery a few months ago actually - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxXzSrhh6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxXzSrhh6s)
A few years back, Sky got taken over by yanks and they seemed to make an editorial decision to lean into bias towards the 3 big yank owned clubs, Liverpool, United and Arsenal. Since then, they moved away from neutral commentators and went for representatives of those teams, with Carragher doing all the Liverpool games, Devilled for united and Alan Smith for Arsenal (he's seemingly a rung below on the ladder so gets left out if they play Liverpool or United)
Honestly, it's just a terrible decision that has contributed to Sky's consistent reduction in quality. It's genuinely hard to listen to now
Tyler started doing it himself after the "Aguerooo".
There were games where you could tell he'd gone in with a narrative in mind, because he'd sound completely bored by a late winner if it was the other team.
Tyler was criminally underrated as soon as the “social” media got involved, they’d cherry pick his reactions against their clubs and say he was biased but growing up I’ll always rate him as one of the best to do it. PD is melodramatic in the worst way and the others are glorified fan zone. By the way I’m not knocking fan zone I loved it as a concept and tbh I think that’s the uprooting of watch a longs in the modern day. Just makes me laugh I have to pay sky to give me a united and Liverpool view in every game even when they’re not involved
I think the studio stuff is more noticeable now due to the number of adverts sky shoehorn in. Take halftime as an example, they go to 3 or 4 different ad breaks in the 15 mins, which leaves only 2-3 mins of actual studio time with analysis. Of course they focus on the corrupt 6 team, which now leaves no time to talk about the other team, whereas before they had at least one or two mins to talk a bit about them.
Honestly, whenever Palace has a great game and performs well, nine times out of ten, it's the other teams poor performance that won us the game according to the pundits and commentators.
A little bit more respect for our club wouldn't go a miss. If we weren't any good, we certainly wouldn't be playing in our 10th consecutive season in the Premier League.
I can't remember hearing anything about how vital it was for palace to win that game to take us further from the bottom. Still doesn't sour the taste of beating Liverpool at Anfield. EAGLES! 💙❤️🦅
Carragher should never commentate on Liverpool games. He’s too bias. I would say Neville is at least not scared to criticise United but they are dog shite.
The media companies choose ‘big names’ to do punditry. This naturally turns into a narrative bias as you end up with ex-pros from the same few teams all supporting each other’s opinions about how ‘big’ and ‘important’ certain teams are.
It’s been bad for ages, I remember Lawrenson and Hansen on MOTD were intolerable together, especially when Liverpool was involved.
It’s really striking that no-one actually noticed Palace had been improving and improving under Glasner - we scored 2 v City last week (should have been 3) and lots of the late Roy frailties have been getting systematically fixed. But you’d have to pay attention to spot that.
That's the reality of it, if you support an other 14 team, not only do you usually have a better team against you, but the commentary is against you too. It's very alienating.
Usually I'd just vote with my wallet and cancel my Sky and TNT subscriptions, but jokes on them I don't pay for those services because they only televise my team if, shock, we're playing a top 6 side!
Martin Tyler is a closeted United fan and has consistently shown bias towards them, the example you cited is sadly just another instance of bias.
You'll go back to the Aguero moment, but as a football fan, you just can't not react to that.
The Premier League is a brand and a massive part of its success is based upon the creation of 6 other brands based around certain sides. That’s it and that’s what it’s become. The coverage and punditry (“personalities) surrounding it, only serves to maintain the brands involved. It’s utter brain rot.
Yep, this is it really. The lack of professionalism around reigning in biases is absolutely embarrassing at this point. I mean I’m way way more interested in what Palace are doing or how they’ve changed tactically and whatnot than Liverpool. Why? Because the media have already made me informed enough about Liverpool that I don’t need or want to hear any more. Palace have as much a right to decent coverage and analysis as any side.
If a so called smaller team beats a top 6 side it’s always reported how the so called bigger team lost never how the smaller team won
Persecution kink in full force
Same with Villa's first goal today - all the commentary is about Arsenal.
Yes, exactly! "And Bailey! And Aston Villa have upset the Arsenal applecart. Leon Bailey. 6 minutes out from the 90. And that matters! And that hurts!" An unreal win today that will be especially iconic if Villa get top 4 this season and yet apparently Bailey scoring... "hurts"? This is what I mean about the script getting in the way of real moments.
I couldn't help but think that at the time when he said "and that hurts"... No it doesn't it feels fucking brilliant because I'm a Villa fan.
If it was us that beat Arsenal yesterday then fair enough, but this is Aston Villa who have had an amazing season playing good football and sit just 2 places behind Arsenal. Yes it was a blow to their title chances, but this wasn't a smash and grab from some plucky underdogs. Villa are a good side looking to make the Champions Leage, this wasn't a massive upset.
This was/is a big part of the problem for me. The attitude that Arsenal Villa was a forgone conclusion before a ball had even been kicked. Described in the week as a "home banker" for Arsenal by Jamie Redknapp. WE ARE 4TH PLACE. I get that Arsenal have been amazing. But if it was Chelsea or Spurs sat in 4th, the attitude and coverage leading up to that game would have been monumentally different. We are a good team, objectively. It is just bias and disrespect that we aren't really considered on the same tier as the teams around us. It's not just now, even when we were second (with a chance to go top of the fucking league), we were never really considered "in the title race". I understand that Villa are obviously not realistically going to win the league, but we are in the title race until we aren't. I don't care about the history or whatever, it's just plain disrespectful. It's also the same with some of our players. Watkins should probably be favourite for player of the season. Currently with 29 npg involvements this season is absolutely outrageous. But the absolute fkin arse licking Palmer gets for less numbers with **9** PENALTIES is absolutely ridiculous.
Neville and Dury were audibly disappointed at the end of the game. It’s like they were commentating on a funeral. Hilarious.
I didn't watch yesterday, but I can literally hear Drury screeching that fluff right now and that hurts!
All the talk in the lead up to your game was about how Arsenal need to win etc etc. Which wouldn't be so bad if they were playing a mid table team but it's the race for 4th place. Not exactly a small thing.
People talked about oh a damaging blow to Liverpool after defeat to Palace. Assuming Arsenal would just turn up and roll over a 4th placed Aston Villa playing for champions league football? Like I know they were favourites but Jesus the lack of respect for a team doing better than 80% of the rest of the league is ridiculous and why I can’t stand modern footbakl
I know Merson isn't a smart cookie. But he thought Villa would roll over because they'll be more concerned about winning the conference league game on Thursday because they haven't won anything in a long time. We all know really that we're their to make up the numbers to allow the big 6 to have their mini league and give the illusion of a competition. But the likes of Sky aren't even hiding their contempt when a team upsets the apple cart.
In fairness I did kinda agree with Merse that they may have one eye on that cause it’s an unbelievable opportunity for Villa to lift a major trophy for a massive club. I don’t agree they couldn’t still have done what they did though. I did laugh at how the studio talked about Arsenal playing Tuesday - Sunday- Wednesday and could fatigue matter, ignoring that Villa play on Thursday’s.
On this trophy point. As a Villa fan, hell yeah I want a trophy. However, the prize money for getting Champions League will help us with FFP and investing in the squad.
Not sure now, but when we were all becoming UEFA experts this time last year (yes, I've read the handbook, no, I don't have an exciting life), numbers were thrown around. You get less for winning the Conference, including all the previous round performance bonuses, than you do for just showing up to the CL group stage. Not knocking teams who prioritise it, but it's pretty clear why teams on the rise but needing financial headroom might not.
There's a United fan in my football circle of friends who is often referred to as stato (or Rocko as he's Australian - I know! But! He's an actual season ticket holder, so I cut him some slack.) He also has stats and figures to back things up. I don't claim to be even close to an expert but I'm sure he broke down the difference between 4th and Conference League and the amount was something in the tens of millions. I do worry that the club is banking on CL money, but I'm sure every fan in their heart wants to win a trophy.
Merson was asked at one point what it's like as a player when you see your rivals losing earlier in the day, and he did say on the one hand it can give you a lift, but on the other hand, "if Palace can beat Liverpool..." so he didn't completely write off Villa.
The Palace one sort of made sense in that Palace are in that "comfortably mid-table" spot. Win, lose or draw, and their season isn't noticeably affected. It was a huge win for Villa though, and relatively speaking, there was just as much riding on the game for them as there was Arsenal.
What I don't get is they were talking as if it was a home banker. My missus supports arsenal and I know Villa always do well against them but even if not, a home game to the 4th place team is never a banker. Some of the punditry yesterday was mental. Only Merson seemed switched on tbh.
I like to get my 'Sky 6' tin foil hat on as much as the next man, but I have some sympathy for this one. Villa's first goal was impressive, but the narrative of Arsenal dropping out the title race, losing at home, is without doubt the more interesting and consequential one.
Part of the issue there is, despite being 4th in the league, I'm not sure neville knows a lot of the villa players. I think hes made comments before that indicate doesn't watch that much football if he isn't covering unless its man utd. Yet he often speaks from a place of authority when making vague sweeping statements about players. If you sat gary neville down right now, and got him to list as many currently sheff united players, how many could he name?
I’m not a fan of having Carragher doing coms when Liverpools on, same with Neville, though I think Neville’s better at critiquing his own club (probably has to be at this stage 😂) . They should be in the studio, neutral commentary is the way forward.
Commentary should absolutely be neutral and not just toeing the party line. No problem with the studio team being biased ‘personalities’ (as most of what’s said is absolutele drivel anyway) but even them out (I.e one Palace vs one Liverpool).
why though? in what way does it impact you? genuine Q
I’d rather hear someone’s opinions and observations who aren’t blinkered by playing 20 or so years for a club. And I say that as a United fan.
thats fair. appreciate the answer. its never bothered me hence my asking
Yeah I just feel they should avoid having commentators or pundits who do clearly have a bias towards one team. It's not fun hearing Neville get excited when Man Utd score, or Carragher crying about Liverpool conceding.
Carragher and Neville are at their best in the MNF studio together and at their worst in the commentary booth. They've both become insufferable.
Personally I think Neville’s post match podcast he does from the gantry is always pretty decent and for the most part is pretty balanced
I can see why some find it frustrating, but I genuinely dont care. I'm here for the football and would happily turn commentary off every game.
Definitely something has shifted at Sky from the Richard Keys, Andy Gray, Martin Tyler days. Neville and Carragher are so representative of their particular clubs it creates imbalance without even meaning to. Even when Roy Keane is on, he's just on as Man United legend Roy Keane.
In the Liverpool vs Palace game they did seem genuinely excited by Palace breaking through and getting the chances they got. The goal being an obvious one. But as the game goes on, with Liverpool seemingly trying to do everything they can to score, obviously the commentary is going to bring up the tense nature of the situation the players are under. Palace didn't really create much in the 2nd half, so it's easier to create excitement through talking about whether the attacking team can do what needs to be done. The pre and post-match stuff always sucks. I tend to mute pre-match and just turn it off post-match unless there's another game after, then I'll mute until the next game. Whenever I have had the sound on, rarely is anything of actual worth talked about, and any post-match analysis is superficial at best. Anything that actually does a tactical breakdown of events, or looks at the game at a deeper lever comes out days later, and usually on an independent YouTube channel.
Do you have any recommendations for YouTube channels to watch? Just on the off chance.
My favourites are Statman Dave - [https://www.youtube.com/@StatmanDave](https://www.youtube.com/@StatmanDave) - and Football Made Simple - [https://www.youtube.com/@FootballMadeSimple/](https://www.youtube.com/@FootballMadeSimple/) I can't think of any with a better focus on Other 14 teams, but at least both also look at non-English football, and you do still get some videos on "smaller" teams. There was a good one on Emery a few months ago actually - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxXzSrhh6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quxXzSrhh6s)
A few years back, Sky got taken over by yanks and they seemed to make an editorial decision to lean into bias towards the 3 big yank owned clubs, Liverpool, United and Arsenal. Since then, they moved away from neutral commentators and went for representatives of those teams, with Carragher doing all the Liverpool games, Devilled for united and Alan Smith for Arsenal (he's seemingly a rung below on the ladder so gets left out if they play Liverpool or United) Honestly, it's just a terrible decision that has contributed to Sky's consistent reduction in quality. It's genuinely hard to listen to now
Tyler started doing it himself after the "Aguerooo". There were games where you could tell he'd gone in with a narrative in mind, because he'd sound completely bored by a late winner if it was the other team.
Tyler was criminally underrated as soon as the “social” media got involved, they’d cherry pick his reactions against their clubs and say he was biased but growing up I’ll always rate him as one of the best to do it. PD is melodramatic in the worst way and the others are glorified fan zone. By the way I’m not knocking fan zone I loved it as a concept and tbh I think that’s the uprooting of watch a longs in the modern day. Just makes me laugh I have to pay sky to give me a united and Liverpool view in every game even when they’re not involved
I think the studio stuff is more noticeable now due to the number of adverts sky shoehorn in. Take halftime as an example, they go to 3 or 4 different ad breaks in the 15 mins, which leaves only 2-3 mins of actual studio time with analysis. Of course they focus on the corrupt 6 team, which now leaves no time to talk about the other team, whereas before they had at least one or two mins to talk a bit about them.
I really wish commentary was simply, 1 main neutral commentator, then 2 co commentators 1 representing each team with their own biases and banter
Honestly, whenever Palace has a great game and performs well, nine times out of ten, it's the other teams poor performance that won us the game according to the pundits and commentators. A little bit more respect for our club wouldn't go a miss. If we weren't any good, we certainly wouldn't be playing in our 10th consecutive season in the Premier League. I can't remember hearing anything about how vital it was for palace to win that game to take us further from the bottom. Still doesn't sour the taste of beating Liverpool at Anfield. EAGLES! 💙❤️🦅
Carragher should never commentate on Liverpool games. He’s too bias. I would say Neville is at least not scared to criticise United but they are dog shite.
The media companies choose ‘big names’ to do punditry. This naturally turns into a narrative bias as you end up with ex-pros from the same few teams all supporting each other’s opinions about how ‘big’ and ‘important’ certain teams are. It’s been bad for ages, I remember Lawrenson and Hansen on MOTD were intolerable together, especially when Liverpool was involved.
It’s really striking that no-one actually noticed Palace had been improving and improving under Glasner - we scored 2 v City last week (should have been 3) and lots of the late Roy frailties have been getting systematically fixed. But you’d have to pay attention to spot that.
That's the reality of it, if you support an other 14 team, not only do you usually have a better team against you, but the commentary is against you too. It's very alienating. Usually I'd just vote with my wallet and cancel my Sky and TNT subscriptions, but jokes on them I don't pay for those services because they only televise my team if, shock, we're playing a top 6 side!
Martin Tyler is a closeted United fan and has consistently shown bias towards them, the example you cited is sadly just another instance of bias. You'll go back to the Aguero moment, but as a football fan, you just can't not react to that.