Roy Hodgson spoke his mind at his press conference yesterday – railing against the Chelsea fans who have sent death threats to Tom Henning Ovrebo and singling out the less-than-insightful Sky pundit Jamie Redknapp for particular critcism.
I find it quite appalling that referees should be under death threats.
There’s 60 countries in Europe. Do we say to the other 57: ‘Sorry pal, you’re not Premier League’.
Norway is good enough. The average crowd in Norway is 15,000 and that’s in a country of four million. We can only average 25,000 in a country of 60 million people.
What are we going to do in future? Are we going to make certain because the Premier League has loads and loads of money if you are not in England then forget all about it?
Are we going to say ‘You’re from Spain, you might be just about okay but the rest of you, Switzerland, France, Poland, Russia, Austria, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, you don’t count?’ It’s nonsense.
Nonsense indeed. Redknapp’s television ‘punditry’ consists of reminding everyone just how brilliant his cousin is, repeating inane phrases, sometimes getting animated and uttering that someone is world class every so often. That’s pretty easy money if you ask me. I notice he hasn’t gone into a tough job – like coaching, management, or say refereeing.
Redknapp is also somebody who constantly misuses the term “literally” – a particular bug-bear of mine.
Favourites include:
“Stevie Gerrard was literally on fire in that first half”;
“the ball literally exploded off his foot”;
“the ref literally blew him up there”;
“Evra’s literally left Johnson for dead there”;
“Centre forwards have the ability to make time stand still. And when Chopra got the ball, it literally did just that”;
and “Claude Makelele has literally sat in front of his back four all game”.
What a moron.