Ian ain’t made of the Wright stuff!
Last updated 10:10, Wednesday, 23 April 2008
SO Ian Wright has quit his role as a BBC pundit and now wants to be taken seriously ... as presenter of that deep and meaningful programme Gladiators.
Will we miss his inane remarks, cheesy humour, use of words like gutted and gobsmacked and his insistence on saying ‘Know what I mean’ at the end of every sentence?
I don’t fink so.
Wright’s absence from the BBC’s football coverage will not be a great loss.
The former Arsenal and England striker was not suited to the jacket, shirt and tie presentation and he’s right when he says he came across as a “comedy jester.”
Wright is no match for Alan Hansen when it come to enlightening analysis and reading of a game.
Nor is he a match for Mark Lawrenson when it comes to reasoned argument and saying it like it really is.
Those skills are precisely what we should expert to hear from pundits paid for their expertise and insight into football.
Wright resorted to silly, tired old clichés (best avoided like the plague) and made most of us cringe with his foot-in-mouth tendencies like bringing up the Falklands War when talking about England and Argentina or that Tony Adams showed a lot of bottle by owning up to alcoholism.
Wright has slunk off in a huff, claiming that BBC’s coverage is out of step with a younger generation and that what viewers really want are pundits who dress like fans on the terrace and who speak their language.
Let’s hope his ideas never catch on.
