Alan Shearer asked Eric Ten Hag the question on everyone's lips Photo: BBC
The knee-jerk outrage towards TV pundits is so perverse it makes you scream. And even more so when it comes to Manchester United. When a troubled Ole Gunnar Solskjaer presided over a 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool, the main complaint against the commentators was that they were too lenient and too forgiving of the Norwegian's mistakes. Gary Neville drew widespread criticism for making excuses for his friend and former teammate. There was an opinion that the audience deserved better.
Today, two and a half years later, that view has been upended: Alan Shearer has been criticized by his BBC audience for having the temerity to ask Erik ten Hag a difficult question. It begged the question: Why had his United team, at times compelling in the FA Cup final win over Manchester City, not deigned to find that form in 51 other matches this campaign? “You have a team that showed great attitude, great ability and won every tackle,” Shearer said. “However, it wasn’t always like this, was it?”
Pure honesty 🔴
🗣️ Great interview @alanshearer and @garylineker with Erik ten Hag. #BBCFACup #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/8WGxvTytNY
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD), May 25, 2024
For this he was put in the pillory, as if he had just poured beer on the father of the bride. United fans mobilized like a swarm of flying ants, defending the Dutchman's honor in the victory while accusing Shearer of insensitive timing and unprofessionalism. The heaping was so furious that even this normally level-headed analyst snapped back, asking one armchair detractor on social media:
Which part did you not like?
The part where I said your team was great today and deserved to win, or the part where I said you were crap for most of the season? https://t.co/Stq5M3cWic
— Alan Shearer (@alanshearer) May 25, 2024
As usual, Shearer's barbs were devoid of significant context, with footage showing him prefacing an offensive comment with praise and later describing United's performance as “incredible”. All that mattered was his alleged role in sabotaging Ten Hag's golden day at Wembley. “You were very brave,” laughed Gary Lineker. Hardly. Shearer simply subjected the manager to legal scrutiny, demanding to know why it took United nine months to create a game worthy of its name.
If all those supporters seething with righteous indignation wanted their man to get lucky, there would be plenty of other channels that would be happy to help. Take MUTV, a domestic station so reliably Pravda-style that even during the most toxic days of Jose Mourinho's reign, when his training atmosphere with Paul Pogba became less frosty than subarctic, presenter Helen Evans began an interview with him by saying: ” You are probably tired of all this nonsense that is written all the time. Carrington is such a peaceful place. Four months later he was fired.
In this edition you saw no mention of the glaring discrepancy with United's past form, but simply the coziest of love affairs. This may pass muster when preaching to the converted, but not when representing a national broadcaster. Shearer was guilty of little more than addressing the dominant subtext of the finale, namely the gruesome form that left Ten Hag a walking dead man. He was far from the only one to wonder why this vibrant version of United had been in hibernation for a year. Judging by the reaction of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who did not answer the question about the coach’s future upon entering the dressing room and only briefly shook his hand, the club’s co-owner was also thinking about this.
Elsewhere, Shearer is littered with the usual hopeless stuff. Why, cry his attackers, does he not dare embarrass Pep Guardiola over City's 115 allegations (all categorically denied) of financial impropriety? To begin with, these two sets of circumstances are very different: City may simply be toeing the line that they have nothing to say ahead of the upcoming trial, while Ten Hag is completely free to discuss the split personalities of his players.
And as for the opinion that Guardiola always only gets the easy ride? How quickly people forget. As soon as City beat Watford 6-0 in the 2019 final, he was asked whether he had received secret payments from the club's Abu Dhabi owners. Dismissing this furiously, he replied: “Honestly, do you think I deserve such a question?”
Make no mistake, Ten Hag deserved his question. For Shearer, who has improved greatly as an expert since his early years of research when he claimed to know nothing about Newcastle's Hatem Ben Arfa, this was Jeremy Paxman's moment, using a perfectly sensible line of inquiry to create a riveting segment of television. . The fact that many fans criticize him says more about them than about him, revealing their time-tested tendency to want both.
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