Gary Neville arrives at Old Trafford on Sunday
Gary Neville arrives at Old Trafford on Sunday
Gary Neville pulled his hood up as he walked through the Old Trafford press box and down the gangway to conduct a pre-match pitchside chat with Sky on Sunday.
There were 90 minutes to go until kick-off and the stadium was sparse. Some young fans requested a selfie with Neville, who obliged as he walked along the pitch after his piece for the camera.
Neville might have run the gauntlet if the stadium was fuller. His commentary of recent Manchester United games has not gone down well with plenty of Manchester United fans.
It is not just the crowd online, either. Matchgoers and sussed supporters have grown tired of some of Neville in the gantry. There was a noticeable backlash against his excessive criticism of United's performance in the 1-0 defeat at Tottenham last month.
Neville transformed punditry when he swapped the dressing room for the studio in 2011. Monday Night Football became a must-watch programme (and not for the football) as Neville innovatively dissected matches and incidents.
He seldom appears on that format now. Monday Night Football instead doubles as a job centre for out-of-work managers seeking a route back into the game. It worked for Graham Potter earlier in the season. Russell Martin was on it on Monday evening.
Sky's punditry standards are dwindling and maybe deliberately. Like BBC's focus on under 35s five years ago, there is an obsession with appealing to a younger audience and abandoning analysis.
The consensus is younger viewers are smartphone addicts who have short attention-spans, so broadcasters need a zinger or a viral clip. The American broadcaster CBS has pioneered this with their unwatchable Champions League coverage.
They have an excellent broadcaster, the former Sky Sports News presenter Kate Abdo, and recruiting Jamie Carragher was a coup. He is joined by court jester Micah Richards and Thierry Henry, about as illuminating as a mine.
Carragher is Sky's best analyst on United now but he has a tendency to descend into hyperbole, someone who cannot curate a tweet without using an exclamation mark.
Keane at Old Trafford on Sunday
Roy Keane is akin to an outdated comedian retrying the same unfunny schtick on a new audience. "United getting cheered off here. We used to get booed off if we had drawn," he quipped after the 1-1 with Arsenal. The Sky presenter, Dave Jones, did not challenge him.
Keane played in 43 home draws over 12-and-a-bit years with United. They drew 2-2 with Rotor Volgograd in 1995 to go out of the UEFA Cup at the first hurdle and were not booed. There will have been booing in some of those stalemates but for an opponent or a referee, almost certainly not the team.
Yesteryear, Keane said he would "rather go to the dentist" than do punditry. Now he is a pundit and a podcaster with pundits.
Keane, pitchside at the City Ground
Keane can be a compelling speaker and his page-turner autobiography is one of the best in football. But we get little or no insight from him now when he used to be informative. Just the odd wisecrack or rant.
Worst of all, Keane does not sound as authentic as he used to. Much of what pundits come out with now sounds premeditated. Some of Keane's purposeless debates have felt scripted.
That is the direction broadcasters are heading in and United is where the audience is at. Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Owen Hargreaves, members of the 2008 Champions League-winning squad, are on TNT, Sky has two former club captains and the BBC has Wayne Rooney.
Rooney on punditry duty last week
There is another ex-United captain on CBS in Peter Schmeichel. Schmeichel donned a club tie at the funerals of Kath Phipps and Denis Law as he continues to curry favour with a fanbase he infuriated by cartwheeling in City colours during the final Maine Road derby. Schmeichel touted Steve Bruce as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's replacement in 2021 and recommended Leeds United's gaffe-prone Illan Meslier as David de Gea's successor.
Ferdinand described Scott McTominay as "primetime (he meant prime) Jude Bellingham" the other week, keen to stress that another ex-United player was thriving away from United. Only McTominay had scored more goals for United at the same stage last season as he had for Napoli.
Most of the ex-United pundits are stuck in a timewarp. Neville said United's midfield set-up against Tottenham last month would not be seen in under-9 or under-10s matches. United were devoid of three senior midfielders and had eight substitutes who had never played for the club at kick-off. Casemiro made his first Premier League start in seven weeks just as he was about to turn 33.
Rooney analysed Rice's impact
Rooney has nestled into the pundit's armchair impressively. The guidance from those running Match of the Day for Rooney should be for him to be as incisive as his riveting columns in The Sunday Times, ghosted by the excellent Jonathan Northcroft.
If Rasmus Hojlund watched Rooney on Match of the Day 2, he should be more optimistic about ending a 20-game goal drought. Rooney's breakdown of Declan Rice's bursts was worthy of Monday Night Football.
Rooney may not have as much airtime on the BBC as Neville and Keane do on Sky but he has played more recently and licence fee payers would not be sanguine with an institution like Match of the Day dumbing down. The BBC chairman, Samir Shah, told The Sunday Times the programme "should not be built around highlights".
Keane and Neville have never quite recovered from protecting their friend Solskjaer during his near-three-year tenure as United manager. Neville refused to "call him out" and Keane admitted as much during last year's Stick to Football podcast.
That would not be cause to pull a hood up, mind.