While I often try to treat the opinion of individuals with respect, I find it extremely aggravating when retired footballers criticise current footballers.
This trend is so much entrenched in English football that it makes a mockery of sports journalism, expert analysis and what is left of professionalism. So many old players now say some very funny stuff portraying it as expert analysis in order to stay in the news. In a club where the manager is a bit out of favour with some section of the public, criticising his decisions becomes a short cut to media relevance.
On the news currently is former Arsenal player, Stewart Robson. As per Metro, the former England star criticised Arsenal for signing Alexandre Lacazette and insisted that the forward is not a big game player. The TV and Radio pundit would have the North London club sign Chelsea-bound Alvaro Morata instead of Lacazette.
While Robson’s opinion would have been sound if he backed it up with some factual statistics, the pundit resorted to some cheap general comment just to sound reasonable thereby rendering his assessment unprofessional and nauseating.
In his words: “Lacazette, I’ve seen him on many occasions, I’m not convinced he’s got the consistency, or the work rate, or the hard graft to be a top-class player. I went to watch him a couple of times for another manager and I came back with a report that he wasn’t quite good enough to play at the top level.”
Speaking further Robson continued: “I am surprised they brought him rather than Aubameyang or went for Morata or somebody like that but they went for Lacazette.”
While Stewart Robson reserves the right to make comments and criticise whoever he wants to, it would have been more sensible to accord a little respect to the Gunners new arrival.
The entire comment, if truly analysed is not a fair criticism. In fact, it is no criticism at all but an expression of bad blood and ill-will. Lacazette is yet to play in a competitive match for Arsenal and having former club players derail him is an awful thing and shouldn’t be encouraged by the media.
While Lacazette is expected, as a professional, to shrug off some undue and irresponsible comments, it is not impossible that such can affect his psyche. Not every player can be a Mesut Ozil or Olivier Giroud to shrug of unwarranted criticism and forge ahead. The case of Angel Di’ Maria comes to mind.
Being Arsenal’s record signing at £52 million, Alexandre Lacazette has attracted comments from Mourinho too, which I consider simply envious. Having a former Arsenal player join in the fallacious campaign is very painful. There is no basis, whatsoever, to judge his Arsenal career. If he is to be judged by his performance at Lyon, then the two comments from Mourinho and Robson can be authoritatively tagged ‘stupid’. He averaged more goals against big teams in France than Lukaku against big teams in England.
As for the comparison with Morata, it is quite idiotic. Last season, he scored 37 against Morata’s 20 and even if we have to go a little dipper, for the last three seasons, his 91 goals in all competitions beat Morata’s 47 by a staggering 44. Let’s not also forget that his 37 goals last season is 14 goals more than the 23 goals Robson scored in his entire miserable career.
