ITV need to get Adrian Chiles out of the studio and look to Sky for inspiration

 
Dan Jones12 June 2012

They are a team of only moderate individual talent. They are led by a man associated with West Brom, who is respected by his fellow professionals but lacks the personality to galvanise the fans. They’ve been slated so often before this tournament that tepid ineffectiveness is not so much a concern as an expectation.

They are difficult to love, too harmless really to bother hating; ladies and gentleman, it’s . . . the ITV Euro 2012 pundits! Wahey! Etc.

England kicked off their campaign last night after what seemed like the longest build-up in television history.

Seemingly every game so far — Italy’s superb technical arm wrestle against Spain; Denmark’s unlikely 1-0 victory over Holland — has essentially been a vehicle for the TV broadcasters to feign as little interest as seems polite in the silly foreign kickaball before turning their attentions on the Three Lions and their heroic attempt to reach the last eight of a 16-team competition.

Last night the hankering was over, and, since ITV (rather than the Beeb) bagged the rights to England’s first game, Adrian Chiles was able finally to lead his team into action: studio pundits Jamie Carrachhhhggggghgher, Patrick Vieira and Gareth Southgate, along with various in-game nonks helmed by Clive ‘there is no statement in the English language which cannot be rephrased as a rhetorical question (is there?)’ Tyldesley.

Their performance, much like that of Roy Hodgson’s England, was as unthreatening and comfortingly bland as a piece of lightly smoked tofu.

The ITV approach is characterised by Chiles in the hotseat. Many unkind things have been written about Chiles since ITV recruited him and it would be cruel to add any more here.

On the other hand, it would also be quite funny, so let’s say that it remains mildly distracting to watch matches chaired by a bloke whose appearance and delivery is so very similar to The Moon from The Mighty Boosh. But that’s a mere pot-shot, meant with as much affection as malice. For all that Chiles puts the dreadful pun in dreadful pundit, he is doing his thing and his thing is reading an autocue script written by someone who believes that English football fans only operate in one mode: idle, irrational patriotism.

Thus the main thrust of questioning to the panel of pundits last night seemed to centre on whether

Carragher hoped England would win and thought his mate Steven Gerrard was a good lad (yes) and Patrick Vieira was a bit worried when France went 1-0 down (oui).

If there were more searching footballing humdingers to be asked, no one was asking them.

This is quite annoying, because the truth is that most football fans are more grown up than they are given credit for. While they would presumably like to see their team do well, they can cope with a far greater degree of sophistication than either ITV or the BBC’s teams generally bother to deliver, particularly when England are involved.

Sky Sports, for all their sins, have proved with their Monday Night Football show that it is possible to deliver probing technical and tactical analysis around football on the telly.

Gary Neville has even landed himself an England coaching job on the back of it.

As for the England that Neville is coaching: well, they remain pretty much as they ever are. A cautious and old-fashioned 4-4-1-1 system, tight in defence but with just enough pace to counter-attack and try to pinch tight victories was pretty much the default Fabio Capello mode.

Not a great deal seems different under Roy Hodgson, except for the fact that the team’s collective demeanour has been subtly changed from ‘arrogant blocker’ to ‘apologetic underdog’. Capello would have been castigated for a performance like last night’s opener. With Hodgson, we merely shrug.

On this subject, we may also note that the popular Euro 2012 meme, which began as ‘England are rubbish, no one expects anything of us’ has shifted to become ‘England are rubbish, no one expects anything of us, which means we’ll probably go and win the damned thing’. All roads, then, end up at the same place.

Twitter @dgjones

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