When Adrian Chiles asked the tv pundits about England's 2014 World Cup campaign they did their best to try to come up with something to say. Lee Dixon said

"blah blah blah... so a few positives there."

And that was it. England out after three games but Lee Dixon says "so a few positives."

It was hilarious and sad and summed up England. Even when we lose there are positives. LOL!

Oh boy.

Andros Townsend was the best part of the ITV coverage. He's the most inexperienced at media work but knocked socks off all the others.

ITV's commentary teams were woeful.
Saying that, some of the BBC second string aren't that great either - but calling them second string points out how bad ITV's first string was.

BBC won the pundit/presenter wars for sure.

I remember that line from Dixon and it was particularly pathetic because all the replay seemed to show was England stringing three passes together...

Didn`t see it as I was watching the Italy game, must have been murder for poor old Adrian to muster any sort of enthusiasm.

Let's face it - the TV pundits matched the team's performance.

Here's a sample of RTE in Ireland's analysis of England :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=477JPySx-Og

Some very intelligent discussion and lively debate......much higher standard than the ITV panel.

The tension on that panel between Kenny Cunningham and Eamon Dunphy is incredible - you can tell by Kennys face that he loathes the guy!

We need more of that on our panels - it's all too nicey nicey.

It seems ITV/BBC have had that much coaching and 'media training' they just trot out the usual cliches and banal lines. I'd much rather see people having open discussions like they have on your link.

What really annoys me is the constant going over of the same thing. They cover some incident or piece of action then 5 minutes later repeat their analysis.

I suspect they are more disappointed that the BBC about England going out.

The latter have Wimbledon and Mr Murray to concentrate on (hope I've not jinxed him!)

For the first time ever, I think, radio 5live dumped an England match with about 15 minutes to go and went over to commentary on the Uruguay-Italy game.......

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Last edited by davelovesleeds : 25-06-2014 at 11:11

The BBC have been the worse channel to watch football during the World Cup and ITV are not much better. I hate to say it but the British pundits are the worse on both sides.

We nearly got Keane and Viera

Indeed, this is real football debate with an edge to it (and opinions on England players you'd be unlikely to hear even aired on ITV and the BBC). I've heard that ratings for RTE's post-match analysis are even higher than for the actual football every evening.

Kenny has been a great addition to the panel. This was a no holds barred clash with no quarter given on either side : I think Kenny edged out Eamon on points

Definitely I much prefer watching the BBC pundits compared to the ITV ones, they really are awful on ITV.

I love RTE's football debates. I've watched quite a few old ones on YouTube. Always great stuff.

To be fair, there's been gaffes all over the place. The commentator tonight talking about Ecuador fighting for a chance to play against Australia and the earlier gaffe about the Iranians having their Christian names (should have said forenames/first names ) on their shirts.

They're fantastic. Sometimes huge blazing arguments but with both sides making intelligent points.......the British pundits seem incredibly safe and bland and uncontroversial in comparison.

ITV is a joke channel. In the build up to the Argentina game they bang on about Messi vs Maradona (zzZz) then conspire to show the Hand of God from 1986. Just what relevance did this have to the debate or the forthcoming match? They find any link no matter how tenuous to bring England into the conversation. Their channel is aimed at complete morons and is insulting to football connoisseurs of the beautiful game.

Yes, they did. I was working and driving round with someone and we both were annoyed that they didn't have the Uruguay game on in full!

Hardly a gaffe. When you have lived all your life with a Christian name. It never stopped geldof either. Christmas time in Africa etc

(Spell checker put seldom instead of seldom)

I noticed that when they've been broadcasting the simultaneous final group games, if there's been a goal in the other game the BBC will show it in split screen mode.

ITV just mention the other score but don't show the goal.

1-0 to BBC on that matter IMO.