'For him to turn around and say he's finished last week, it's wrong,' said Alan Cawley of Eamon Dunphy on 2FM's Game On last night.
Cawley was speaking regarding what he thought Dunphy had said about Leo Messi during RTÉ's coverage of Barcelona vs Juventus in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final the previous week.
Cawley believed Dunphy had said Messi was finished. Later in the show that was a point which Dunphy hotly contested.
Alan Cawley: Eamon, you've made a bit of a boo-boo Eamon.
Eamon Dunphy: What did I do?
AC: I was sitting at home watching the match last week saying please, no Eamon, please don't write him off.
ED: You got it all wrong. The first thing I said was that Barcelona as a team were gone and we won't see that team again. The next thing I said, and we all agreed, was that Messi was still, even if he lost 10, 15, 20 per cent, a great player and I also said that I hoped he would come the Premier League and possibly Manchester City, it would be a fantastic thing.
The other thing I said was Real Madrid, it wasn't just Barcelona who were struggling, it was Real Madrid and they are struggling and anyone who watched last night will see that.
Now, to misrepresent that, funny enough another RTE programme did this morning. This is what stops people talking candidly about football and having really interesting discussions because some moron will say you said something you never said. Well go on, finish your point.
AC: I never said anything like that, in fairness.
ED: What were you going to say?
AC: I watched the show last week.
ED: And what did I say about Messi?
AC: You said that he was finished.
ED: I didn't.
AC: You more or less said the week before that you had a package ready to go and say he was finished.
ED: No we didn't. We didn't say that either.
What we said was that the Barcelona team that we have all loved for the last seven or eight years was no more, it's over. What we said about Messi was that he was diminished from what he had been as a great player. That was clear in both Juventus games.
Now if you watched last night's game, I don't know whether you did or not or if you just watched the headlines.
AC: Of course I did. Eamon, I think you know me better than that.
ED: What can I do when you say you were watching a television programme last week and you don't remember what you saw?
AC: (Laughing) We all remember. We all remember.
ED: What do you remember?
AC: Basically that we were watching the match...
ED: And that I said Messi was finished? Did I say Messi was finished?
AC: To a point.
ED: OK. Get the tape out and have another look.
AC: To a point, you said that his best days were behind him and he was finished. He's not finished and he's far from finished and I think we've seen that, regardless of Real Madrid or their deficincies, which I agree they've...
ED: You should get a job on fucking Morning Ireland, you know. They were saying the same thing, I didn't say that.
AC: I'm just talking about Real Madrid...
ED: No you're not. You're talking about something that you allege I said that I didn't say. When you have a look at the tape, you can apologise. There's a difference between saying Barcelona are gone as a force in European football.
AC: When I would agree with.
ED: A bit late in the day, I was saying it in October. There's a difference between that and saying Lionel Messi is finished. By he way, scoring two goals last night wouldn't prove very much in the great scheme of things.
After the conversation turned to Pep Guardiola and Arsene Wenger, Dunphy - who also apologised for swearing - once again implored Cawley to go back rewatch the RTÉ coverage of Barca vs Juve.
ED: I'm always friends with Alan. I've great respect for him. I'd just invite him to go onto the RTÉ Player and see what I said and don't be listening to morons on current affairs shows.
You can listen to the Eamon Dunphy vs Alan Cawley exchange below.
