Among the intermittent delights in football these days is Richard Keys' blog posts, which can be guaranteed every so often to bring a post of such little self-awareness to be perversely spectacular. His blog usually consists of his musings on football, accompanied by some flagrant name-dropping and a Partridgean belief in his having the last laugh.
Keys has been blogging again this week, in response to his recent twitter feud with Jamie Carragher.
The former Sky presenter took issue with Carragher's stinging criticism of Arsenal, believing his calling them "cowards" crossed a line.
Arsenal 'cowards'. You can't say that @Carra23 not when you've played. Remember how you reacted when Adrian Durham called you out over Eng?
— Richard Keys (@richardajkeys) April 11, 2017
There was a bit of back and forth...
I can & I did. Glad you tuned in for the REAL MNF Richard. https://t.co/HSSbBWpnrx
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) April 11, 2017
What would be your verdict be on the Liverpool players that failed time and again to win the title down the years?
— Richard Keys (@richardajkeys) April 11, 2017
Teams I played in failed in winning the PL because of ability not character. https://t.co/P2lXEMqPdN
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) April 11, 2017
Before Carragher tweeted a question which brought no response:
Interested in what your verdict is on why you failed to keep your job at Sky? Not heard you mention it before. https://t.co/P2lXEMqPdN
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) April 11, 2017
While Keys did not tweet Carragher directly, he has responded of kind with his latest blog post. Well, responded in a political sense: he has gone on for a bit by repeating himself and not actually answering the question posed by Carragher.
Under the headline "Cherish The Game", Keys wrote something of quite breathtaking self-praise, yammering on about how revolutionary and great his Monday Night Football with Andy Gray was, founded on his and Andy Gray's firm belief that footballers are, in fact, human, and should be treated so.
This is what the newer breed of "analysts" (Carragher) is failing to do.
Andy Gray invented a new way of analysing football. He helped educate a generation. There had never been anything like Monday Night Football before...
Many times I'd ask Andy - I still do on beINSports - to explain where, let's say United, had got it wrong. He would always start his reply 'Well Richard, who am I to tell Sir Alex Ferguson what happened out there? He knows more about his team and plans today than me, but.....' You see - respect. Sadly there isn't too much of that about these days.
I've lost count of the number of times Andy has said 'look, nobody goes onto a football pitch with the intention of playing badly'. It happens. Of course it does. It happens for many different reasons - footballers are human beings, not robots. Those that have played should be more aware of that than anybody else.
That's why I find it so sad that today's young 'analysts' want to consistently criticise everything they see. I was really disappointed to see Jamie Carragher call Arsenal's players 'cowards' after the game at Palace. 'Cowards'? There was a time in British history that kind of insult would bring men to arms at dawn in a pistol fight for honour. No. I'm sorry, those players could be accused of many things on the other night - but cowardice? No. No. No.
Keys has a fair point in that their Monday Night Football was interesting and changed punditry and analysis for the better, and upped the game in the use of technology in particular.
And in fairness, who better to preach about a lack of respect shown by television personalities toward those involved in the game than Richard Keys?
It's worth reading the full blog post here: it includes a good Alex Ferguson story.
