Neville, Keano, Wazza: old boys' cosy punditry cohort pulling no punches

The Guardian

08-03-2025

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. 'In my day' will be offered as advice until the end of time itself. Twas ever thus. Punditry is, by nature, viewed through the prism of the past. Glance into a Premier League press room on match day, the thickened waistlines and/or greying hair of former heroes will be present and correct.
The BBC's Test Match Special is forever travelling back in time, if not so frequently as when Fred Trueman was part of the team. The self-proclaimed 'fastest bloody bowler that ever drew breath' constantly hailed back to the days of Leonard Hutton and the Yorkshire team of the 50s. TMS, despite cricket's many modernities, has never truly extracted itself from its golden era of EW Swanton and John Arlott.
Football, a sport of far greater partisanship, is full of such golden ages, depending on which club you may favour. A listener to Merseyside's Radio City in the 90s on Saturday evenings could hear Ian St John, formerly half of ITV's Saint and Greavsie, hold forth on the latest failings of Liverpool FC. 'That's no' a Liverpool team,' the Saint, Kop idol turned keeper of the Shankly faith, would grumble.
Concurrently, viewers of Match of the Day were presented with Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, twin rocks of the 80s Liverpool machine turned shirt-sleeved critics of serial champions turned tabloid fodder 'Spice Boys'. Hansen's Clackmannanshire baritone and Lawro's Lancastrian, Mavis Riley-like whine would dissect their former club's performances, punches occasionally pulled in the hope things would turn around. They weren't angry, just disappointed.
A Liverpool player of the time would have few places to turn to avoid disapproval. On Sky, Phil Thompson, jettisoned from coaching after a falling-out with Graeme Souness, became an often searing critic. Around such time, neutrality was abandoned as an impossible job, giving rise to the largely partisan pundits found on pay-TV broadcasts. Every club has one, and if not, Steve Sidwell probably played for them.
A Manchester United player of 2025 has even fewer places to hide than his 90s Liverpool equivalent. In the pundit class, Sir Alex Ferguson's players pervade, including, and this is no exhaustive list, Gary Neville's groans of warning, Roy Keane's squawks of disgust, Paul Scholes's sighing disapproval and Rio Ferdinand's rising volume.
Other former United stars are available. Most have contributed to a criticism of their former club that has become an avalanche. Punches are rarely pulled. None has an official role at United like, say, Micah Richards' club ambassadorship for Manchester City. The Glazer family's – and latterly Ineos's – lack of interest in a past that cannot be monetised has demobbed an army into one that now rails against them.
Each reverse sees a former Ferguson charge rant, almost on a rota basis, Keane doing double shifts. Last week, as United exited the FA Cup, it was Wayne Rooney's turn, using the word 'naive' to describe Ruben Amorim. The United manager's riposte – 'That's why I'm here, at 40 years old, coaching Manchester United' – was a missile guided towards his critic's struggles to establish himself in coaching.
Where Liverpool players of their doldrum era have spoken of the dangers of kicking back, Amorim retains the self-confidence to take on the old guard, becoming a gift to headlines, adding fire and colour to common-and-garden quotes follow-ups.
Technology has added multitudes. Social media, where Neville's partner in punditry, the perennially online Jamie Carragher, is usually found, is key, though the collapse of X into a Dante's Inferno of wrongness has lately lessened its impact. YouTube and podcasts are where the money is. The most piping-hot takes, too.
They are served hottest by The Overlap podcast, where Neville, Carragher, Keano, Jill Scott and Ian Wright plus guests – Scholesey, Wazza, Butty, Schmeichs, Becks – perch round the type of kitchen island no Cheshire footballer's mansion would be complete without.
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This place where Neville swigs Huel and Keane munches blueberries has become a crucible of content, clipped up and cast into a world where newspaper websites, old media struggling against the tide, gobble it up to chase down clicks. The Rest Is Football, despite featuring Gary Lineker, bete noire of right-leaning thunderers, comes closest in terms of click-bait generation but has rowed back the controversy since those Euro 2024 days of calling England performances 'shit'.
Food and drinks being served on The Overlap gives it a Saturday Kitchen for top, top players vibe, though the conversation resembles Loose Women with an injection of testosterone. If Keane gets aerated, it can hit Jeremy Kyle levels. As guests come and go, the overriding topic remains the fall and fall of Manchester United, one that Carragher especially enjoys.
The Overlap has shown Keane's human side – his friendships with Scott and Wright revealing a softness – though the temptation to call out 'bluffers', players who are 'not a fighter', to see modern football through the prism of his own career, is rarely denied.
When old teammates come together, it is rarely too long until they are fighting the battles of the past. The Manchester United players of 2025, struggling within the 3-4-3 formation the old gods dismiss despite other Premier League teams making it work, find themselves in a media environment where the treble of 1999 and accompanying triumphs are regularly relived, where Ferguson's team's unrepeatable magic has grown men cooing like the subservient young men they once were.
It makes for popular, watchable content, but in constantly looking to the past, any brighter future for United feels further away than ever.