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Back in the 1990s, when sitting in a TV studio chair gravely intoning that “you’ll never win anything with kids” became fashionable, Manchester United fans took grave exception to what they viewed as the excessive number of highly decorated former Liverpool players being given a platform from which to pontificate because they felt they were all too biased. Fast forward to the present day and increasing numbers of United fans are similarly miffed by the ubiquity of highly decorated former players from their own club because they’re not biased enough. Of course the advent of podcasts and round-the-clock subscription TV means there are far more jobs for the boys available and no shortage of United alumni have been recruited. We have now reached a point of such super-saturation that even Paul Scholes, who maintained an almost heroic public silence throughout the entirety of his playing career, seems unable to keep quiet.
Contrary to what some would have you believe, listening to Scholesy, Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Nicky Butt or Rio Ferdinand opine on the state of United is not compulsory, but such is their ubiquity and high profile that for anyone with even a passing interest in football, they are almost impossible to avoid. Their status as United legends often confers a wisdom upon their every utterance that is undeserved and it is increasingly common for journalists to fire the opinions of these former pros at struggling United managers in a bid to get a reaction. While the regulars on The Overlap and The Good, The Bad and The Football podcasts might view what they do as little more than a lucrative hustle in which they are asked to do nothing more taxing than chat football among friends, what they say carries weight and is even rumoured to influence decisions made in the United boardroom. However, as happy as they are to dish out stick, it seems not all these United old boys are quite as prepared to accept it in return.
