Graeme Souness v Tyrone Mings has caught us – and indeed Tyrone Mings – off-guard. It won’t reach the lofty heights of Carragher and Simpson.
10) Jorginho versus Rio Ferdinand
Chelsea had just been beaten 2-0 at Arsenal in January 2019, thus loosening their grip on a Champions League qualification place, when Rio Ferdinand opened a can of worms that would not expire for a good couple of years.
The BT Sport pundit described Jorginho as “someone who sets the tempo of the game” before going on to explicitly state that he “can’t run”, is “not a great defender” and “doesn’t give you anything at the other end of the pitch”.
It came at the height of Sarriball, and subsequently the peak of Jorginho scepticism. The midfielder kept schtum until suddenly, upon being voted UEFA Player of the Year in September 2021, he shared a video on social media of the two-year-old critique, followed by a clip of him accepting the award.
“I won’t say I was wrong in what I said, at that time that was where he was,” came Ferdinand’s response a week or so later. Yet by that November, he was “not trying to be disrespectful” in explaining his confusion as to how Jorginho could be nominated for the Ballon d’Or, his lesson clearly not having been learned.
9) Florian Thauvin versus Alan Shearer
Chancel Mbemba started it. The centre-half was the first to heed a message from above to “look sharp on match days”, deciding that Steve McClaren and his staff meant for everyone to start wearing tuxedos.
Florian Thauvin literally followed suit before an August 2015 visit from Arsenal, inviting the opprobrium of club legend Alan Shearer – and Daily Telegraph journalist Matt Law, who suggested players should just “all turn up in a circus outfit next week because it’s just stupid, absolutely stupid”.
“This is a serious business we’re in here,” said a disapproving Shearer, who later implied ‘a lack of work rate’ from the Frenchman in his newspaper column.
Speaking on the issue after being loaned back to Marseille following a few underwhelming months on Tyneside, Thauvin took that as being “violently criticised”. A couple more years passed before the World Cup-winning winger suggested that Shearer’s evaluation – “a club legend spoke about me. And since he’s a legend…” – scuppered any hopes of a successful Magpies spell.
8) Mesut Ozil versus Martin Keown
It was actually an agent rather than a player or pundit who…
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