John Barnes

Is it totally out of his depth, even on Channel 5, for tv presentation?
He just seems lost and completely wooden. At least Lineker developed a sense of humour that was pushed to the fore but Barnes really does need some lessons from someone, somewhere.

(No doubt someone is going to have a go at me now by saying something like 'You are only saying this about John Barnes because he is black'.)

Don't know about John Barnes but five seem to have picked up a duff feed of tonight's match! very big faint lines going down the screen and making it out of focus slightly... They've had an apology caption up a couple of times... They also managed to loose the sound completely at one point as well.. so not doing too well tonight presentation wise!

Those lines will probably annoy me before Liverpool's football does.

Regarding John Barnes, you have to remember that Gary Linekar did actually take a long time to become as good as he is. You say they utilised his humour - but this didn't come to the fore for quite some time.

I think John's problem is he is to nervous to vary from the script in any way. A bit of succesful ad libbing would do him and the viewers a lot of good.

If anyone accused you of racism they'd be stupid - but you should've seen him when he first started - he was absolutely terrible, he's improved a bit now though, but I think that's got something to do with five hiring his friend Kenny Dalglish as a pundit.

Well, it must be an issue in your mind; you brought it up. I can't say I even thought about the colour of his skin until you pointed it out.

Either way, John Barnes used to live literally round the corner from me when he was playing for Liverpool. Always struck me as a very nice man.

Good point, neither did I.