Potty at the Potteries

Last night, I obviously watched Newcastle United take on Stoke City in the FA Cup on BBC1. A 0-0 draw away is something to have cheer about, especially the clean sheet, but it was against lower league opposition. Under Sir Bobby Robson, the complaint went that Newcastle switched off after 80 minutes, but here and in the past few matches they go to sleep on 35 minutes.
Mind you, I was even less impressed by the punditry afterwards. Incisive analysis can be somewhat lacking at the BBC nowadays, but I wasn't prepared for that. Alan Shearer's take on matches can be a bit hit and miss between banality ("oh they had a good game, but the other team weren't bad either," for example) and approaching interest ("you've got to have a defender in this shaded box otherwise the striker's got a free shot), but his idea of impartiality is to be partial to Newcastle's opponents. Of course, everyone knows he supports Newcastle, but over-compensating to counter that is not giving a balanced view. His assertion on Stoke City on this occasion was that they deserved to win. No they didn't. Newcastle had more chances on goal and each side had one gilt-edged chance, no to mention possession being 59%-41% in Newcastle's favour. Then again, if you're the BBC and you just show all the Stoke chances and then when that's over you say you've run out of time, of course Stoke deserved to win, because according to the BBC, Newcastle's chances have been erased from history in some Orwellian way. Garth Crooks, former Stoke city player, allowed a rare foray into the pundits' box, was utterly biased and admitted as much, but Alan Shearer wasn't allowed to be. Come on. I know it is fun to support the underdog, and having Blackburn Rover and Everton dumped so spectacularly out of the Cup by Coventry City and Oldham Athletic respectively does lift the spirits as does Liverpool stumbling to a draw against Luton Town. So of course there is going to be more sympathy for the likes of Stoke, but let's not try to rewrite what actually happened.