Troy Deeney’s BBC Sport Team of the Week has been called “embarrassing”, “woeful lazy drivel” and “the bare minimum” just three weeks after taking the column over from Garth Crooks.
More than 800 posts under the BBC article criticised the former Watford striker’s lack of in-depth analysis and writing style.
Deeney also suggested Andy Robertson assisted one of Liverpool’s goals against Manchester United, which was later corrected.
Writing his column for almost 20 years, Crooks was infamous for selecting players out of position and favouring goalscorers over outstanding individual performances, but his analysis typically ran from 150-250 words.
He also wrote his “Crooks of the Matter” section discussing a hot-button issue of the week.
Yet two of the explanations of Deeney’s choices this week comprised just 11 words, simply saying of Wolves midfielder Jean-Ricner Bellegarde: “He scored an absolute screamer if you have not seen it!”.
And having vowed to avoid Crooks’s habit of ignoring tactics in his opening column, he selected Kaoru Mitoma as a No 10 in his first team, a position the Brighton winger has never played professionally.
Three league games.
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) September 2, 2024
Three wins.
Seven goals scored.
Zero conceded.
#LFC pic.twitter.com/pWt4shIhKi
His whole column this week runs to just 320 words, not including the boilerplate introduction and two pleas for readers to share their opinions in the later-closed comments section.
And much like Crooks’s own foibles, Deeney’s habits are already becoming clear.
Aside from an aversion to sentences longer than 15 words, he favours players from whichever match he attended that weekend, which the reader knows because he says he was there.
In his announcement column, Deeney wrote that “the first thing I’d say I am going to be looking out for in a player is their bravery or fearlessness on the ball”, which aligns with his fervour for “monsters”.
While this week’s column was particularly lacklustre, marginally more had been written in previous weeks for each player, although often still a tenth of Crooks’s norm.
Deeney’s initial mission statement was written by a BBC journalist, but all his columns since have been self-written.
The posts under his most recent Team of the Week were particularly harsh, with many noting they did not usually use the BBC’s comments function but were so gobsmacked they felt the need to.
One wrote that “this is really poor stuff, hurriedly cobbled together and lacking nuance, depth or insight,” while another said “never thought I would say this but bring back Garth!”
The most popular comment, upvoted by nearly 600 people at the time of writing, read: “At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, Troy Deeney gets paid for this?
“It really is painting by numbers.
“Garth was at least a good read, regardless whether you agreed with him.”
Deeney also works as a pundit for BBC Sport, appearing on Match of the Day 2 alongside other podcasts and documentaries, but his salary does not reach the £178,000 benchmark to be made publicly available.
i understands the BBC are very happy with Deeney’s column and have no plans to replace him. Deeney declined to comment.
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