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Football

18th Aug 2020

Paul Ince outdoes himself with ridiculous Arsenal statue gaff

Wayne Farry

A classic of the genre

Paul Ince was a very good footballer. He played for Inter Milan, Manchester United and Liverpool, among other teams, and was a talented and combative midfielder.

As is the case with management, not all good footballers become good pundits. And unfortunately for Ince, he falls into this category. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Ince’s punditry, it’s just that – like a number of other ex-professionals who frequent our televisions on a weekly basis, he doesn’t seem all that bothered.

And as so often happens with pundits who aren’t too bothered, he can sometimes say things that, well, simply aren’t true. This was the case during BT Sport’s coverage of the Europa League final, where Ince and the others in the studio were discussing Man City’s plans to erect a statue of club legend David Silva.

While Ince was not directly against the idea, he did find it odd that someone like Silva would have a statue, when other legendary footballers don’t.

“I don’t see a statue of Henry or Bergkamp outside the Arsenal,” were his exact words, which you can see in the clip below.

Unfortunately for Ince, he couldn’t have chosen two worse examples, because outside of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium stand two statues of Thierry Henry and, yes, Dennis Bergkamp.

This is all to say that if you are going to go on telly and provide punditry, probably best to do a touch of research first.