Why aren't we all using LinkedIn?

Seriously though. I have been bitching about this for years, but I still can't get it. The football job competition is exceptionally tough at the best of times, and even more so now during the pandemic. Departments have been defunded, teams have folded, positions have been cut, and organisations are downsizing. It's exceptionally insulting to see this when top players still make millions, on six figure weekly salaries. Nevertheless, myself and countless colleagues have been through many job search processes over the last year and a half, and continue to do so. It's frightening times, as we struggle to pay bills, maintain lifestyles, and for some of us, we are cut off from the ones we love. What do we do? What can we do?

How many more cover letters do we have to write? How many times do we have to fill in our work history and qualifications? Why does anyone care about my GCSEs?

Cover Letters:

To whom it may concern, I find this to be an utterly pointless process. Most football coaches are not that articulate. It means they don't do words good. We're all going to say the same things in our cover letter; we're passionate about working with kids, we believe in long term development, we go above and beyond, we can lead efficiently and work well with others, and all the rest of that generic crap. It's a waste of our time to write it, and a waste of their time to read it. At best, the employer has learned that you have an effective grasp of Google, and can read the person specifications in the job description.

It's true for a lot of jobs, but especially so in football, that a person's qualifications don't really tell you much about them. Let's look at this crude pyramid that I drew to badly illustrate my point.

Number of coaches:

Most countries work off a pyramid like this in terms of their licensing. 1 representing the entry level, and 5 representing the pro license. It should probably be wider, but I couldn't be arsed to do that. The number of pro license coaches per country are usually in the hundreds, and the number of level 1 coaches are typically in the tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, so this is not an accurate visual representation proportionally. In terms of knowledge, the pyramid is inverted.

Knowledge of coaches:

Now, a word of warning. Don't take this too literally. In theory, the higher up the licensing you go, the more effective and knowledgeable a coach should be. In reality, there are some incredibly talented coaches stuck around level two, and there are some fast tracked former players that got to level five, who are seemingly clueless about football. Many of the pundits who bash our ears with clichés have high level coaching qualifications, and would not be able to coach their way out of a paper bag. This means that two coaches at the same qualification level, who could appear equal on paper, are drastically far apart in their coaching ability.

Dave and Darren are both level three coaches, yet Dave is vastly more knowledgeable, and has been ready for level four for years, but cannot get in a course. Darren barely scraped through to level three, and has not grown since passing the course. But Darren's CV looked better than Dave's, and Darren gets the job.

This is where other revenue streams coaching courses have appeared to help improve the knowledge and ability of coaches, and to help the recruiters differentiate between candidates based on standardised certification. In some ways, it has been helpful. But that really depends on the quality of the course, and the knowledge of the recruiters. The FA Youth Modules are great, and a coach to have completed those is highly likely to be a better coach in regards to working with young players than a coach who has not done those. It's not for definite, but it is highly likely. But how about qualifications from abroad? the USC Premier Diploma is highly regarded in the USA, as it is a top qualification from a top coaching organisation, but in the UK, very few have heard of it, meaning it doesn't hold the same weight that it should do. A coach to have done the USC route plus the UEFA route is likely a more knowledgeable coach than one who only did the UEFA route. Again, not certain, but it is likely, but how helpful is it when the recruiter doesn't know what it is?

The same can be said for other specialist courses too. Someone to have completed the FA Player and Match Analysis certificate (I think it was £15 back in 2010 and takes a few hours to complete) is technically a qualified analyst in the same way somebody who completed the MBP Scouting and Match Analysis course (about £400, and takes two months). The two courses are vastly different in their scope, but if the recruiter doesn't know that, how helpful is it?

Coaches are supposed to be generalists, not specialists. We have different hats, we have a tool box, we have strings to our bow, and all other wonderful analogies. We need a diverse range of experience in order to build our knowledge and ability. Much of what I view on job specs I believe the recruiter looks at as a box ticking exercise. And it should all be weighted differently. Let's say you're applying for a job in WSL 2, and they are looking for someone with "experience in the women's game." How much? To what level? To what degree of success? I mean, Steve Kean has more experience in the Premier League than Joachim Low. A coach to have had one season at county level and suffered a relegation, is not the same as a coach to have had five seasons at high levels, including regional, WPL, and within RTCs, but they do both tick that box.

Sure, a good recruiter will surely differentiate between those two when it comes to the quality of their experience, but after reading multiple CVs, who actually does? And again, there is a bias too this when it comes to candidate selection. It's the availability heuristic. A coach who got a job at a decent level through fluke or connections, may end up leaving that job due to poor performance, but on their CV, they will have "experience at X level with Y club for Z years." This instantly puts them at an advantage on paper over a better coach, who has not had that experience. It's why the Premier League has a revolving door of useless coaches who keep getting hired at different clubs.

In the above picture, the black dot represents the qualification of the coach, and the white dot represents that coach's ability. Who is the best coach? According to job applications, it's probably Jack, as he is the only level 5 coach, but when we look at ability and not license, we see that both Dave and Harry are slightly more competent than Jack. Of course, these are all white men, with Anglo-Saxon names. We'd be adding way more levels to this if we mixed the names up a bit. And we can see with the comparison between Dick and Darren, that Dick is likely a more competent coach than Darren, but there are no level 3 courses in Dick's part of the country. This means Dick is denied the opportunities and the wage that Darren gets. Another cruel irony being that because Dick is level 2, he can't get the level 3 jobs, but without a level 3 job, he can't get on the level 3 course. It's not just Dick who is missing out though, as the club that hires Darren instead of Dick will be giving a job to an inferior coach, who just happens to have a better certificate.

The yellow box represents everything that could possibly be known about football. The purple represents everything you need to know in order to be able to effectively do this job. The other colours represent four candidates that have applied.

Grey knows the most about football, but the overlap with the job specifications are quite small. The same with Green. Green is a very competent coach, but with little relevant skill and experience for this job. Red has the most overlap, and ticks the most boxes, but has a vastly inferior coaching knowledge compared to Grey and Green. Blue has very little coaching knowledge, but looks more suitable for the role than either Green or Grey. What else do we need to ask? What else is relevant?

Personally, the first one is values. Our values have to align. People have different views on all factors, from playing style, methodology, discipline etc. We can debate who is right or wrong all day, and I happily do, but when it comes to jobs, we have to make sure that our values, our morals, our ideas match those of who we are working with or for. I have quite jobs in a matter of days when I found out our values didn't align. Nothing against them, just that we would have had to endure weeks and months of pain, before finally realising it wasn't a good fit. They say that successful relationships come down to hating the same stuff. It would help though, especially when visas are involved, that we know this well in advance. Not all recruiters are up front with their values, and not many people are able to discuss them.

What next? I would look at commitment and ability/ambition to learn and improve. Can we rate commitment? Those former employers I left after days would say I have low commitment. My wife, after four years of long distance, would say I have high commitment. Let's just say I'm committed to a cause I believe in. What about wanting to grow as a coach? How do we measure that? I have certificates coming out my arse, but part of my privilege was that I was able to go and attain them. I started coaching as a teenager, meaning I had low commitment, and high free time available to go off and study. For coaches who start in their thirties and forties, they will have commitments such as jobs and family, that I didn't have, which will prevent them from getting those certificates. Does that mean I am better than them? Absolutely not.

The way I would measure it, and it's never an exact science, is how much they can talk about coaching and football. Some coaches can rattle on all day about it, and I typically find that they are the best coaches, because they clearly have a hunger and a passion. It interests them. It intrigues them. Are they listening to podcasts? Reading books? Doing study visits? Having coaching discussions? Watching presentations? The amount of informal methods of coaching have grown exponentially with technology. If we were to include the aforementioned methods as real coach education, then myself and many of my friends on Twitter, we're getting in ten to twenty hours in per week. To further hammer the point home, the worst coaches I have worked with did absolutely nothing between sessions. No podcasts, no books, no looking up sessions. Nothing. But we all had the same licenses.

What if there were a subjective way to decipher all this? Like on Football Manager?

Football Manager, as broad as it is, at least works within a defined context. Real life often lacks that context. How good am I at teaching goalkeeper distribution? With U12s, I'm great, but with adults, I'm limited. How about working within different cultures? How is your adaptability to new situations? there's a lot to consider and a lot we can't see.

The traditional interview method: apply, CV, cover letter, interview - does not work in football. That method is mainly to determine one's academic ability, and their task compliance. Are they presentable? Can they speak in full sentences? Do they have a firm handshake? By those metrics, there are plenty of highly successful coaches that would fail. Is Jurgen Klopp presentable to everybody's standards? Can Bielsa speak in full sentences? Does it matter? What matters is what they do on the pitch. And how do we determine that?

It used to be that some clubs and organisations would give you a practical interview. But that still came after an interview, or some form of applicant culling. Other barriers would be in place too. For my practical interview with Arsenal to work in Kuwait, they happened to be in London at a tournament. It was the afternoon on a week day. How many better candidates than me were living up North and unable to get off work? I was fortunate enough to be out of a job and completely open. We're limited by so many constraints. Are employers looking for the best possible candidate, or are they looking for any suitable candidate? There's tons of level two coaches with three years of experience, and perhaps all we have to do is determine that they are not tossers? If those boxes are ticked, good. It doesn't matter which one we get.

Do you want the best possible candidate? Surely you want to know how they operate in an environment that is similar to yours? Turning up in London to coach twenty minutes with a bunch of kids who hardly spoke English, who were already tired, who had no relationship with me, and who probably viewed my session as an inconvenience, how much can you really tell about me? It's a false environment, because the demands and the pressures are different to how they would be while on the job. Instead of trying to improve the ability of the players to create space, my main focus is impressing my prospective boss. Due to nerves, are they seeing the real me? I don't get nervous, but that's besides the point. In those twenty minutes, all they would have seen is;

1. My session design is okay.

2. I know the correct technical points relevant to the topic.

3. I know when to step in and make a point.

4. I'm not a complete twat.

And that was enough to get me a job in Kuwait. As you go abroad, in some environments you learn that your bare minimum is way above the standard the kids are used to in their own country. It's sad, but it's another issue.

How about if we could show real videos, of real coaching, with our real players?

Is this role relevant to the job I am applying for? If it is, there are samples of my work on there for all to see. Pictures of me with different players and teams, examples of session plans, curricula designed, videos of my coaching, and videos of my games. If you want to see what I'm really like, and I have ticked enough boxes for you so far, this is where you can go into the detail and have a more in depth look. I say I'm player-centred, but do my team talks back that up? I say I play possession based football, so where is my evidence of that?

That little "see more" button really helps. On a CV, sometimes I feel like I can't fit everything in, and have to give one generic line to summarise years worth of work. LinkedIn is a virtual CV that comes with dropdown boxes for recruiters to look at, if they so choose to. If I'm applying for a job in decent level men's football, is it relevant for the prospective employer to know about the year I spent with the U5s? On LinkedIn, they can scroll right past that, and if I have provided it, they can look more in depth at the relevant samples of my work.

Here's the headlines. Who I am, where I am, what I look like, and what my qualifications are. Intrigued? Let's head to the about section.

Just realised I need to update the about me section. This part expands upon the headlines, and provides a brief summary. Below that is some of my featured work. There are presentations, curricula, session videos, samples of analysis, and some of my academic papers. If any of these are of interest, they can be viewed and downloaded. If analysis is part of the job I am being considered for, it would be worthwhile seeing what I can do and how it is presented. If I will be required to design curricula, why not have a look at what I've made before? Below that is work experience, education, and qualifications. Self-explanatory and straight forward. Like I said, if a job is not relevant, skip past it. If a job is relevant, dive in for a closer look.

And then come recommendations. Not sure about you, but I have a handful of mates, who I have a reciprocal relationship with, where we act as each other's references. Why would I provide a contact of someone who doesn't think I am competent? As time goes by, we lose contact. I could not provide a contact detail for over 90% of my former employers. However, if they were on LinkedIn, they would be easy to find and to link to the jobs on my profile. The recommendations section on LinkedIn should be taken more seriously, as should the skills section.

I'm sure, like you, that many of the people who have endorsed your skills, don't actually know you. People like to go on endorsing sprees when they make new connections on LinkedIn. It doesn't really mean much, as it is not verified, but it would be useful if we could establish a way to do this. A method that is genuine, and not just a popularity contest.

Something else that I hope happens is that we move interviews to Zoom. Most of us can find an hour free. But an hour of travel, fifteen minutes of mandatory waiting to impress the organisation, and now it becomes harder. I would also like to normalise interviewing in tracksuits. If I am going to be coaching on the pitch and wearing a tracksuit all the time, what does the recruiter learn about me by wearing and sitting uncomfortably in a suit? In the past, we would have to take a day or a half day off work, in order to interview for another job. That puts the power firmly in the court of the employers, not the workers. I'm not advocating for the ball to be in either court, merely for a process that allows for more candidates to be looked at, and for organisations to hire the right candidate.

Take LinkedIn seriously. Put jobs on there, insist profiles are kept up to date, and have us apply through that medium. I really don't think it's a lot, and I am sure that it will make life so much easier for all parties involved.

The above is for a job teaching PE in Brunei. I keep saying this. I am not motivated by money. The same goes for the vast majority of colleagues I have had. But if we're going to apply for a job, we need to know how much we are going to earn. It's kind of important. Will we be able to afford food? Can we build up savings? Will we be able to support dependents? It's a dick move.

Internet confirms. Dick move. It gives them all the power. It gives them all the cards. I have read a few justifications, and all of them are dick moves that take the power away from the workers and to the employers. It helps them to keep us stupid. It's really not unreasonable to want to know how much I will be compensated for my time and expertise.

I think we can all do better, and that we all deserve better. Let's make it so.

Karen Carney and Leeds United

 Watching this unfurl on Twitter is fascinating. A very simple interaction branches off into many different directions of arguments, counter arguments, insults, and gaslighting. Sport and social media provide great insights into the human psyche. It is said that modern debating is like two people having a game of tennis, from two different courts, constantly smashing serves over the net, that are never returned, with both thinking that they are winning.

We've all seen this, right? People love to share it on their feeds, especially during periods of tense debate in the public discourse, of which we have had much in the last five years. But it's just simply not true. If your only defence of your opinion is that you are allowed to have opinions, then your opinion is pretty flimsy, and will rightly be scrutinised. What I'm hoping, is that more people have seen this one...

In a lot of cases, someone is actually wrong. Even if there is not enough evidence to suggest one way or the other, a correct answer is out there somewhere, despite the absence of proof. Take theology for example. How did the universe start? Plenty of theories, only one correct answer, and those theories may not even touch the correct answer. Some are more backed by evidence, and some are more backed by rhetoric and feeling. In reality, only the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows the answer to that one.

I also wish to avoid any "both sides" comparisons. It's lazy, and done way too often by people looking to absolve themselves of criticism. The idea that "you're both stupid" is one that rampant centrism in the USA is allowing many to back out of having any kind of strong opinion that can be ridiculed, simply allowing them to do all the ridiculing. It may help you win an internet argument, but it does nothing to move society further. Sure, Biden is creepy and old, has a dodgy record on policy, and is likely nowhere near as progressive as is needed, but he's not a genocidal maniac that has killed hundreds of thousands of citizens through his own passive neglect. There is no "both sides." There's terrible and less worse. There's a step forward and a step backwards.

A meme paints a thousand words.

When observing an argument online, try to view it through the lens of one or potentially all parties, not in search of truth, but in search of an abstract moral high ground, from which they can cast aspersions on others. The first one we have seen in this furore is the reaction to a woman being publicly criticised. Media personalities within football are currently a very sensitive topic. Sky binned a handful of old farts, and replaced them with younger, blacker, more feminine pundits. Out went Tommo, Le Tissier, and Charlie Nicholas, and in came Alex Scott, Micah Richards, and many more. Somehow, Paul Merson survived the purge.

This move from Sky was welcome by many, but attacked by others. I agreed with it for two main reasons;

1. They were terrible pundits. Dinosaurs. Absent of analysis, full of matey banter and clichés. The modern game requires modern mindsets. Richards and Scott, having recently finished playing, are more familiar with the demands of the game nowadays, than players who haven't been paid to kick a ball for decades. Look at how much the game has changed from 1999 to 2020. The newcomers to punditry will be more clued up on the practices, tactics, and actions within the dressing room.

2. If you can't see someone that looks like you doing it, how do you know you can do it? I believe representation is important. Football is for everybody, but for so long, it has been run by white male gatekeepers, who served their own agenda of self-preservation. This isn't shoehorning someone into a role so they can tick a box on the diversity checklist, as that would imply that Richards and Scott are not good pundits.

My own opinion is that punditry across the board is terrible. I enjoy some of the MNF show when Carragher and Neville get into it with top players and managers. It can often be undone by the likes of Roy Keane providing soundbites, such as suggesting he would make his goalkeeper walk home. Fans in their armchairs love the pashun, as they are too emotionally involved and far too shortsighted to see how ridiculous such suggestions are. Some defend it as jokes, when it's closer to hubris.

Far too many pundits speak in lazy clichés, and haven't done their research. Too many top players don't understand the game beyond their role in a small corner of the pitch. They lack the ability to think and speak in abstract terms. Compare the insight provided by someone like Klopp compared to Jamie Redknapp, who has been stealing a living as a pundit. This is why I stopped listening to TalkSport and 5Live years ago, as it is just nonsense fan talking points. Should DeGea leave Man Utd? Should Arsenal sack their manager? Should England switch to 442? Who is better; Hazard or Salah? It's not at all interesting or intellectually stimulating, but has the phonelines full of fans barking like crazed dogs. It's why there's a corner online dedicated to more in depth football discussion, such as on Total Football Analysis, Spielverlagerung, Coaches Voice, and all the fantastic podcasts out there. It's lowest common denominator viewing, but as football evolves, the pundits have to evolve too, or the younger audience will not be able to relate to them. Next time you're watching or listening to a game, try to identify who you think is either out of touch (Glen Hoddle), or intellectually incapable of providing anything worth listening to (Joe Cole).

It is hard for us to turn off our fan glasses. Football is game which elicits deep emotional responses. As a Rovers fan, our only real exposure in the media these days is the Rovers legends with punditry jobs. And, disappointingly, most are terrible. Shearer oversimplifies everything, and has little knowledge outside his bubble. Savage goes off on pointless grandstanding campaigns, and deliberately gets the wrong end of the stick to weaken his opponent's points. Souness has it in for Pogba for some reason. Sutton isn't too bad, but can be a bit arrogant. Tim Sherwood, the heroic captain, is now a joke. Honestly, some of the bollocks that Robbie Savage says makes me cringe.

Modern discourse has this effect on people where we cannot concede good points if they are against our side. We feel personally attacked. That's why there are whole industries based on how to effectively give criticism, but even with such guidance and training, there's always going to be 10% who will burrow their heads further into the sands of ignorance.

Twitter is full of idle accounts when the user disappeared after providing a terrible opinion in a public forum, and was then given multiple well cited rebuttals. The improvements in technology have made it easier to provide citations, and although many choose not to do so, switching the burden of proof, many are shocked when someone does "bring receipts." It happens to Republican politicians with a large degree of frequency. A brief search on Lindsay Graham will suffice.

So let's dive in to what actually happened with Karen Carney and Leeds. This will not be a straight path. It will diverge down the many tangents.

It started with this Tweet: https://twitter.com/LUFC/status/1344027568484343814

During the analysis of Leeds' 5-0 win versus West Brom, ex Chelsea and England star Karen Carney (one of my favourite players, btw) made some comments that Leeds took a disliking too, as referenced in their Tweet. Was the tweet malicious? Let's see:

- It did not attack or reference Carney's ability as a pundit.

- It did not infer Carney was stupid or incompetent.

- It did not make any reference to gender.

Karen Carney provided her opinion, and Leeds provided a rebuttal. That seems simple enough. Sadly for Carney, she didn't make her point very well. I think she is typically a good pundit, and everyone is capable of muddling their words a little bit. I do it all the time, which is why I tell people that I'm only funny on Twitter. She was asking the question as to whether Leeds can maintain their intense style of play for an entire season, briefly referencing the past two Championship seasons. The first where Leeds arguably ran out of steam towards the end, and the second where Leeds were resounding champions, following a break in the season due to lockdown. Where she fumbled was saying "I actually think they got promoted because of Covid." Leeds are allowed to take exception to this, and they did by pointing out the large margin by which they won the league. Several Leeds fans have taken to the comments to point out the run Leeds were on before the break, and how it was maintained after the break.

The break may have helped Leeds recharge their batteries. Whether this will be a valid argument to make in the Premier League, with six fewer games per season, an increased transfer budget, and a better equipped backroom staff, that is the debate I would like to be having. Carney may have been onto something, as graphs produced just a few weeks ago showed than Leeds players, on average, ran so much per game, that it was like having a twelfth player. Is that sustainable in the Premier League? Let's discuss. Wait, we can't, because people are terrible.

First come the White Knights.

More than two categories of White Knight exist.

Each tweet by a White Knight sparks further argument in the replies, and inevitably, the trolls appear, with their tried and tested rebuttal...

The reason why this method is so effective is because there's no easy way to argue back against it.

"Yes she will!" or "I don't care!" are equally stupid.

Also seen here is the defence that it's only her opinion.

Not really a defence of the opinion, though, is it? As a pundit, she is paid to provide opinions, and as viewers, we expect those opinions to be backed up and well informed. The fact that it wasn't isn't a dig about Carney in particular, but more to do with the very low standards of football punditry. If she says what said, and then follows it up with numbers, figures, and even a bar chart, then it's an opinion worth listening to, as it is properly researched and backed up with facts and figures. Any ass from the pub can mouth soundbites into a microphone, such as "Leeds only won due to Covid."

"It's only her opinion!" Right. And Leeds are only giving their opinion. Awful, awful defence.

Here comes the moral high ground. Ironically, this is a guy who works for TalkSport. Owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Piers Morgan is a regular guest.

This White Knight, like many others, then turned it into a debate on sexism.

Comments like Mark's are indescribably unhelpful.

I can understand the caution here from Jess Fishlock, but in the threads I've been diving into, I'm not really seeing any sexist backlash. So far, there have been no comments across my feed about how she is incapable of doing her job due to gender. Having said that, I know those people are prominent on Twitter, and there is no place for them in the game.

Then people go and say stuff like this. By far the least helpful and most wrong reply I have seen in all this. When I see posts like this from people, it often makes me wonder if they are new to football. By new, I mean only started paying attention mere days or weeks ago.

There is currently a legion of Leeds fans patrolling Twitter for this type of comment, armed with such receipts.

And then this happens. She is leaving Twitter for a while, because Leeds fans are attacking her. What are the attacks?

9:42PM Dec 29. That's thirty minutes before her post about not seeing this kind of treatment towards male pundits. 

At the time of writing, Hannah's tweet about male pundits has 85 replies: https://twitter.com/cfcwhannah/status/1344043714856050690

None of which attack her, or Carney, for being a woman. Some have called her clueless, but the vast majority have been people providing evidence of her being wrong, and telling her to do her research.

Not only is Simon wrong (apparently another person who only recently started paying attention to football) but in his desperate attempt to White Knight, he patronised Carney by referring to her as "this poor woman." Not to class myself as the Arbiter of Offence, but that's got to be way more offensive than the people telling her she is wrong. Simon is then inundated with replies pointing out examples of Sherwood and Agbonlahor, yet his tweet remains up, because remember, it's not about truth, it's about moral high ground.

Rovers legendary captain Tim Sherwood gets it all the time. The stuff he says is embarrassing.

Here's a video of Tim Sherwood suggesting Arsenal don't bring on Danny Welbeck.  https://twitter.com/lukeybaby1/status/1344001750756446208

Welbeck left Arsenal eighteen months ago, and has been at two clubs since.

Here's a video of Tim Sherwood as Aston Villa manager spouting clichés like it is what is keeping him alive: https://twitter.com/FootballRemind/status/1343973606095777793

Here's a video of Tim Sherwood predicting that an English team will win the Premier League: https://twitter.com/KingTebz/status/1341719595649011717

Here's the now infamous clip of Tim Sherwood during Liverpool scoring a corner against Spurs: https://twitter.com/betconnect/status/1339506608796217345 This was December 17th. Carney's comment was December 29th. This is why I believe so many people upset are new to football.

Here's a thread dedicated to Michael Owen: https://twitter.com/UtdHaaanz/status/1341041730376744961/photo/1

Type in the name of literally any pundit, and you will find plenty of very recent negative comments. Much of it is laughing at their opinions and predictions. Some of it is talking about how terrible they are as pundits. Carney is being criticised for her opinion, not for being an awful pundit, and not for being a woman. Surely this is the kind of equality that we want?

There are some, in my subjective opinion, terrible female pundits too. A sign of equality is that a woman doesn't have to be better than a man to get a job. In fact, Soccer Saturday has shown that women can be just as incompetent as men, and still keep a job. One of the biggest strides in women's football was when the discussions on TV went from how bad the football is in comparison to the men's game, to discussing the tactics. Teams, players, coaches etc. were criticised on footballing terms, not on gender terms. Which is what happened to Karen Carney.

Some are saying that it is beneath a club to respond via Twitter. That they shouldn't have a go at pundits. Again, I'm lead to believe these people are new to football. here's Jurgen Klopp taking issue with something Roy Keane said live on Sky Sports: https://twitter.com/SkySportsPL/status/1310688416674312192

It definitely had nothing to do with Keane's gender.

Football is full of people having a go, and then others having a go back. Lokomotiv fans held up a banner thanking West Brom (the one with the banana in it) for taking their black player. West Brom fans responded by holding up a banner thanking Lokomotiv for selling them a good goal scorer. The West Brom fans rightly called out the Russians for their racism. Remember when West Brom cancelled the season ticket of a racist fan on Twitter?

These are the kinds of people the game needs to be rid of. As we have seen recently with the banner flown over Burnley, and the Millwall fans booing BLM, we still have a lot of work to do. Sexism, homophobia, and racism tend to come from the same group of idiots. There is much overlap between the offenders. We should absolutely be vigilant in the fight against sexism. But this wasn't it. It has been turned into an issue by pearl clutching journalists like Sam Matterface, White Knights like Simon, and people playing the victim card like Hannah. All this does is detract from what should have been a reasonable debate about the stamina of the Leeds team, and further muddies the waters in regards to sexism. By over reacting to non issues, it makes real issues become even more tense. People feel like they are walking over egg shells when there is no need.

When you say stuff in public, back it up.

Remember to always follow the Ten Commandments of Logic.

There's a lot of ad hominem taking place against Leeds within these threads on Twitter. And the defence of Carney is post hoc. Because of the rampant sexism that occurs online and within football, and the well documented harassment of female users of any platform, it would be natural for people to be overly sensitive and immediately go on the defensive. Sexism in football is very real, and despite the great strides made, it is still prevalent. It's no wonder many have been conditioned to believe that criticism of a female equates to criticism of someone because they are female, because many have been on the receiving end of baseless criticism simply for their gender. This wasn't it.

Karen Carney was a good player and is an insightful pundit. She's not a "poor woman" and doesn't need Simon the White Knight to come to her rescue. She was tough and tenacious, and will be able to deal with this, no problem.