Pundit Gabby Agbonlahor out of order with disrespectful Sheffield United comments after walking similar path

The Blades are the only club in the top six tiers of English football not to win a game so far this season and with none of their players scoring from open play since the middle of September some fans are wondering where the next goal is coming to come from, never mind the next point. There is some faint light in the horizon in the shape of some more palatable games, after back-to-back defeats to Premier League giants Manchester United and the Gunners, which boss Paul Heckingbottom has earmarked as “cup finals”.

The United chief cut a typically level-headed figure in front of the media at the Emirates but the body language of his players, as they slunk out of the Emirates on Saturday afternoon, told its own story. United’s status as a Premier League club means that their ongoing struggle is being played out on a global scale and as well as the measured and reasonable analysis carried out on the Blades, the usual shock-jock outlets have also clamoured to have their say.

One was former striker and pundit Gabby Agbonlahor, speaking on a well-known national radio station after the Arsenal defeat. “They’re on course, if they carry on like this, to finish on four points and with 120 goals conceded,” he read out. “The team’s not good enough. It’s not the manager, the players are probably top 10 Championship players. The whole squad are not good enough. Surely United fans are thinking: ‘Let’s have a go at staying up?’” Abgbonlahor said.

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Whether you agree or disagree with his assertion, it was at least a reasonable assertion to make - then spoiled by his follow-up insistence that, at the age of 37 and six years after his final professional appearance, he would get in United’s team with a month of pre-season under his belt. It was a terribly disrespectful claim from a former player who has been in struggling teams before and knows the ‘other side’.

How about some measured analysis of why United are in this situation? Some real-life insight into what it’s like to be in a struggling team who can’t buy a win but have to somehow believe they are capable of turning it around? Or a look at how boss Heckingbottom was short-changed in the transfer market in the summer, sent to war with a pea-shooter, or the remarkable injury crisis the Blades are dealing with?

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How exactly he, with the benefit of his experience and knowledge, he felt United could have set up differently at the Emirates in the hopes of getting a result? More widely, how clubs coming up from the Championship are supposed to compete while the gap in quality seems to grow year on year, and what that does for the quality of the ‘product’ that is the Premier League?

Instead we see the club and players mocked in front of a large audience by a player who has been in their shoes. During his season as captain of Villa, they won three Premier League games all season and finished bottom of the Premier League. He scored one goal and stepped down as their club captain after being accused in The Sun of partying hours after their relegation was confirmed.

He was also ridiculed by pundits on Sky Sports after a ‘performance’ at Spurs that saw him touch the ball eight times - two of them being from kick-off - before being dragged at half-time. Yes United have not been good enough and huge improvements are needed, but Agbonlahor knows better than most what United’s players are going through right now. Rather than inform, explain or even empathise, he chose to provoke and incense - turning from gamekeeper to poacher.