Martin Keown responds to Paul Scholes and Prince William claims of biased Arsenal punditry
Martin Keown has defended claims of bias in his commentary after criticism from Paul Scholes… as well as future king Prince William.
The Arsenal legend was a co-commentator on TNT Sports during the Gunners’ dramatic 2-1 defeat against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Keown, an ‘Invincible’ with the Gunners and ex-Villa defender, was met with a suggestion of bias from Scholes on Instagram.
Scholes likened Keown to Paddy Crerand, who made 397 appearances for Manchester United before commentating on their in-house MUTV.
Meanwhile, His Royal Highness Prince William questioned Keown’s decision name Martin Odegaard as Player of the Match, claiming match-winner Emi Buendia should have received it instead.
Appearing on Matterface and Jordan on Monday, Keown backed his own ability as a commentator amid suggestions of bias.
Keown began: “Whenever I listen to former players, closely associated with those clubs, maybe Gary Neville, I wrestle with the thought that, ‘this sounds really biased’. I don’t think you can change that perception.
“Look, people are going to say that I’ve got that Arsenal hat on, people know me, associate me with the successes at Arsenal, not necessarily the Villa fans.
“Paul Scholes probably wasn’t even born when I was playing for Aston Villa, so he doesn’t actually know I’ve got a foot in both camps… I’m trying to be balanced, and in a professional sense, I’m working hard to do that.
“Look, the end of the game was such a melee, Prince William is getting involved, suggesting that it should have been Buendia.
“Buendia’s not even on the pitch when I actually made the announcement for Player of the Match.
“And by the way, at that stage, statistically, Odegaard was probably, debatably, the best player on the pitch, and Arsenal looked as if they were going to win that match.”
Simon Jordan was then asked if he was bothered with Keown being more associated with Arsenal than Villa having played for both clubs.
“I’m not offended by it, I prefer objectivity,” he replied. “But I’m guilty of perhaps overcompensating at certain times when I know there’s an allegiance test, whether it’s my relationship with Steve Parish or my thoughts about Crystal Palace.
“I think there’s a preference to see objectivity. I’ve criticised him [Keown] before when he wrote this ridiculous article years ago, feigning no bias whatsoever and suggesting not one single Tottenham player would get in his Arsenal XI…
“But my view is, am I offended by it? Do I think he’s biased? Yes. Do I think a lot of them have allegiances, have a partisanship? Yes I do.
“Does it offend me massively? No. Should they seek to try and be a bit more objective? I think they probably should.”
Keown responded: “You know your audience, and you know the balance that you need to have, but you have to say it as you think it. I’m not trying to…
“There were occasions where my commentator next to me [Darren Fletcher] was suggesting that these were competitive challenges from the Villa players…
“Whereas when I said, ‘Oh, it’s a foul’, it’s then a competitive challenge and there’s a nuance, there’s a difference, and the words that you use can trigger…
“People back home listening go, ‘Yeah, I knew it, I knew it!’ I said to you, when I hear Gary Neville talk about Manchester United… I’m not deflecting…”
Jordan then replied: “Martin, I’ve sat on this show for three years and some of the old fanny you’ve come out with which is so biased and so lacking in objectivity, it’s clear and you’ve earned that reputation.”
Jordan on Keown and commentary bias
Keown recalled previous debates on talkSPORT, during which he defended Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta amid the suggestion from Jordan that he should be sacked due to poor form.
However, Jordan responded to his claim and said that he needs to back up his arguments on commentary to avoid being called biased.
“I think you have a default setting like a lot of people do, and sometimes defend the indefensible, and sometimes that leans towards conversations where you think that, say for example, no one has an agenda… No one is seeking to get Mikel Arteta fired.
“There was an observation made from me three or four years ago, if he struggled in the games against Norwich and Burnley, I think it were, he might struggle to keep his job.
“And I’m worried that he’s actually moving from a manager that had a lot of concepts and a lot of reality, and it’s turning into theory… I think if you stand an argument up, you should be able to construct it and then be able to stand it up against criticism.
“Now, if you marked, for example, the argument about who should be Man of the Match, I think it’s difficult to ascertain why a player that comes on for 15 minutes would be Man of the Match just because he scored the winning goal…
“If you can stand up the reasons why you made Odegaard the best player on the pitch over the 95 or 96 minutes, then you should be able to stand it up to scrutiny and criticism.
“If it’s not stand-up-able, then your bias and objectivity comes into question. So for me, it’s not difficult. People scout and scrimmage, I watch it every day.
“I said to you in the break, the reasons why I perhaps don’t catch some of this flak is because I’m disparaging of everybody, rather than just an individual group.
“And Danny Murphy gets it, every time he opens his mouth about Chelsea, he gets pummelled about his Liverpool bias.
“Every time he opens his mouth about Arsenal, he gets pummelled about his Arsenal bias. It’s whether it’s good broadcasting, whether it’s engaging broadcasting, whether it’s entertainment…”
Keown then took the opportunity to send a message to Prince William in response to his disagreement over the Player of the Match.
Looking down the camera, he said: “Prince William, I’m sorry that I offended you, but I’m not going with Buendia.
“I know it was a really important goal, but I don’t think that gave him enough, really, credence to be Player of the Match.
“Because he’s only been on the pitch seven minutes, as good a goal as it was.”
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