Matthew Lowton

[Den Dennis]

Think Positive!

This brigade of young, hungry villains need first team football in an exciting team to get a chance to play World Cup football next year.
Also Paul Lambert has done so well creating this new team in less that a year at a relative pittance, we are in a financially strong position.

[OCD]

First Post!

If we think he's good now, just think how much Lowts will improve being picked in an England squad.
That Gary Neville seems to know a thing or two abound the full backs dark arts.

That Neville seems to be pretty spot on tactically about most things. A few weeks a year with him in England squads would be great for Lowton the player, but not great for Villa when he joins United!

I like Neville as an analyst but he's terrible at forecasting. He's said that QPR had too many quality players to go down and then said that the game Monday would be a close match.

[Steve R]

Neville does seem more comfortable dissecting particular bits of play, especially from a defensive point of view.

His overall analysis of a game is not so good.

His prediction for Monday was a tight game with not many goals. 'we're not going to see a 3-3 draw'. I was bloody nervous when we went 3-1 up.

It doesn't take long for the mask of neutrality to slip either when he starts talking about ManU.

[Somniloquism]

I got rid of Sky Sports several months ago, but last season he seemed quite neutral when discussing Manure, including highlighting mistakes made by the team/manager. The Newcastle match at Mold Trafford comes to mind. Maybe this year Sky have told him that although he did well, he needs to get with the programme and gush all over the Manks like the rest of the station.

And tbf, in the last two home games, we have scored 2 goals so calling a tight 2-1 could easily be a good shout at the start of the match.

[peter w]

the player Lowton reminds me of a lot is Colin Gibson.

[OCD]

I got rid of Sky Sports several months ago, but last season he seemed quite neutral when discussing Manure, including highlighting mistakes made by the team/manager. The Newcastle match at Mold Trafford comes to mind. Maybe this year Sky have told him that although he did well, he needs to get with the programme and gush all over the Manks like the rest of the station.

And tbf, in the last two home games, we have scored 2 goals so calling a tight 2-1 could easily be a good shout at the start of the match.

I haven't noticed any change in his on-air stance to United. Given that it's the only club he's ever known he does a good job of at least pretending to be neutral.

[paul_e]

I still can't decide on Neville, if anyone else on sky (live footage, Jeff Stelling is excellent on a saturday afternoon) or match of day was competent I don't think he'd get the credit he does.  He just comes across as one of the few ex-players who's actually put in the effort to be able to do the job, rather than let reputation and cliches get them through.  So I'll give him credit for actually treating it like a job but I'm not sure I'm happy to throw praise at him just yet.

I do think he does a decent job of being impartial though, from what I've seen.

I also think he'd be a great role model for Lowton to follow as Lowton seems to have the same character where he's determined to make the very best of his chance as a professional footballer, I'd be willing to guarantee Lowton is one of the hardest workers in training, you can see in his game that he takes it seriously.

From all the reports we've got a squad full of players who put the effort in.

[Somniloquism]

I still can't decide on Neville, if anyone else on sky (live footage, Jeff Stelling is excellent on a saturday afternoon) or match of day was competent I don't think he'd get the credit he does.

If in the Kingdom of the Blind, the one eyed man is king, then Gary is an Emperor and Jeff Stelling is a god.

It is not his fault that his peers consist of Merson, Droopy, Hansen, or Pingu. Yes, if everyone was good at their job, Gary might be judged as normal, but when they aren't and he picks up insights most don't think about, he will be judged highly.

[paul_e]

Back on track - I've just noticed on whoscored.com they have Lowton as, statistically, the best right back in Europe in April.  That backs up a lot of the praise he's getting on here.

[john e]

I couldn't stand Neville when he was playing, and couldn't believe that he was going to be a permanent pundit on SKY when it was announced
I thought he would be rubbish, just to bias towards you know who, but to his credit I find him very interesting to listen to,
 I actually though Andy Gray was pretty good to, but Neville is better, more modern and will also not sit on the fence, if a team has say defended poorly he can be very critical, I have seen him rip into teams and players at times, but in a objective way if that's posible

[ozzjim]

Interesting that Lambert said to the press yesterday we got him for around a million pounds. Incredible bit of business.

[chrisw1]

I couldn't stand Neville when he was playing, and couldn't believe that he was going to be a permanent pundit on SKY when it was announced
I thought he would be rubbish, just to bias towards you know who, but to his credit I find him very interesting to listen to,
 I actually though Andy Gray was pretty good to, but Neville is better, more modern and will also not sit on the fence, if a team has say defended poorly he can be very critical, I have seen him rip into teams and players at times, but in a objective way if that's posible

I agree, I think his analysis is honest and accurate.  For me, he's a fantastic pundit.  He seems pretty fond of the Villa too, often makes complimentary statements about us as a club.

[usav]

I agree, I think his analysis is honest and accurate.  For me, he's a fantastic pundit.  He seems pretty fond of the Villa too, often makes complimentary statements about us as a club.

He knows, at Villa Park at least, they never had an easy game against us.

[OCD]

Interesting that Lambert said to the press yesterday we got him for around a million pounds. Incredible bit of business.

I hope his quote does the rounds because seeing everyone say it was £3m pisses me off. At the time of the signing, someone asked Lowton's brother on Twitter whether it was £3m. He laughed and said it was nothing like that. I don't think it was even £1m, I think it was somewhere between £750k and £950k - something like that.

[paul_e]

I couldn't stand Neville when he was playing, and couldn't believe that he was going to be a permanent pundit on SKY when it was announced
I thought he would be rubbish, just to bias towards you know who, but to his credit I find him very interesting to listen to,
 I actually though Andy Gray was pretty good to, but Neville is better, more modern and will also not sit on the fence, if a team has say defended poorly he can be very critical, I have seen him rip into teams and players at times, but in a objective way if that's posible

I agree, I think his analysis is honest and accurate.  For me, he's a fantastic pundit.  He seems pretty fond of the Villa too, often makes complimentary statements about us as a club.

As I've said, to me that is just treating it as a job and actually attempting to do it properly.  It seems a bigger thing than it is because almost all the rest of them don't give a shit.