An audience with BT's finest

Yesterday, BT announced that it's BT Vision service would begin carrying the Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 channels, offering viewers Premiership football at a lower price than a Sky subscription. Still crap service and rubbish signal mind you, but whatever. To launch this in grand style, they held a Q&A session at BT Centre - hosted by Martin Keown and featuring Premiership stars Shay Given, Gareth Bale and Michael Owen.

The three players arrived looking extremely tanned and well rested; one can only assume hoilidays were not spent at Butlins or, as is Roy Hodgson's preference apparently, Wales.

The session was refereshingly open, the players were relaxed and gave honest answers, and the audience displayed a decent and reassuring level of football knowledge - only one complete loser submitted a question via the web that had anything to do with BT. They remained anonymous but those on the inside had a strong idea whom it may have been. Below I have captured some of the main points of interest from the session:

Shay Given is fully in support of video technology and pointed out that the length of time he and his team-mates spent protesting Monsieur Henry's manual intervention was without doubt longer than the time it would have taken to confirm the indiscretion. He confessed that he found some solace in the French demise - but knows that he will probably never play in another World Cup. He also admitted that he was looking forward to returning to St James' and apparently has Geordie kids!

Gareth Bale was noticeably quieter and more reserved, although in the company of such senior, more experienced and media savvy colleagues this is understandable. Perhaps not the best way to kick off with "Well, these lot are much older than me" though mate!! Gareth was asked about the turn-around in his performances this season and suggested that the key factor was simply being given an extended run in the team. Confidence breeds success, success breeds confidence I suppose. He did stick a knife through my heart when he said it was the turning point of his whole career, when I thought that playing for the Saints would have been the peak.

The polished, confident and 'I've done this millions of times before' vibe really shone through from Michael Owen - not in a negative way at all, just that he seemed completely comfortable in the role, and was entertaining and affable. He was asked about Javier Hernandez, the new Man United signing who had impressed for Mexico in the World Cup. Michael's view was that since there are only perhaps 6 truly elite players in the world game, none of whom are realistically obtainable, it is completely the right strategy to go for relatively untried youth. He was honest enough to accept that the gamble does not always pay off (no names of course but you can draw your own conclusions as to who he might be referring to at Utd) and did not seem concerned about the prospect of competition.

Another point that Owen made, which I found refreshingly honest, was when asked by a Liverpool fan if he feels something bordering on shame when he sees himself in a United strip. He explained quite frankly that for footballers, this is their profession, their living - so emotional attachment to clubs does not take the same form as it does for fans. As a child he supported Everton, but says now that he will always hold a special affection for Liverpool due to time and memories there - but when it comes to decisions about his playing career, emotion/rivalry/allegiance does not and cannot come into it. In fairness, Owen could have used the standard line of well we're all fans too and love our clubs, but earned the respect of the audience (well me anyway) by being so matter of fact.

The compere for the event went up in my estimation no end. Martin Keown was funny, relaxed, articulate, outspoken and extremely professional. He spoke out on his views about England's failed campaign - he believes the 4-4-2 as used by England was too rigid and archaic. Furthermore he suggested that Capello should shoulder a significant slice of the blame for failing to get the best out of the players, and this brought him to a point which I found interesting. He was strongly of the opinion that to take such a hard-line disciplined approach with the players (a la Capello) is incorrect, and the players need support and "to feel loved". The players supported this, with Bale agreeing that Redknapp excels here and Owen agreeing that it can be key.

Surely as top level professionals they should be able to 'man up' and get on with the incredible job of playing football for a living without also needing someone constantly telling them how great they are? We all enjoy having the ego rub of praise but also most of us have a job to do and get on with it despite never getting any praise* - but we don't underperform to the extent that England have just done.

(*the fact that I spend all my working life blogging and p*ssing around on the internet may or may not be a contributory factor here)

The final question to the panel related to moments they could either relive or erase, and Keown spoke amusingly but also humblingly about his spat with Ruud Van Nistelrooy. This is something that he quite clearly is deeply ashamed of and regrets massively, but he did win 'Missing Link 2003' for most accurate portrayal of an ape by a man. Every cloud.

All in all the session was massively enjoyable and I would have happily sat and talked with them for hours. Unfortunately I had to go back to my desk and 'work'. Some day...