By Sam Jones

I’M pretty good at my job. Not the best in the world or anything, but I’m pretty good. A bit lazy at times, but you can work smart, can’t you? Sometimes that little bit of talent can see you through on the days when you can’t be fucked. The days when you just want to sit there, being sort of sneeringly disinterested. Even on those days, I’m ok. Not brilliant, but good enough.

I don’t earn a fortune though. I can’t complain, but it’s not a fortune. Maybe if I did, I could be fucked. Every day. Maybe then, I’d add the application to the ability and be a world beater. Maybe. No promises though.

That said, I can tell you when I would give a fuck. When I’d get out of bed and make sure I gave a fuck every single day.

If I had to do it on the tele. In front of the nation. If I had to work in that sort of spotlight I’d make sure I did try hard. I’d try hard not to look like a lazy, useless cunt. On the tele. In front of the nation.

That’s got to be some sort of incentive, right? Not to attract the ridicule of anyone with a tele and brain. Given the intelligence of the average viewer it ought not to be that hard. A modicum of effort should do it. Shouldn’t be any more difficult than the average Monday morning.

Why then, when he really is paid a fortune, when he does face that sort of scrutiny, when he is ridiculed by anyone and everyone with a tele, brain or not, can Mark fucking Lawrenson not at least try.

In front of the nation, Mark, you’re in front of the nation and you actually can’t be arsed.

I remember my first game. I’m showing my age here, but you were playing. In a team containing Barnes, Beardsley, Aldridge, Nicol, and alongside you, Hansen.

You were good as a footballer. In the exalted company of your teammates you didn’t look out of place. You weren’t out of place. You were that good. You played the game with a sort of graceful elegance, that gracefulness doesn’t suit you so well now, by the way, but you made it look easy.

Almost as if you didn’t really need to try.

You need to try now, Mark. You really need to fucking try, because you aren’t that good at the TV thing. You’re really not. You can’t turn up and breeze through it with no effort, no preparation, no research, and just trot out tired clichés. We’re onto you. All of us. The entire nation.

We’re sat here thinking, how can someone who played the game at the highest possible level, for the best club of its era, know nothing, fucking nothing, about football?

And how does the BBC think it’s a good idea to pay him to do it? It’s a mystery. A travesty.

And worst of all, you’re giving us lazy cunts a bad name.