Former footballer and manager Joey Barton has ruffled a few feather boas in recent weeks by stating some of the least controversial comments imaginable.

He has said that the current locust swarm of female pundits are crap.

That’s not even an opinion. It’s a fact.

Claiming that their presence on screen in the context of the professional game is even acceptable is on a par with flat-earthing.

As for misogyny, well, that’s a wholly baseless riposte. Nobody is saying that they are hopeless because they’re women.

They’re hopeless because, well, they’re hopeless.

Female heart surgeons who haven’t been trained are bad at the job not because they are women. It’s because they haven’t passed muster.

If a hospital insisted that one of the female receptionists performed your life-saving surgery, would you raise a concern? Yes. Would it be sexist or mysoginistic to express dissatisfaction? No.

It wouldn’t happen, because hospitals aren’t going to put your life in the hands of somebody incompetent in the name of affirmative action. Fortunately, hospitals are sticklers for meritocracy, regulations, and compliance.

TV companies just run in accordance with what they think people want to see, so they can gaslight viewers with turd-kicking wannabe, who haven’t got a clue. I just turn down the volume when they speak.

According to Eli Aluko, who apparently played 102 times for the women’s England ‘football’ team, ‘Richarlison has 19 goals in 40 games. You do the math – that’s a goal a game.’

Oh dear.

The negative feedback should therefore not be seen as controversial at all. The media moguls are spooging out poor-quality programmes, and the more discerning members of the public are voicing their disapproval.

Sounds like market forces at work.

Criticism of the woeful female commentariat doesn’t harm the ‘women’s game’ at all. They can still televise the girly jamborees, and Eli, Alex, Jill and the rest of the gang can gas away about it. Female audiences can have a gander, oblivious to the shortcomings of the so-called experts, and everyone’s a winner.

The female fiasco is a different game altogether. And the terminally dim bints desperate to skim a living just need to keep in their lane. Then, everything will be tickety-boo.

If TV bosses are stupid enough to shoehorn incompetent people into high-profile positions in order to boost quotas, they deserve – and should expect – flak.

Credibility needs to be earned.

These birds aren’t fit to iron the shirt.