There is not a lot to dislike about Jermaine Jenas, just as there is nothing really to like. He is a man void of personality or edge. All polish, no shine. All style and very little substance.
In this regard it could be argued that he is a welcome respite from the pantomime pundits who are too often performative with their anger. Take Roy Keane and Graeme Souness for example.
They don’t actually get so het up about a Manchester United full-back not putting in a proper shift, not off-screen anyway, and acknowledging this puts a very different slant on Super Sundays and the social media content that comes from it.
They may as well call it Made in Chelsea and be done with it. Maybe introduce a fiery love interest for one of them.
No, Jenas is at least authentic, or that can be assumed. To know for sure, anything he said – anything at all – would need to have the faintest interest attached to it, in order to make it through our cerebral cortex and lodge in our minds. And nothing he says has the faintest interest to it.
This incidentally is not solely down to Jenas having a disposition that is on the blander side of beige.
Retiring from the game aged just 31, after struggling to recover fully from an ACL injury, the Nottingham-born midfielder was dead-set on forging a second career in the media and with the obsessive dedication of a professional athlete he trained and trained to become a natural in front of the cameras.
And therein the problem lies.
Because what we witness most weekends on Match of the Day, or each and every evening if we’re unfortunate enough to accidentally tune into the One Show, is a presenter without a shred of natural charm, nor natural flaws. Instead, he is mechanical, faultless even.
🗣️ "Spurs just don't know what they're doing!"
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) April 16, 2023
🗣️ "It's embarrassing to watch at times!"@jjenas8 pulled no punches talking about his former club on #MOTD
📲 Watch on @BBCiPlayer now#BBCFootball #THFC pic.twitter.com/OczLCOWRA8
He does the right things, says the right things, and smiles at the right moments. Each segment that he presents is essentially a training video playing out in real time and that would be okay but he forgets to add the human.
Indeed, there is more than a whiff of AI about Jermaine Jenas and it would not be a huge surprise if one Saturday evening, when analysing Newcastle’s hard-working wingers or explaining how and why Liverpool have drifted so dramatically in the football betting, one of his eye sockets rolled back to reveal a blinking red light as he short circuited.
Of course, being a facsimile of a television presenter is not enough to make you a football villain so let’s come to that.
Jenas has previously been candid in recalling his decision to call it a day as a player, saying that he had no intention of dropping down the levels after over a decade of barely having an impact on the live betting markets for Forest, Newcastle, Spurs and Villa.
He couldn’t wait to polish himself up for the cameras, in doing so taking up a seat in the Match of the Day studio that could have been used by someone with actual character and opinions.
Yet he has repeatedly stated his unswerving love for the game and frankly these two things do not tally. He’s all talk is Jermaine Jenas. We assume so anyway.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
