Why are people keen to give a really strong opinion about something which they know fuck all about?

[BilgeVole]

I saw an interview with a woman in the street earlier in which she was asked her opinion of the England v DR Congo game. Her view was that the England goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, was “absolute rubbish”. Not just in that game, generally.

Whatever you think about the strengths and weaknesses of his game, he’s clearly not “rubbish” at football. He’s had a 15 year professional career at the top level and has almost 90 caps for England. He did nothing egregiously wrong in the DR Congo game either.

It just seems to be another example of people giving really strong opinions about something they know fuck all about.

AIBU?

Sport is always like that though. There's no right or wrong. I may have been heard criticising Pickford myself this WC. He's looked leaky.

Its highly annoying when I disagree with them.
If I agree I consider them to have an instinctive understanding of the matter.

I’d agree. I think he’s our best option, but he has looked vulnerable at times, not helped by a defence that perhaps isn’t the strongest. That’s a measured opinion. Not that he’s “rubbish”.

I agree. Lefties do it all the time.

I have fears against Mexico. There's too much reliance on Kane and our defence loked awful the other night.

He is a bit rubbish though. The FA really need to strengthen goal keeping through the junior ranks. Maybe they should ask the womens team how we can develop some of the best goalkeepers in the world.

I don’t worry about Mexico as a team necessarily but I am concerned about their strong home advantage and the altitude. It’s a difficult place to play.

I’m more of a cricket person but I don’t rate Pickford , Everton may have been in the premier league but they don’t really win anything and IMO he isn’t as good as the English goal keepers of the past and has had the job for as long as he has because there are very limited options . I also think this team has done well to get as far as it has and much as I’d like to see a win against Mexico I’m not sure it will happen .

Have you popped by to exemplify OPs theory in real time?
Think about what the OP is saying here. She is annoyed by people she disagrees with, and is saying that people she disagrees with don't know what they're talking about.
You tirelessly complain that 'lefties' do this to Reform voters. And yet you are now agreeing with it. Are you sure..?

But without people giving strong opinions from a position of ignorance you may as well shut down the internet.

To me he’s the weak link…

It was (sort of) lighthearted.

Bellingham's temper is my worry. Our opponents will have clocked it and will play on it.

While I understand what you're saying, these comments don't mean "rubbish" when compared to the general population, they mean "rubbish" when compared to the other elite athletes in their cohort. So while I don't think Pickford is rubbish, I do think he was patchy on Wednesday - which is not to say I could do any better, obviously 🤣

Agree re. Kane! He's amazing but jeez, help him out a bit. If he gets injured we're stuffed 🤣

I always say these players can do it for their respective clubs because they are padded up by foreign players. We get found out when we are on our own. We've left some players at home.

It's all the armchair coaching which makes me smile. My son is very knowledgeable about sport but he's not a qualified football coach yet he would have done much better selections than Tuchel.

Agree about Mexico, altitude and home advantage and history of not losing in that stadium. I assume we had time to acclimatise in 1986 (and we might have made the semis there without Maradona's cheating - that was when we needed VAR!)

Please do! It's a cess pit.

Very true.

And a little knowledge is a dangerous thing as you see in particular on medical threads.

YANBU.

The thread on a potential land value tax has reached 3 or 400 posts full of strong opinions now, mostly people convinced that they're going to be bankrupted for owning a garden, with nobody having any idea what has been proposed or how it would work. The odd poster chipping in with "Hmmm...well this is how it works in other countries", or "Here's an article looking at how it could possibly work in the UK" has been roundly ignored in favour of baseless frothing.

I do think there is a worrying lack of critical thinking these days. It’s free and there’s a wealth of information at your fingertips, yet all the time people talk utter nonsense about stuff they know nothing about.

That said I’m worried for England too. Mexico haven’t conceded a single goal this World Cup. Their defence is solid. Playing at home is to their advantage, they got to quarter finals in the two previous world cups they hosted.

It is a shocker that all three host nations made it to final 16. Mexico is the likeliest one who’ll progress tbh it’s a shame England are playing them.

It’s called rage bait. Media publishes the strongest and most simplistic views to engage listeners/viewers/readers.

Social media has given some people the belief that their opinion matters as much as experts and professionals eg medical stuff like vaccinations and it’s so easy to publish a video with your opinion and have strangers validate your opinion. This inflates their ego and make them feel as important as the people paid to commentate.

I don’t know (or care) much about football but as opposition teams haven’t scored loads of goals against England then Pickford must be doing as well as the other elite goalkeepers.

It doesn't matter if the subject is sport, politics, cooking or travel - all the street vox pops that the news channels conduct are dreadful. It's cheap television. And of course, to make it more 'entertaining' they always show the more ridiculous people.

Forever living rent free in your head aren’t we

Have you ever seen interviews with MAGA fans? ALL of Europe (one big country) are under Sharia Law etc etc. People spout all types of shite because they listen to others and blindly pass off the information as their own instead of making any kind of informed and clued in comments. People just like the sounds of their own voices, does not matter what is coming out of their mouths.