Scholes, Butt, and O'Hara Battle for Championship of Questionable Judgement

Tuesday has already delivered a feast of contenders for football's most dubious honour, courtesy of a series of incidents involving some of the game's more outspoken personalities.

The main event centred on Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt's handling of Lisandro Martinez's response to what the Manchester United defender characterised as mockery from "three lads in a pub." Rather than accepting the criticism gracefully, the pair—now part of a Manchester United-focused podcast alongside Paddy McGuinness, a Bolton Wanderers man inexplicably granted hosting duties—demonstrated little appetite for being called out. Their willingness to chase engagement through increasingly desperate content decisions has become difficult to ignore, particularly when stacked against the broader podcast landscape.

Yet this narrative pales beside the latest pronouncement from Jamie O'Hara, the perennial talkSPORT fixture and Sky Sports regular who has perfected the art of manufactured outrage. His declaration that he would qualify as an "above average" Premier League player in the modern era—up from his self-assessed "average" status during his actual playing days—represents a masterclass in self-delusion wrapped in pointed commentary.

"I was an average footballer when I played in the Premier League. I think I would be above average now," O'Hara announced, before elaborating with characteristic bombast. "100%. Everyone are crabs mate, all they do is pass it sideways, backwards, keep the ball, [everyone's] scared to take risks. I see crab football 24/7. I think the quality in the Premier League has gone downhill and people are turning away."

Carlton Cole's response—a simple "Do you reckon?"—captured the appropriate level of scepticism. Yet O'Hara pressed on, insisting that while elite-level football remains intact, the average Premier League player has deteriorated. "When we're talking about the top, the highest level is still there. I'm talking about the average Premier League footballer and I think [they have] got worse. I genuinely do."

Buried beneath the ego-driven posturing lies a half-decent observation about declining standards in English football. O'Hara, however, manages to undermine any legitimate point by centering the argument around his own imagined ability—a classic manoeuvre from someone whose business model depends on needling audiences into engagement. Whether discussing tactical evolution or player quality, the instinct remains identical: make it personal, make it provocative, collect the attention.

Both Scholes and Butt's podcast misstep and O'Hara's latest bout of self-aggrandisement reveal how certain figures have built careers on the margins of respectability, banking on controversy to maintain relevance. Acknowledging their pronouncements only feeds the cycle they've engineered, yet sometimes the sheer audacity of the claims demands recognition. O'Hara, in particular, has staked his place among football's most consistent practitioners of the art.