As football fans fend off withdrawal symptoms by trying to convince themselves they’re elated by pre-season tournaments and European preliminary rounds which involve teams few can barely pronounce, there might just be genuine reasons to be excited about the new season ahead.

But no matter what happens on the transfer front or the managerial merry-go-round, football can change rapidly and it can be difficult to predict. At the end of the day it’s all ifs and buts and while the new season looks good on paper, in reality in could well be a very different story.

Unfortunately there is one thing that can be easily predicted and that is the standard of coverage of the game by certain quarters of the mainstream media.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but the nauseating hype and the obsession with records (I’ll come to that later) we hear from a number of well established media groups and their so-called expert panelists really serves to undermine the game and the watching public.   Here are a few examples of the generic hype we had to endure last season. Remember the day after Manchester United won the Carling Cup final when some quarters of the media, not just content with discussing the game itself, actually talked up prospects of an unprecedented quintuple?

It was so ridiculous that even Sir Alex Ferguson must have been embarrassed by it. For a start, attempts to label the World Club Championship as a major tournament, an event which involved the champions of Ecuador and second rate sides from Japan and Australia, was nothing more than a desperate move to drum up as much euphoria as possible. At best United were challenging for a quadruple, but it was so far away from happening at that stage of the season that mentioning it was probably a nuisance for the Old Trafford boss.

Then there were those imposing their football philosophy on West Brom and their then manager Tony Mowbray. Apparently they were marooned at the bottom of the table because they played too much football and needed to go more direct. How exactly would playing hopeful long balls have helped them to avoid relegation? The reason why West Brom got relegated is not because what they failed to do with the ball, but what they failed to do off it. Closing down, denying the opposition space and disciplined defending eluded them and that’s what led to their downfall. If anything, handing the ball straight back to the opposition would only have speeded up their demise.

Many suggested they should have adopted a style similar to that of Tony Pulis’s Stoke. While the Potters were a difficult side to play against because of their physicality and organisation, particularly at home, adopting the same aesthetics as them wouldn’t have been a good idea. Imagine if everybody played like that. We wouldn’t be watching football, that’s for sure. We would probably be more excited by Curling at the next Winter Olympics. I appreciate football is a results orientated business and while the Baggies defended with the same amount of diligence as four sloths last season, I applaud Mowbray for sticking to his principles.

Another alarming trend that some quarters of the media seem to be latching onto lately is meaningless records when it comes to previewing a game.

After United’s 2-2 draw at home with Porto in the UEFA Champions League quarter-final first-leg, many predicted any hopes of progressing were gone simply because no English team has ever won against the Portuguese side in their Estadio do Dragao stadium.

It was a piece of trivia that was repeated over and over again. It was a more frightening statistic than it sounded though, considering that Porto have only been playing at the venue since 2004, and only four Premier League teams have visited the ground since then. They were usually in meaningless games at the end of the group stages when a win wasn’t necessary.

Even Artmedia Bratislava of Slovakia won there during the 2005-06 season. That really puts the record into perspective. Then there was the Champions League final itself between United and Barcelona. Quite a few ‘experts’ had concluded that because Lionel Messi had never previously scored against Premier League opposition and wasn’t as good in the air as Cristiano Ronaldo, United were more than likely to come out on top.    Despite being inhibited by his obvious lack of aerial qualities, Messi managed to tower above everyone and plant a header into the corner to seal a 2-0 victory in the final.   The events that transpired over the course of last season proves one thing. There is a first time for everything. Statistics like the aforementioned are just stupid and are usually spouted by script reading pundits when they have nothing sensible to say. It’s actually quite worrying because many of the pundits in question are well respected players and ex-players. What happened? Did they have to sign some sort of confidentiality agreement with their clubs that said they aren’t allowed to talk about football sensibly and rationally?

Then there is the World Cup in South Africa to look forward to next year. Last time it was ‘the golden generation’, ‘the best chance of winning it in forty years’ and the story of the ‘Wags’. Fabio Capello has a job on his hands keeping his squad’s feet on the ground. Good luck.

There are good pundits out there, but their wise views are often smothered by an avalanche of euphoric dribble.

We are all entitled to give an opinion and hazard a guess at what could happen in the future based on how we see the game today, and end up getting it spectacularly wrong. That’s what makes the game the fascinating spectacle it is. But having to listen to the ‘experts’ use an arbitrary system and throw out random stats when analyzing a game is not what informed and knowledgeable supporters want to put up with. Well, there’s always a first time for everything.