When Jamie Carragher first transitioned from a footballer to a pundit, a figure in the sports industry gave him some advice that he may still remember to this day.
"I told him he had to forget about friends in football and relationships in the locker room," the now-TV commentator said. “My point was clear. You're an analyst now, and you have to say what you see and feel. If you don't, you're being fake.”
Since his last appearance for Liverpool 12 years ago, Carragher has perhaps reached the pinnacle of the punditry "mountain." Unsurprisingly, when he looks down now, he finds some people attacking from below.
Carragher's comments on Liverpool's poor form this season across TV, podcasts, and print media have undoubtedly made him one of the most watched football pundits in England.
Some Liverpool players are dissatisfied with his views. The club met with him in late September to discuss the tone of some of his coverage.
Meanwhile, at Elland Road last Saturday, when Mohamed Salah launched an undisguised attack on head coach Arne Slot, the Liverpool forward even namedropped Carragher. "Tomorrow,
Carragher will be on my case again and again, and that's okay," Salah said.
Carragher confirmed to friends this week that he is satisfied with his work style at outlets such as Sky Sports and CBS Sports. "His opinions are honest and well-intentioned," a source close to him said.
At Anfield, meanwhile, the club acknowledges that its relationship with Carragher, a former captain and ambassador, is complex and multifaceted. "He is a highly respected former player with a great legendary career," a source explained. "He is also a Liverpool fan. His family comes to watch our games.
“He has his own charity foundation, and some of his work intersects positively with ours. But TV punditry is a fourth dimension, and it does sometimes make the relationship challenging.”
Salah's dissatisfaction with Carragher is obvious. Saturday's remarks were not his first outburst. In January, he told Carragher on Twitter: “I'm starting to think you're obsessed with me.”
Similarly, club captain Virgil van Dijk is also said to dislike him.
Carragher is aware of this, but someone who knows him told Camel Live: “If you ask if he's prepared for the criticism this week, I know exactly what you mean. If he praises Liverpool too much, he gets criticized; if he's too harsh, he also gets criticized. That's the nature of the job. At first, it might have bothered him, but now it doesn't. No one likes being criticized, but he won't change his views on football because those are his true feelings. He thinks there's a lot of nonsense and hypocrisy in modern football, and he's happy to point it out when he sees it.”
In a world of social media clicks and fleeting attention spans, players have become more sensitive to criticism than ever before.
For example, the Daily Mail revealed last week that members of Manchester United's locker room refuse to deal directly with the likes of Gary Neville and Paul Scholes, even though both work—or have worked—for broadcasters with rights deals who have invested heavily in securing interview access.
Over the years, issues between Manchester United and members of the so-called "Class of 92" have ebbed and flowed, and sometimes been deeply entrenched. At Liverpool, the situation is simpler, involving only the players. Meanwhile, journalists covering Liverpool are occasionally questioned by players about what they write. Carragher now finds himself in a familiar position, but that doesn't mean he's ignoring the broader picture.
It is understood that Carragher has stated that he does not want the narrative to shift from the problems between Salah and Liverpool Football Club to a personal issue between Salah and himself.
"Jamie doesn't care about being named by Salah," our source revealed. "But he thinks this is about Salah and Liverpool. He sees his job as talking about and analyzing it, not being part of it. He knows all the good things he's said about Salah in the past. He's called Van Dijk a Liverpool legend and a club icon.
“If they want to forget that now and convince themselves he's targeting them, he thinks that's their business.”
Carragher's meeting with Liverpool took place after Slot's side lost to Crystal Palace at the end of September. Sources described the atmosphere as amicable, and similar incidents occasionally occur between other clubs and other pundits.
In criticism of Liverpool's defense that day, Salah, Van Dijk, and Ibrahima Konaté were all named.
Carragher suspects the meeting was player-driven, and there is no evidence to refute this. The club's view on all analysis of their games is that they have a responsibility to ensure that analysis does not cross the line from professional to personal.
Liverpool's locker room may think he is unfair, overly emotional, and trying to hold them to excessively high standards. But they will find it much harder to argue that he does not practice what he preaches.
