WHAT'S happened to Alan Hansen? He used to be a sharp pundit whose weary disdain was an entertaining counterweight to his more bumptious colleagues. Now, as his arching eyebrows and puffing cheeks make a feeble attempt to pass themselves of as a personality, Hansen does nothing more than spout endless truisms. He is the laziest of a tiresome boys' club that spends the whole of Match of the Day batting platitudes back and forth.
This week, there is evidence that Hansen has sunk to a new low, posted ingloriously on the BBC's website. It's his take on how Manchester United won the English league title, which has been given the insipid headline of "Consistency has been the key to Man Utd's title success". Should you make it beyond that snooze-inducing opener - in the vain belief that an idle BBC underling has done ill service to Hansen's scintillating prose - you will encounter possibly the worst example of "Will this do?" journalism ever to slump onto the web.
"The best team always wins the championship," he informs us - this is the mind-blowing premise the entire article is based on.
"I have to say that there is no great difference between the top two," he opines, comparing the merits of Manchester United and Chelsea.
A little later, he muses that "next season it will be interesting to see who the bookies make favourites for the title."
Should you have soldiered on this far, you might just make it to Hansen's staggering conclusion: "And I expect the top four at the end of next season to be the same as this season. In what order, I don't know. But it's an exciting prospect."
I don't blame Hansen for not being a great writer. But he was a great footballer and should be able to provide us Sunday League nobodies with some insight from his experience at the game's highest levels. Compare his erstwhile fellow pundit Gordon Strachan, whose sharp wit was backed up with a thought-provoking looks at tactics.
It's obvious, however, that while Strachan has spent much of the time since his playing days buzzing about the training ground, Hansen's critical faculties have been reduced to mush after too much lolling about on the Match of the Day sofa.
(In case you think I've been harsh and quoted Hansen out of context, take look at the full piece at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6625445.stm)