Jermaine Pennant was removed from a Sky Sports News section after fans on Twitter complained the former Arsenal and Liverpool man was drunk.

12 May 2000:  Jermaine Pennant of Arsenal celebrates with the trophy after the Times FA Youth Cup Final second leg against Coventry City at Highbury in London.  Arsenal won the match 2-0.  Mandatory Credit: Gary M Prior/Allsport
12 May 2000: Jermaine Pennant of Arsenal celebrates with the trophy after the Times FA Youth Cup Final second leg against Coventry City at Highbury in London. Arsenal won the match 2-0. Credit: Gary M Prior/Allsport

Pennant issued an apology after Sky bosses pulled him from the programme “because his performance on-air failed to meet our production standards,” in comments they gave to the Daily Mail, however that’s rarely been a reason for them to pull any other pundit from the air.

Week after week we have to listen to untold amounts of drivel fall from the mouths of players hired for no other reason than they used to be able to kick a ball relatively well.

Pennant was apparently slurring his words, which is one step down from Paul Merson whose simply can’t pronounce many words at all and who we know has been sober for a while now.

Still, Pennant was accused of being drunk.

“I apologise to everyone at Sky Sports and the viewers for my below par performance today, the channel have given me opportunities over the past months and I have never let them down like this before,” Pennant said in a statement.

“I’m gutted because only yesterday I had a really good stint on talkSPORT. There are no excuses here, I am eager to have a career in TV and hope I haven’t done irreparable damage.

“Contrary to speculation on social media I didn’t go out last night, I’ve been trying so hard to be professional over the past period, I’ve let down a lot of people and it won’t happen again.”

I decided it might be a good idea to watch the video to see how bad Pennant was for myself.

I was surprised to see that he was significantly more coherent than Jamie Redknapp, who always looks like he has just arrived in the studio straight from the club. Pennant looked signifigantly less wasted than Redknapp usually looks too.

As far as we are aware, Redknapp has never been pulled from a broadcast because of how he is talking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7erV4G8iL0