Neville and Lampard couldn't help laughing at Agbonlahor's 2015 touch map v Spurs

GiveMeSport

·12 January 2022

Neville and Lampard couldn't help laughing at Agbonlahor's 2015 touch map v Spurs

Sky Sports' Monday Night Football show has become renowned in recent years for the banter between its pundits, namely Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.

Frank Lampard to analyse Tottenham's 3-1 Premier League victory over Aston Villa.

OneFootball Videos

Rather than having their usual laughs at the expense of one another, the panel instead cracked up at half-time over the statistics of Villa striker Gabby Agbonlahor during the first period.

With the visitors trailing 2-0 at the break at White Hart Lane, Neville set about trying to explain to viewers where Villa could improve in the second half. One route back into the game for the Midlands side according to the ex-Manchester United man was to get frontman Agbonlahor more involved in the game.

When Neville discovered quite how few times the Villa captain had touched the ball in the first half, however, he was clearly shocked.

So low were the former England international's numbers on the Sky Sports pitch map during the opening 45 minutes that Neville actually had to double-check that they were correct.

"I had to check. I thought 'that's not right'. Eight touches in the first half - that's the lowest number of touches for any player this season in the Premier League," pointed out Neville, almost disbelievingly.

"And two of them were kick-offs," he exclaimed, before the panel burst into laughter at Agbonlahor's absurdly small contribution.

You can check out the moment they lost the battle to keep their composure below.

Video: The Monday Night Football panel erupt in laughter while reviewing Agbonlahor's first half pitch map v Spurs

In fairness to Agbonlahor, he was struggling with an injury heading into the match and was subsequently withdrawn at half-time, meaning he never added to his eight touches.

Fitness woes notwithstanding, it's incredibly rare to see a pitch map quite so bare. Having touched the ball just six times in open play across 45 minutes, Agbonlahor was startlingly ineffective - as seemingly were his teammates at providing him with service.

After registering statistics like this, it's perhaps no surprise that Villa were relegated to the Championship at the end of the season in question.

Quiz: Can you name the footballer based on their Wikipedia page?

1 of 15