I've finally worked out why Robert's webterviews sometimes seem slightly divorced from reality. They're computer generated. Think about it, you never see or hear him interviewed in person, do you? They just input a selection of his stock answers into a pc and generate an interview. The formula's quite simple, just perm any 10 of the following 11 statements:

The game went well for me personally.

I did not get much of the ball in the second half.

It's a game we must win [home games]

We must get at least a point [away games]

I will speak to the manager about this

Sylvain was excellent

I did not get much of the ball in the first half

The manager has given me a couple of days off to go to Montpellier / Paris / Le Reunion / Disneyland / Homebase

Today we trained for two hours, playing passing games

I must work harder, track back, go to the byline occasionally instead of cutting inside on my weak right foot in an attempt to score from 35 yards, stop complaining about being dispossessed when the ball's still in play two feet behind me, sometimes accept that I could play better and that Distin and I do not double-handedly carry the team, once in a while look like I'm enjoying playing for the club and use the undoubted talent in which they've invested £10m they could ill afford.

Goodbye.


Unfortunately, the randomiser isn't working quite as well as it might, meaning not all of these statements quite get an equal airing.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Answers

Automated Prattling.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Is this somehow related to the automated email fail response occasionally seen?

"I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out"

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

LOL Dan. You're probably not far from the truth. Let's face it, Robert's site is a bit of shallow self promotion. The interviews don't involve an awful lot of thought or time, so Robert probably does just trot out the same stuff on auto-babble, prompted no doubt by the ghost writerinterviewer.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Anyone note YBR saying that Robert is a player you have to live ot die by: he can be irritating but is also a match winner?

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002