I'm worried about Ruud Gullit.

Ever since Ken Bates took away his Chelsea plaything, the Dutch superman has lost his aura, his focus, his sharpness, his air of invincibility. Far from being in Ruud health, he is off the pace as ITV's prime match assessor.

To adapt Wilde's quote, to lose one Chelsea job, Mr Gullit, may be regarded as a misfortune; to leave the BBC for ITV looks like carelessness.

Last night, as lacklustre Italy drew the sting from muscular Cameroon, Gullit was uncomfortable in his reduced circumstances. Rather than the urbane, Des Lynam as question master and Alan Hansen as sparring partner in the BBC's spacious Parisian headquarters, poor Ruud is stuck in a cardboard box with only Bob Wilson for company.

No longer do we see Ruud languidly espousing the virtues of sexy football. Instead the crestfallen Adonis is filmed in unflattering close-up, awkward microphone in his hand, alongside Bob, the world's least crazy goalie, who could bore for England, sorry, Scotland (two caps, 1972).

Nor does it help that ITV is always racing to the next advert break, and so Ruud is being squeezed not only physically but mentally. He doesn't suit rushing and now sounds flustered, his words as unpredictable and out of position as his old Chelsea defence. "Doesn't look never logic," said the double Dutchman, struggling to describe the idiosyncratic Cameroon performance.

Ruud is last year's model, replaced by the even more languid David Ginola. Goodbye pizza salesman, hello, shampoo glamour boy; goodbye dreadlocks, hello flowing locks.

Whereas Gullit is still deflated by his Chelsea fall, match analyst Ron Atkinson has taken his Sheffield Wednesday P45 in his considerable stride. He may talk his own Atkinson Dictionary of Ron-speak, but he sweeps up behind commentator Clive Tyldesley with composure and, a rare commodity in the ITV team, humour. Big Ron and Ronaldo are the stars of the World Cup so far.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.