Match of the Day vs The Premiership

I don't recall noticing Mowbray much, which is how I want it from my commentators frankly.

Is it me or does Hansen spoil MOTD2? He sits there like a fucking critic waiting for the others to do something wrong. The whole atmosphere is all wrong. It reminded me of that awful time he was on Frank Skinner's show and was giving it "Says something funny then! Come on Frank you're supposed to be funnier than that! MAKE US LAUGH FRANK!"
Arsehole.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, November 8, 2005 5:10 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Still true. The main problem for me is that the bbc studio is always full of unpleasant people who poison the atmosphere. You need no hansen, no shearer and no lawrenson before it becomes decent watching. ITV is almost always more pleasant now but the adverts are killer. I rarely bother with the punditry now, it's only worth it for the replays.

Guy Mowbray may not be a marquee name but he can't possibly be worse than Tyldesley can he? I get more than enough Clive over the course of the season as it is.

Apparently Alan Hansen is actually a pretty nice guy in real life, he's getting increasingly half-arsed when it comes to his hardman act. I can cope with either Hansen or Shearer on their own, together they're appalling. Here's hoping Shearer gets a job in management sometime soon.

Can't be doing with Lawro or Townsend at all, for entirely different reasons.

started watching bbc coverage last night but eventually had to switch to itv due to lawro's constant negative vibes complaining about a shit game. but then itv weren't much better. personally thought it was a good game.

Don't wish to wallow in the past, but this thread was really something in 2004-05. Perhaps it can be again...

From The Fiver the other day:

What's got eight arms, no spine and makes wild predictions about football matches without having a clue?

The Match of the Day panel.

Seemed to be some distinct bad vibes between Shearer and Hansen throughout the BBC's coverage, I think. Following his failure at the Lolcastle, it feels like Shearer realises punditry is his only career now, thinks he needs to make some kind of panel powergrab and has become even more boorish as a result.

The combination of Lineker - who, after all these years, still feels like a supply teacher who thinks he's still one of the kids - Shearer, Hansen and Dixon/Lawro is absolutely deadly. They really need a European/South American/Hodgson-style eminence grise to make them up their game.

I don't particularly warm to Lineker, but I have to admit he's a fine presenter and does a decent line in deadpan. There was one bit in the lead-up yesterday where Lineker was running through the Dutch penalty in the 74 final and pointed out the foul might have been outside the box "... but they didn't have technology in those days".

A couple of seconds later Shearer got it and bellowed "THEY DON'T HAVE IT NOW!!". He does this all the time, and it's starting to crack me up.

I realised how good Lineker was in 2006, when they had the likes of Ian Wright and Leonardo in the studio dropping enormous clangers and the thing kept threatening to spin out of control and Lineker would get things back on track with a knowing look to the audience. Leonardo talking about golden showers and Lineker going "well at least you all now know it's not scripted" was a classic.

Amid the torpor of 2010's panel, not so much.

BBC badly missed Martin O'Neill this time round.

Yeah Seedorf only partly made up for O'Neill's absence.

ITV's panel was still worse, though. Watching Southgate desperately trying to carry Davids and Vieira was painful. Poor Lucas Radebe seemed to have no idea what he was doing there, Desailly just seems to be becoming increasingly incoherent, and Townsend looks every inch the man who is far too secure in his job.

From the BBC website's news ticker:

The World Cup final drew a peak audience of 17.9m viewers on BBC One, and 3.8m on ITV1

Ouch.

I'd expect ITV to do worse than the BBC but 3.8m is embarassing.

BBC having us on there surely

I don't know if this has been mentioned but Lineker, Hansen, Shearer and Dixon were all wearing suits (with ties) last night, which seemed odd to me. I wondered what the reason for it was, so checked to see if the ITV team were doing the same but they were dressed casually as usual.

As has been already mentioned, Hansen and Shearer is a bad combination. Hansen has become a parody of himself and his comments seem repetitive and predictable. Of course, from his playing career he is clearly something of an expert on defensive play, but the way he always homes in on 'dire' defensive mistakes has become annoying, as has his over-reliance on a very limited repertoire of phrases consisting of two words joined by 'and', eg 'passion and commitment'. Shearer is really dislikeable. Lee Dixon, on the other hand, I quite like. I think Shearer, Lawrenson and Hansen all come across as being over-aggrandised by having BBC contracts. Lawrenson's history piece about the Spion Kop was awful (actually I detested all the BBC's woven-in history segments, and also that bus that travelled around, with the insufferable Dan Walker).

Overall I much prefer the ITV coverage, despite the ads and the irritating theme music/title sequence. I know he is not popular here but I like Andy Townsend. I like his briskness. Regardless of which channel they appear on, I tend to like old pros who keep it brisk and hard-bitten, which means I like Townsend, and also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited), Jim Beglin, Mick McCarthy, and even Kevin Keegan.

I watched Hitchcock's VERTIGO last night and early on in the film James Stewart appears to be doing a very plausible ALAN HANSEN impersonation. Could it be that ALAN HANSEN's entire screen persona is based on James Stewart's combination of bewilderment and indignation?
PS: The film was a game of two halves.

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 21 December 2004

also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited)

You lost me there

iirc the viewing figures for the World Cup final always break down roughly like this btw

Almost all pundits wore suits until a certain point, which may have been about 2006. Then the norms changed and channels copied each other. I thought the change was a bad thing, partly because I think these people are too complacent as it is: wearing a suit might at least give them more of a sense of gravitas; dressing casually confirms to them that this is casual and they needn't make any effort. This tendency to complacency has blighted hitherto peerless BBC coverage for years.

Suits have continued to be used in outside broadcasts / live games, etc, sometimes.

Mike last night constructed Andy Townsend's work schedule, in full, as follows.

6:58pm: arrive at studio. Wear pink shirt.

also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited)

You lost me there

He tends to get over-excited by goalmouth incidents, bad misses and so on, and start shouting. There is something endearing about it.

Guy Mowbray is absolutely terrible, as I keep saying

Beeb considers him better than Jonathan Pearce?

I didn't think the suits were necessarily a bad thing. It just seemed odd to me that they wore them for the final. As far as I am aware, they dressed casually for all the previous games.

If I was Pearce, I'd be looking for a move to another channel

Dubmill, suits are good - that's my view. They should all wear them all the time.

It's true about JP: he's talented, distinctive, a personality; it makes no sense to promote GM above him.

I think Clive T is talented too, and better than any other BBC voice (unless Motson is still around domestically).

I like Clive Tyldesley too. Although he can be annoying with some of the things he says, I generally like his turn of phrase.

I did say yesterday that Pearce/McCarthy would have been my dream-team

In the end, we put the radio commentary on, which was OK for the time Alan Green wasn't speaking in

I thought Southgate spoke a lot of sense. I keep banging on about it, but his efforts to educate the viewers about man-marking and zonal-marking, something that usually gets an "Ahhh, zonal-marking, just doesn't work" from Hansen or Shearer, gets massive kudos from me. Edgar Davids is dull. There's something about Marcel Desailly that I just can't stand.

I feel for guys like Southgate and Dixon who actually do that 'educate & explain' stuff yet remain resolutely second-tier. Evidently the networks have concluded that the public wants received wisdom instead. I assume they'll've researched it, but that might be naïve of me

xxp I turned the radio off, too infuriated by Alan Green and his obvious hatred of football.

Just wasn't the same without Robbie Earle there

I've warmed to Desailly this time round after previously thinking he was awful. If you listen closely there's an occasional gem of insight hidden under the excitable stream-of-consciousness.

I like Townsend, and also Mark Bright (I like the way he gets over-excited), Jim Beglin, Mick McCarthy, and even Kevin Keegan....I like Clive Tyldesley too.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scream.jpg

Dixon isn't second tier, he's constantly on the rise, has his column etc on the website. I like Dixon. I think southgate is awfully dull tho.

Did they just not bother to take Martin Keown to the World Cup? If so big round of applause BBC.

Keown was second commentator for a few early games. Then I guess he disappeared.

Southgate's competent dullness could work on a panel that isn't comprised of idiots and wankers.

You shouldn't need Gareth Southgate anywhere near the panel. Surely there are enough ex-footballers/managers out there who both know what they're talking about and are good on telly? The latter bit being the bit that's mostly ignored.

Watching BBC/ITV/Sky, it's alarming how little so many ex-players and pundits actually know about football!

The best panel the Beeb had all tournament was chucked away in an afternoon group game slot, where they had Colin Murray anchoring a panel of McCarthy, Hodgson and Dixon. Chiles is a much better anchorman than Lineker, though the company Lineker is stuck with most of the time does make him shine in comparison. I too had to turn over to Tyldesley, Lawrenson's consistent negative nancy act was so irritating I thought I would actually prefer to listen to Craig Burley.

Panels really missing the O'Neill/Strachan axis of comedy and non-line-toeing this year. I think they strove to find it by flinging a pished Danny Baker in once, but it didn't quite come off and was quickly shelved in favour of received wisdom and meh nothingness.

very odd MotD2 tonight.

Banter between Murray and Lawro based on secret shared jokes
Murray's repeated strained analogies
Shearer and everyone pretending they've never dismissed Berbatov who is now 'the wizard of Old Trafford' etc

and Motson's astonishing reflective-pensioner commentary, unlike any I can remember.

motty's commentary was weird wasn't it. seemed completely, erm, with it during his world cup cameos. odd.

It was as if he didn't realize he was actually doing a commentary - no raised voice, no excitement, no prepared lines - but instead was just talking to himself as he always does watching a match, but with a microphone on.

I've never heard him so quiet and casual. There was a sadness about it too, perhaps deriving from his resignation at the impossibility of Blackpool's task.

Think feigning excitement about what was the most routine of routine wins would have been worse.

i hadn't seen this for a long time but whatisup with the outro music? also colin murray is shooting for a cast-inclusive tfi friday vibe.

yeah i much preferred it to the relentless bellowing bombast anyone else would have employed tbh. what set it apart more than the tone i think was his absent-pundit musing (over an extended passage of play) on what blackpool's gameplan was trying to be. ("they want baptiste in the hole, but..."). most unusual.

murray's "lonely as barthez in a barbershop" gag so stale it wasn't even worth the groan.

also shearer being so bewilderingly loud and obnoxious in defending torres i actually had to turn the volume down.

Lawro + Shearer + Murray is pretty much the worst panel imaginable out of the current crew. Only Robbie Savage and his faux-matey laugh-hysterically-at-his-own-joke-then-slap-co-pundit-on-the-leg nonsense would be worse.

Banter between Murray and Lawro based on secret shared jokes

― the pinefox, Sunday, 19 September 2010 21:59

This has been the way on the BBC for some time now. It is often the case that I get a sense they are playing games - trying to say a daft word as many times as possibe, for example. There is a minor betting scoop here somewhere. Possibly.