Match of the Day vs The Premiership

(he could at least do something that'd replace "premiership parliament" or "on the ball" though)

n: football has never been that pure

2. All who've said that ITV 'try to hard to create "personality"' are OTM - it's been one of the problems from the start, really.

3. TS: Premiership Parliament vs The Premiership on Monday

couldn't watch the thing with that fat girl last season

Yet I think it must have been the greatest event in ITV football coverage for many a year.

This season - its only season? Or did it run last year too? yes, I suppose it did - I think I have watched... *every edition*.

It has made me happy, that programme.

It signed off the other night, with little fanfare. My earlier-season wonderings of whether Matt Smith would finally see a need to haul in c.8 panellists to review the season proved baseless.

Yet Smith did say something sparky re. the final Stat of the Day. Was it -- 'A Last Chance For you to get Lost with Lust'? Or was it still more elaborate than that?

Clive Allen, in this final edition, demonstrated how his authority as pundit has grown.

Smith ended it all with a comment about things looking good for Liverpool. I suppose that's how he would always have wanted to end it.

Yes, Townsend is a dead loss. So is Earle, save perhaps for comic value. I am touched to see Stevem backing Clive.

I don't think it's true that they slapped down journos. Certainly Barclay vs Atkinson was a Battle Ronald, I mean, Royale.

In (Barrow In) Fairness (Ron), the Tactics Truck is long gone. It went out with Herbie and his bananas.

Nice one, Doc. Maybe Hoddle!

Why was the name of the league changed from 'The Premier League' to 'The Premiership', anyway?

The Truck may be literally gone, but its ethos has lived on; whenever I saw "The Premiership" in the last season it had some equivalent irrelevancy; Andy Townsend and the rest trying to remember 'all 16 Scandinavian players to have scored a goal in the Premiership since it started...' & c.

Are you saying Matt Smith is gay? I doubt it.

What I will miss: The Premiership on Monday.

Perhaps I have not yet made that clear.

no more Andy Townsend ! YES

Are those five teams promoted via the play offs just since the start of the premiership? or does it include the old 2nd div play off's? Because if it is just since the start of the premiership I would say that five teams is a really high number.

The PoM - words cannot express how much I despise this show. Truly truly truly. The same sort of cockfarmers who work in football marketing infest this utter shower of shite. Champagne moment? Fact of Fiction? WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK? They had this idea that if they thought it was good for a laugh on set, it would be in real life in TV land. This is not true, because they are meejar cunts.

The idea was tactics talk like its down the pub. It is wrong on several levels - down the pub chat is usually shite - that is the point. I want analysis that shows me things I couldn't see. I want straight down the line authoritative - BBC at its best does these things. I fear that MOTD's team are usually so giddy to be back to together that they get all silly. Also, it wasn't realistic, as a player would have said 'fuck tactics - look at the tits on her'.

PS - employ Steve Claridge. Very perceptive on 5Live. Unlike Carlton Palmer.

PPS -Matt Smith's look to camera made me want to kick my screen in. Everytime I try to type what it is about him that irks me so, I end up like a Tasmanian Devil whirling around in madness.

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

^sounds exactly like something Shearer would do. I remember when he was playing for England he got a bet going where they tried to get as many song titles into interviews - the one and only time I found him mildly amusing.

[Murray reprised it in world cup 2010, instance of his hyperactive self-conscious 1998 retro style]

I'm not sure but I think John Motson's strange commentary last week was at least partly the result of him not having mastered the technique of commentating on recorded highlights and making it sound like you were actually there at the game (someone above alluded to this issue as well). Last night his commentary sounded more like his old self. I can't remember which match it was, but I believe he was at the game and his commentary was 'live' in this case. Having said that, there is something going on with him and his voice. He may not have the lung capacity he used to, so he sounds a bit breathless and quiet at the best of times.

Shearer calling David Silva David Villa twice and Lineker having to correct him.

Lineker forgetting to ask Hansen for his Liverpool analysis was great. Mentioned it in the other thread but his Ginola joke got completely lost in all that, too. Funny stuff.

Enjoyed MotD's final-day montage of games, but Mowbray is unbearable, the worst of all the BBC's commentators: it's awful that he's mysteriously been promoted to pole position.

John Motson referring to Arsenal's "more attacking formation". I always thought they were too defensive.

Final montage showing Lineker telling Hansen he'd forgotten to ask him for his LFC analysis

as discussed upthread.

Mowbray has a weird throaty voice and a perpetual tone of melodramatic "well that's a turn up for the fucking books" pomposity; I feel like every sentence he says is like Christian Bale sarcastically shouting "A DA-DAH DA-DAH" at a director of photography, but slowed down

that montage was the vilest thing ever, made kurt kren look like ozu

Mowbray is horribly presumptuous - ie he seems to be always making presumptions about what YOU are thinking, when it's only what he is thinking.

Pomposity and irony together, yes, very bad. And he's been made #1.

WOULD, YOU, beLIEVE it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua9hYey-uHw

http://i.imgur.com/EjZ7d.jpg

GM kind of dreadful even in that short clip - the faux-geezer attempt to ingratiate himself. Repellent overall.

Failing to ingratiate yourself in a faux-geezer way with Mark Lawrenson, man

http://www.theworldcupingermany.com/artman/uploads/webfeed_new.gif

I thought Motson's effusive coverage of the 7th* most important game of the day was a delight. Bless him.

(* - in order of presentation, anyway; EFC-Chelsea was perhaps the least meaningful game of the day - Everton might have dropped a place and Chelsea were only mathematically threatened by Man City, but that was it - but it was up after the relegation battle).

mew MOTD contract agreed - finally with iPlayer availability (from Monday evenings)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18205519

Hmm, I tend to catch up with MOTD on Sunday, double-header with MOTD2, so although welcome, this is virtually useless to me. Looks like I'm sticking with t0rr3nt3 for now. What's so special about monday evenings?

Alan Hansen just completed his last Match of the Day.

Moving.

managed to get a plug in for Sherwood before he went at least

Thanks for the memories Sherwood.

Will he ever get the forest gig

"Marquee Moon" on Match of the Day?