Benfica v Sporting Lisbon (BT Sport ESPN) - Tim Caple

Real Betis v Athletic Bilbao (Sky Sports 1) - Kevin Keatings and Terry Gibson
Inter Milan v Genoa (BT Sport 3) - Steven Wyeth and Adam Virgo

Paris Saint-Germain v Nice (BT Sport 1):

James Richardson presenting the European Football Show with James Horncastle, Julien Laurens and Raphael Honigstein.

Commentators - Adam Summerton and Chris Perry

The above match looks like reverting back to how things were last season, studio coverage until just before 10pm. Thanks to Tony for advance details.

Unless I'm wrong Ian darke only done world feed when it's been on sky, or where sky have commentators there too.

He crops up on sky today in Chelsea highlights online

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, was Webb actually consulted at all during the match?

I know he is only called upon if needed but I think we've had a string of games in a row now where he hasn't been. There is usually cause to go to him at least once.

I think he was on Premier League Today and that's it.

Yes, he was. There was a discussion over the West Brom's goalkeeper and his time-eating antics.

Can't recall him. But he was there and involved. So if your wanting to be official... List him as BT have! He was involved in BT Sport Score, the action (okay not 'really' but was around) and post match.


I think the studio is there to 10pm due to it being a big game only. Hopefully I'm wrong.

One big selling point was those 'Grandstand' style weekend coverage of studio anchor/rotating pundits across 3-4 games in one day in it's first season (remember that!) Then even having studio coverage for 5:30 and 7:45 games on a Sat and a couple of Sunday games was acceptable. Now it is poor not having any coverage... You are seeing the likes of the 5:30pm Saturday Bundesliga game being just about carried by the commentators from 5:15 with segments from the world feed magazine show played in. So cheap.

Derek Rae update: '4 #Bundesliga comms before Winterpause. Mainz-HSV & Darmstadt-Bayern for @Bundesliga_EN. BVB-Augsburg & Bayern-Leipzig for @btsportfootball.'

Thanks, that'll do me. I have a hard enough time describing him as a commentator when he does contribute something yet alone when he doesn't!


Yep, that's all it is. Having created the monster that is the data hub I have a duty to verify that every scrap of information is correct. Irrespective of what BT's graphic says however, if he doesn't feature at all during a programme - I wouldn't list him as a comm, and would just put a side note to say he was an "unused substitute" or words to that effect.

While don't get me wrong studio coverage was certainly nice to have, not surprised it's been dropped - always seemed like something that would be quietly dropped particularly on Saturday.

And at the same time the commentators that are used are still good quality - most weekends you can normally expect at least one of the likes of Jonathan Pearce, Simon Brotherton, Ali Mann, Peter Drury and Derek Rae to appear.

That said BT have calmed down a lot since the first season and lots have changed. Which was probably necessary - when they started they really did go overboard.

There was all sorts of nonsense such as presenting game outside the grounds (for reasons I still don't gather) and 75 minute build-up for PL games which usually began with 30 minutes of the most nonsense filler - the example always bought up being Oxlade Chamberlin playing FIFA.

It's noticable a lot of the magazine shows have been dropped over the years including 'Football Tonight' - a show which seemed to have more name changes than the Sugababes have had line-ups.

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Heard the PLP 'Goal Rush' feature had a bit of an "ITV moment" over the weekend (note I'm talking about 5-10 years ago not current ITV) going off to another game and as a result missing a goal in their main game.

Also. sounds like Tony Gale got a lot of criticism for his World Feed commentary of the Arsenal/Stoke game.
The lowlight apparently was the absent-through-injury Per Mertesacker being renamed 'Thomas'.

I'm no Gale fan but he always seems to be particularly dreadful on Arsenal games for some reason.

Neville requested being on that show on Twitter a few weeks back. He invited somebody else too but can't remember who it was.

GNev and Carragher have had a pop at a few Twitter sites of newspapers & journos. Mirror Football is a great example, they'll do an article on what the pundits said after or during a game and write a click bait headline. For example, Carragher/Gary will say "I think the keeper could have saved that" & the head line on Twitter will read "Jamie & Gary's vicious attack on keeper".

It's cheap journalism and Gary/Jamie have both refuted it in the past as not representing what they say (when do newspapers ever do that?). John Cross of the Mirror got into it with Gary about where journalism is going. It's a bit like Digital Spy which is know of "The top 5 things....". A child could write better articles than some of the online crap thrown around now. If only we had more Henry Winter's et al!

Anyway, on another topic, Shearer and PNev were on MOTD2 last night.

I enjoyed Phil Neville slagging off Karius and Mark Chapman suggesting that at this rate, next week Tracy Neville would be having a go at him.

Here's the whole weekend...

Brighton vs Leeds - Introduced by Scott Minto with Peter Beagrie and David Prutton, commentary by Daniel Mann and Andy Hinchcliffe
Watford vs Everton - Introduced by Simon Thomas with Thierry Henry and Joleon Lescott, commentary by Bill Leslie and Niall Quinn
Leicester vs Man City - Introduced by Jake Humphrey with Richard Dunne and Robbie Savage, commentary by Ian Darke, Steve McManaman and Trevor Francis
Preston vs Blackburn - Introduced by Kelly Cates with Keith Andrews and David Prutton, commentary by Gary Weaver and Don Goodman
Chelsea vs West Brom - Introduced by Jake Humphrey with Harry Redknapp and Ian Wright, commentary by Darren Fletcher, Robbie Savage and Glenn Hoddle
Derby vs Forest - Introduced by Scott Minto with Cyrus Christie and Stuart Pearce, commentary by Daniel Mann and Danny Higginbotham
Super Sunday - Introduced by Dave Jones with Jamie Carragher and Jamie Redknapp, Man U vs Spurs commentary by Rob Hawthorne and Gary Neville, Liverpool vs West Ham commentary by Martin Tyler and Alan Smith

Chapman is a better presenter than Lineker

Data hub related issues:
A total of 32 matches were covered this weekend. On the whole, very good. Thanks for all contributions. Everything has been processed and approved.

The only things that people failed to spot were a couple of incorrect reporter assignments. It was Matt Smith doing the reporting for Leicester v Man City and not Des Kelly. If there's one thing this thread is not particularly hot on, it's reporters. They are often not listed or paid any attention to, which is why that when someone adds duff info like they did this weekend, it can often go unnoticed.

Speaking of adding duff data, I'm afraid the first user ban has been imposed. I hoped it wouldn't come to this but the person in question adding wrong info even after I went out of my way not to allow data to be added until just before to kick-off really was the final straw.

I was also disappointed that nobody recorded the very special guest that BT had in the studio for Leicester v Man City - Father Christmas.

Finally, I have made a change to the drop-down menus on the site. They are no longer in the predictive text style, and are now just plain standard drop-downs. It may well be that you'd like me to revert back to the old version, but we'll give this a trial run. I've done this because I think some people weren't able to correct their mistakes if they happened to enter something that they didn't mean to. (e.g. the alternative commentary track in English for games on S4C) If you want to unassign a person in any given role, you can select the blank option at the very top. I will put this to a vote in a few days on whether you'd like to stick with this or go back to how it was.


It was actually Guy Havord reporting. Kelly Cates linked to him as being Jonathan Oakes but it was Havord. She made a mistake.

Of course, a while back people were droning on that BT were "biased" towards Man City, seemingly based on Paul Scholes punditing on a few of their games and saying something or other. Quite why an entire channel would be "biased" against a particular club, lord alone knows, but perhaps Man City-related pundits aren't very interested in working with them. You won't get Mike Summerbee on it, certainly.

Almost a Redknapp family Party Political Broadcast yesterday, Harry on BT and Jamie on Sky at the same time. And Louise on Strictly, of course.


Well, I wouldn't suggest it was that convenient to be hanging around in Salford from 9.15am when Breakfast finishes to 10.45pm when MOTD starts. That's got nothing to do with it, I'm sure. Dan Walker is a regular stand-in presenter of MOTD, is the general point.


That's the case with all new broadcasters and all new contracts, though, really. When the Beeb got the rights back to the FA Cup in 2001 they had Gary presenting the first and second round matches with Alan Hansen punditing and John Motson commentating. By the time they'd lost the rights in 2007 it was Ray with any old pundit and Simon Brotherton or someone commentating. And when BT began they were doing hour-long build-ups to Liverpool friendlies in the first few weeks, just for the brand building.


It's alright, it's not a competition. Lineker is a better tweeter than Chapman.

Bournemouth v Leicester- Mark Scott for the BBC

Championship matches on Sky now have goal updates from ongoing Premier League games which is another excuse to advertise their app.


Another thing that bugs me (unless this is what you meant) is the team news for another game that's upcoming going along the bottom of the screen. Last weekend it was Sky putting up the teams for Everton v Man Utd towards the end of Bournemouth v Liverpool. It actually happened whilst Bournemouth were scoring, so it got cut short.

It isn't - add that to the list

Agreed Walker is a regular MOTD stand-in in any case and I've got no problem them selecting him for whatever reason. Just thinking that maybe the BBC's attitude would be that since Dan Walker is in Salford anyway that day that it makes sense to use him. It's a bit of a moot discussion really though
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Exactly the point I was making regarding new contracts/new channels. Just making the point it really was especially prominent with BT.
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Don't think it hugely matters if one is better than the other in any case. Both Lineker and Chapman are fantastic presenters - you get the sense pundits enjoy working alongside them (and vice versa) but they also both manage to get insights and proper answers from pundits.
It's not like with Colin Murray where there was a noticable difference for me between Lineker and Murray in terms of quality.

BBC have a lot of strength in depth actually with football presenters - Walker and Logan could easily host MOTD full-time.

BT are another channel too actually where most of the presenters (Jake aside) are very good. Lineker, Richardson, Smith, Hipgrave and Currie are all talented in their roles.
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Just needed Sandra to complete the Redknapp set.
Not the first time 2 Redknapps have appeared on football coverage in one day.

I'm sure some of us remember the debates on here over the summer (that took place probably a few too many times) about Gary Neville's managerial career and whether managers would bring it up when talking about his Sky punditry.

Think we have an answer...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38291484

Klopp has proper gone for him there, amazing.

As the Liverpool manager his fans will demand he has a go at an ex Man U legend.

Mind you Carragher and Souness were pretty critical of Liverpool as well.

Most of the criticism of Karius yesterday came from Jamie Carragher, he of that well known anti-Liverpool agenda.

Klopp isn't silly - he will only have a pop at the pundits he knows the Liverpool fans hate.

Its where Roy Hodgson started to go wrong - he praised Sir Alex Ferguson and Man U generally which was a big no no with the Liverpool supporters.

That was even he just turned rubbish..

Gary Neville and Phil Neville are bad pundits

They were decent players

They know nothing about players from the rubbish on TV/radio.

It showed they were rubbish in their coaching