Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“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.”
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.