Originally Posted by
pakokelso93:
“Great to see Dermot O'Leary back involved with live football after the 2014 World Cup appearance with Louis Walsh and co on ITV... A time where we filled in the details of ITV's coverage for Gazza1982 who didn't watch the coverage due to his £5 'principles'. 
”
Ah the 2014 World Cup - fond memories of the Gary Bloom and Ian Wright commentary team.
Originally Posted by bwfcol:
“45 minutes in of BT coverage, Darren actually sounds decent IMO. Hargreaves sounds a bit bored & is biased towards Utd.
However, the HT studio segment is dreadful, Gerrard sounds bored, the analysis is basic. Jake looks like he's trying to be all cool & young. Hoddle has also claimed that Utd's goal to be one of the goals of the season!”
Best to skip to the end folks. Long post incoming.
After all the Fletcher comments on here, it's probably a pleasant surprise to you to find that he doesn't speak at the speed an F1 car drives.
Definitely some of the other commentators BT use are stronger but I find Fletcher perfectly listenable and I've never really understood why the criticism he gets on here is so strong.
Agreed on Jake - I think BT see him as their 'main man' in terms of domestic coverage but he is probably my biggest issue with BT's coverage.
He doesn't come across as likable and tries too often to be pally with pundits rather than pressing pundits to expand on points.
Now Hargreaves on co-commentary. I totally get why people aren't fans of his commentary - his voice on there can be a bit dull and he can be repetitive (count the number of times he uses the word exceptional or terrific in a game).
However, I do think he's a nice change from some of the shoutier co-commentators BT use.
McManaman and Savage are the opposite to Hargreaves - they can go overboard on being pally with the other commentators, can be shouty and cut across Darke/Fletcher and it can make 3-man commentary teams involving them difficult to listen to. And I say that as someone who more often than not actually quite likes McManaman.
Hargreaves on commentary is duller but bar those Arsenal/Bayern games last season (where both he and Darke were terrible ) I can usually tolerate him. Plus some of the quirks about his commentary like the 'exceptionals' are a guilty pleasure.
One positive of Hargreaves doing co-commentary is that it does mean he normally pops up on PL Tonight (as the main co-commentator more often than not appears on that show).
I'm said it before but for me he's BT's best pundit in the studio. He's much more relaxed there than on commentary and is articulate, well-researched and insightful. I normally very much enjoy the studio coverage if he's there.
Rio can be equally as good too but at other times his analysis can be overly lazy.
I do think the BT commentaries have improved slightly from last season. So far this season at least we haven't had anywhere near the number of car-crash commentaries we did last year.
It's a low bar to jump over mind but a step in the right direction.
Goodness more than I intended to write. I need to get a life.
Summary: Fletcher is criticised too strongly on here,yes Jake is bad, Hargreaves's co-commentary is iffy if tolerable but he's strong in the studio.
I need to write shorter posts
Originally Posted by The Scout:
“Wait a minute... BFGArmy rightly points out what the key difference is here with Subaru and you all continue to mock him? Give the guy a break.
You didn't see his original post and are jumping to conclusions.”
That said, as I mentioned, Subaru didn't help himself in the past by posting incorrect information as fact before when it was clearly guesswork.
Still I'll happily defend Subaru in a case like this if I think it's merited.