MNF is as we expected with David Jones, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.

They've updated the green screen for the team line ups. David Jones walks through it as Ed used to but it's shown as a full pitch at the stadium (in this case Stamford Bridge) rather than just a pitch outline.

Another note. Gary and Jamie have swapped sides when standing at the tactics board as some speculated on here. Jamie is now on the right and Gary in the middle.

Commentary by Bill Leslie and Davie Provan.

Bill Leslie and Davie Provan commentating. Casinoman will be pleased.


Very clear at this point that BT see Fletcher as their main commentator - for right or wrong.
Will be interesting to see who's alongside for those games.

On Curbishley, to be honest I associate him at this point with the Morning View/Sky Sports Now - the twilight zone of punditry.
I still don't understand the point of that show - when I'm stumbled onto it seems to be Rob Wotton talking to Ray Parlour/Alan Curbishley/Tony Cascarino etc. for 2 hours. I know SSN often will take plenty of filler but I'm still confused who the market is meant to be for that show.

Didn't see Super Sunday but not clear if that Carragher role will be regular or a one-off. Have to say that doesn't sound a bad way to do a three-person team and might be a good thing for BT to adopt and play to the strengths of some of their pundits (rather than the current situaton where they manage to avoid talking over each other but it's all a bit messy).

Surely Sky'll only have a line-up that big for big games though? It can just about be justified for Arsenal/Liverpool having 5 pundits - less so a mid-table clash on a cold December night.

IMG world feed, Tyler and Danny Higginbotham

Danny is under rated IMO.

To note, the MNF studio isn't in UHD yet, switch from HD to UHD at kickoff.

I know im a great fan of Darkie but this really is unbelievable treatment of a high class commentator and a commentator who helped get BT Football of and running.

Ok Fletcher, as we all knew, is number 1 in their eyes but are they really trying to kick Darke in the teeth by giving him just the scraps or the poorest of games?

Sorry but someone of Darke's quality the be put well behind someone like Fletcher without even getting some of the bigger games is just disgusting, you cant even say he is number 2 almost just a fill in as when the blue eyed boy needs a rest!

A number 2 should at least get some of the bigger games with the likes of Fletcher getting the biggest much like Mowbery and Tyldsley.

What i think makes it worse is that Fletcher is noway near the likes of a Tyler, Wilson, Mowbery and yet Darke is made to look very ordinary behind him.

BT clearly wouldnt miss him if he left tomorrow and to be honest with his fan base in the States he could easily walk into an oversea's job or if i was him i'd walk back to Sky and try to get back into the Boxing lime light at least.

Sorry guys i know we all have our opinions about commentator's but just felt it had to be said.

RANT OVER!!

his old Job at Sky as the Voice of Boxing is avaliable since Nick Halling left & if i was Barney Francis & Adam Smith i would be on the phone to see if he would consider coming back

also he is guaranteed a Game every week with the amount for premier league game they have

If and a big if that was to ever happen he shouldnt consider it he should just go!

To be fair it's less 'The voice of Boxing' these days and more 'Chief Anthony Joshua Hypeman'.

To present a different view to his whole Darke discussion (and to be fair a lot of speculation to come and I'm sure Peter Brackley knows more but understandably won't expand) but maybe he's happy with his workload at BT and in general. He'll still get quite a good few PL games and down to logistics alone he'll be getting plenty of big FA Cup and Champions League games.
Add that to his ESPN gig and he's got a lot of football.


He must be vaguely happy at BT as he's popular in America and I imagine NBC would happily snap him up.

We're also assuming that Sky are desperate want him back which may not be a given - it's not easy to think of examples of people who've left Sky and then returned. They value loyalty.
Plus on Sky, who's to say he'd getting more than 3rd choice PL games and some boxing bouts were he to return?

And it's important to remember we're only a few games into the season - Darke is hardly the only person from BT to not appear on either the Community Shield or opening PL game.

And in comparison to other Numbers 2s Darke is doing OK - Matterface didn't do a live Euros game after the quarter-final and Wilson on the Beeb didn't get a Cup Final last season (whereas at least Darke got 1).

Not saying he shouldn't be getting more but he's not exactly slumming it out either.
And broadcasters (not just BT) obviously see a lot in Fletcher - he left 606 and 5Live moved him to Friday evenings.

I do like too the fact that after the thread insisting Bill Leslie be put on PL games for years, now he is on them we're immediately campaigning for him to be replaced. Are we ever pleased?

This post-game MNF discussion is probably the best they've had. Massive credit to Neville for honestly answering questions on Valencia and England. He made no excuses and owned up. Excellent TV.

This shows just how much we've missed him on Sky.

Excellent discussion / questioning at the end of MNF tonight, would urge anyone who didn't see it to check it out.

Good use of viewer interaction by using it for questions rather than point making and good selection of those questions.

David Jones slipped comfortably into Eds shoes, I think this format suits him better than the linking they did on SNF.

Echo the thoughts on the post match MNF discussion. I liked the comments on whether a pundit failing as a manager makes him unsuitable to be a pundit - a similar discussion was had here.

Think Neville is actually now a much better pundit for with his managerial experience. Really liked his comments on how Spanish GKs prepare vs an English GK.

Also fair play to Dave Jones, thought he would struggle but has been very impressive this weekend. (Jake Humphrey should take note, let the pundits give their opinion, and just ask good, insightful questions, and don't feel the need to tell everyone what you think!)

MNF is all about the 'quality' of the punditry. The stars of the show are the pundits and their tactics board.

Not saying Ed's shoes were hard to fill, but at Sky Sports Finishing School, a presenter won't find it hard covering a programme dedicated to analysis..........you just need to mediate and ask the right questions.

Really enjoyed this weekends football and coverage I think from what I have seen has been really good.

Super Sunday was excellent yesterday and really had that big grand feel back to it. Whilst I don"t envisage or don't think Id want to see all five main pundits used in some capacity every week, it was certainly nice to see ane the presentation from what I seen flowed really well.

The experiment with Carragher contributing to the commentary I thought worked well. It can work when structured in the way it was with clearly defined roles and it did add something to the commentary, a lot of that I thought was down to how articulate Jamie and Gary are. That said, if they are to do this I hope its only for the bigger games otherwise its novelty may ware off. It would also perhaps be good to have Henry or Souness rotate in in this contributory role with Carragher in the future when its used so we dont always loss him from the studio on the big games.

David Jones has really done fantastically in the first weekend of his new role. He had made a seemless transition onto both Super Sunday and Monday Night Football, if hes like this every week they wont miss Ed that much, outsanding though he was. His questioning was relevent and insightful and he got the best out of all five of them. He had a great rapport with Neville and Carragher tonight, the three worked well. I also thought he gets more out of Henry than Ed actually did and he seems more at ease with him for some reason. Bill Leslie did a great commentary on MNF, hope hes used on PL weekly now.


.... As for BBC the new titles are a nice distinctive change on MOTD. I echo the sentiments of others that Manish was great on MOTD2. I discussed this fairly recently so wont go into covered territory again but for me he is better than Jason and Dan and his performance last night shows this. If Jenas is to appear slightly less on the Saturday MOTD due to BT work then I would consider putting him in the Dixon/Strachan role and make him the regular pundit.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10538433/gary-neville-answers-questions-on-valencia-and-england-on-mnf-return


For anybody who hasn't seen it. Link above to the part with Neville's questions in full.

For anybody wondering, it was John Dykes with Rio Ferdinand and Peter Schmichael on PLTV's coverage of Bournemouth vs Man Utd and Arsenal vs Liverpool.

Chelsea vs West Ham saw Andy Townsend alongside Owen Hargreaves who confirmed they will be together for every MNF. It felt a little weird not having a main presenter, especially when Andy struggled with the links to and from the ad breaks, however on the whole I was impressed with AT as presenter.

Forgot to say how much I enjoyed Bill's commentary. He used moments of silence to let the game breathe.

A commentator doesn't need to fill every second with speech.

Yes, but I thought it was pretty bizarre how at the start they made no reference to either Gary being back, or indeed Dave Jones presenting it. It just began as if it was any old week of the season, with Dave just going "So, Gary?". I know they went on to Valencia later on but if you were just watching the opening you may have thought they were trying to pretend he'd never left and had been there all along. And I know you don't need to point out but someone's left but a quick line from Jones that he was delighted to be joining the team would have been better for the audience, some people might just think Ed is on holiday.

That is Sky for you. Unlike US television, it does neither acknowledge any change of circumstances nor other tv companies.

I watched the video from the link posted above, good to have the 2 back and looked liked David did well.

The Optus rights over here (so basically online only) and having to be an Optus mobile customer haven't gone down well. It's like the only way being able to access PL is being on Vodafone with third rate internet speeds!

Remember in Euro 96 on rtetv, it was Andy Townsend and Niall Quinn presenting some live games, it was mostly afternoon games

AT has experience of presenting, ITV Regional football league socecr nights (Yorkshire) might have been pre-recorded. Sure he did some stand ins on the Championship highlights for ITV.

I think he is decent in this role and should develop his career in this direction.

Brazil v Sweden and Germany v Canada- Nigel Adderley and Sue Smith for the BBC
Steaua Bucharest v Man City- Guy Mowbray and Danny Higginbotham for the world feed

[quote=BFGArmy;83603598]To be fair it's less 'The voice of Boxing' these days and more 'Chief Anthony Joshua Hypeman'.

To present a different view to his whole Darke discussion (and to be fair a lot of speculation to come and I'm sure Peter Brackley knows more but understandably won't expand) but maybe he's happy with his workload at BT and in general. He'll still get quite a good few PL games and down to logistics alone he'll be getting plenty of big FA Cup and Champions League games.
Add that to his ESPN gig and he's got a lot of football.


/QUOTE]
Ian will be doing plenty of games this season to keep him busy, and as I keep reminding him, he's 85 not 25!

I can also reveal exclusively that he may well have another definite date in his diary soon -we are planning to watch some cricket at Hove!

Intriguing line-up that. I'm assuming from the above Townsend 'led' the show, Am I right in thinking Pougatch used to present the Monday games for PLP?

As dz said, Andy Townsend presented the Championship a few times back when ITV used to have it.
Plus there was that period on ITV with Steve Rider where Townsend was sat where the presenter would normally be and was pretty much a 2nd presenter.

He's not hugely experienced at presenting granted but he's got some experience at least. And there are several examples of ex-players becoming presenters successfully - Lineker, Minto, basically anyone involved in cricket coverage.

Townsend does seem in-demand at PLP - from what I gather most weekends he does co-commentary and also appears as a pundit. And now sounds like he'll be presenting too. Give it time and he'll be leading the commentary.

Didn't watch MNF live (was watching some minor sporting event called the Olympics - don't blame you if you've never heard of it) but will give that Neville section a rewatch. Especially the 'failed manager/pundit' bit -might be nice to see that debated by people not on this thread.