UEFA Champions League Play Off - Steaua Bucharest v Man City (BT Sport 2/HD2)

Gary Lineker presents from the studio alongside Steve McManaman, Richard Dunne and Shay Given.

Commentators Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves

Reporter Des Kelly


I get the feeling BT might use Ferdinand slightly less on their CL coverage this season. I mean he covered every first choice match on every CL night from the play-offs until the final and I half expected him to be on this one.
I do think though this might be because they want to use him as a regular on their PL coverage now (rather than just for the heavyweight clashes) and don't want to overexpose their star pundit.

Dunne has a great TV agent as he has worked for TV3, ITV and BT Sport in the last few months. While TV3 uses Keith Andrews tonight as a pundit

Plus he has already been a pundit for a Man City game this week, perhaps he'll do the home tie. I expect he'll do the game on Saturday.

Perhaps most significantly, Andy Townsend was the main presenter of 3/4 hour radio shows on talkSPORT every week (barring holidays) for a number of years until 2010. So he has ample experience of fronting programmes as the lead anchorman and speaking to pundits and guests as the main questioner.

There are quite a number of other former professionals who have moved into the lead presenter role over the past few years, many through radio programmes and/or international television. Matt Holland is someone who I rate as being among the best football presenters around at the moment, I think the Friday night football preview show he hosts on talkSPORT is an outstanding listen.

Today on TV3

Steaua Bucharest v Manchester City- Presented by Tommy Martin, with commentary from Kevin Kilbane and David McIntyre, and analysis by Brian Kerr and Keith Andrews.

Tomorrow on RTE2

Dundalk v Legia Warsaw- Tony O'Donoghue is joined by Kenny Cunningham and Richie Sadlier. With commentary by Ger Canning and Brian Kerr.

Next Tuesday on TV3

Legia Warsaw v Dundalk- Tommy Martin presents. With analysis from Brian Kerr and Kevin Kilbane, and commentary from Keith Andrews and David McIntyre.

Olympics Women's Football semi-finals - BBC
Brazil v Sweden followed by Germany v Canada

Comms: Nigel Adderley and Sue Smith

Presume the commentary for this will be offtube from Salford.

We'll have to wait and see on Ferdinand. Though he didn't cover much of the Europa League I think (bar the MU games) last season.

BT scoreboard I think is the same as last season - not the same as the Super Cup last week. I probably even prefer it to their normal scoreboard. Simple but effective.

Woeful HD picture quality from Romania, doubt it's within BT broadcast chain and is probably from the original broadcaster.

Not sure where Steaua are in the league though, "Fletch" has only mentioned it 3 times in the first 10 minutes.

Tuesday 16th August - BT Sport 2

Live UEFA Champions League: Steaua Bucuresti v Manchester City

Gary Lineker presenting from the studio alongside Richard Dunne, Shay Given and Steve McManaman

Commentators: Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves

Reporter: Des Kelly


BT Sport 3

UEFA Champions League Play-Off Round First Leg
BSC Young Boys v Borussia Monchengladbach - Peter Drury and Don Hutchison


BT Sport Extra

UEFA Champions League Play-Off Round First Leg
AFC Ajax v FC Rostov (X2) - Dan Mason and Matt Holland
FC Kobenhavn v APOEL Nicosia (X3) - Adam Summerton and Chris Perry
GNK Dinamo Zagreb v Red Bull Salzburg (X4) - Steve Wyeth and Efan Ekoku

The Super Cup scorebar was their one they had modelled on the old rounded logo.

This one is just the same as the world feed effectively now they've went to rectangle shaped graphics on their main coverage.

Well, I wasn't expecting them to do a moving tribute to Ed Chamberlin, but given two of the three personnel weren't there for the last programme of last season, surely they could have taken five seconds to say "Hello, I'm the new presenter and as you can see Gary's back". Surely?

Celtic v Hapoel Beer Sheva- Gary Lineker presents for BT with John Hartson and Gordon Strachan. Darrell Currie reports. Derek Rae and Chris Sutton commentate.

Other world feed commentators from today

Young Boys v Borussia Mönchengladbach- Jonathan Pearce and Dean Ashton
Ajax v FC Rostov- Dave Farrar
Kobenhavn v Apoel Nicosia- Gary Taphouse

Know this is a bit OT but Simon Brotherton has been fantastic on the BBCs cycling coverage over the last week. Really added to the coverage.

I have fond memories of Andy Townsend alongside Mike 'Porky' Parry for Friday's edition of Drivetime as well as the Weekend Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT between 2007 and 2010. And I agree with you on Matt Holland; I wouldn't be surprised if he hosts a live PL match on PLTV at some point this season. He's already presented FanZone regularly on PLTV for the past 2 seasons.

As for PLTV in general, this opening weekend has seen the biggest shift since it began in 2011. John Dykes presented just about everything between 2011 and 2015. Now he's only scheduled to present 'Super Sunday' with Manish on Saturdays and now AT on Monday's. Mark Pougatch had presented MNF as well as Football Today; whereas now he only covers the latter.

Also, it appears Alan Curbishley has been finally been replaced on Friday's Football Today. Since losing his lead pundit spot alongside Andy Townsend in 2014, AC would regularly pop up on Friday's edition, however it appears Kelly Cates will present alongside Ian Wright this season.

Must be a tough job to work with AT, "Cup of tea, Andy?", "Not for me Clive", "But my name's Darren"

Anyway, enough of the jokes, probably best leaving them to Peter.

BT Sport's line up for the City game is pretty weak IMO apart from the presenter.

Next week's 2nd leg is now obviously dead & advantageous for Sky showing EFL Cup games. I presume the Playoff's clashing with EFL Cup games don't upset UEFA?

MLT11 has posted in another thread but it's something I've read about, 1st-4th places get into the CL group stages automatically from 2019 in the top 4 countries, the impact being:

1. Playoff rounds now only interesting to our Scottish friends and European football fanatics!
2. No more "the race for 3rd" on Sky!
3. Less talk on UEFA co-efficients, I'm not sure who is 5th but I presume something drastic would need to happen for the top 4 to change in the next few years?
4. CL contract slightly less risky as there is guaranteed 2 English teams each match night in the group stage & much less risky for 3rd/4th place co-efficient nations in general regardless of who they are
5. Early season TV picks a bit easier as there's no "Will 4th place team be in CL or EL" to think about
6. Even helps the teams in terms of transfers/pre-season as there's not the extra games & uncertainty of CL income or not.

Maybe you can tell I'm bored today

Just imagine how we're all feeling!!

i have to agree with aruan22 about Brotherton being excellent on the cycling. He has been superb. He will probably take a holiday after the Olympics, i doubt he will be on MOTD until the the first or second week of September.


Bit of a comedown from the highs of your barbecue. Urban legend said that the barbecue is still going on to this day

Just to complete and compile the MOTD details from last weekend in one place

Match of the Day Saturday 13 August 2016

Presented by Gary Lineker with Alan Shearer and Ian Wright

Hull City vs Leicester City - Guy Mowbray
Manchester City vs Sunderland - Steve Wilson
Everton vs Tottenham - Alistair Mann
Burnley vs Swansea - Martin Fisher
Crystal Palace vs West Brom - Mark Scott
Middlesbrough vs Stoke City - John Roder
Southampton vs Watford - Tony Husband


Match of the Day 2 Sunday 14 August 2016

Presented by Manish Bhasin with Jermaine Jenas and Danny Murphy

Arsenal vs Liverpool - Guy Mowbray
Bournemouth vs Manchester United - Jonathan Pearce


To my knowledge Mark Scott is a new name on MOTD, but he was very good. Does anyone else have any further details on him? He reminded me a lot of Martin Fisher. But Mark Scott was very good.

For those of you wondering Gary Lineker wore some more clothes after the punditry for the Leicester match had finished. It seems like Leicester would have been first on regardless of the other results for this reason.

Mark Scott did a couple of matches last season as well, this is his second season.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Mark Scott but were afraid to ask...
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=3634


He's also doing the Paralympics, so indeed he won't be doing any football for a while. Forgot to say, the highlight of the weekend was Martin Fisher and John Roder in vision on Football Focus.

Also as well, I see that, according to the Virgin EPG, Friday Night Football now finishes at 10.45, with a further half hour programme following called Friday Night Football: Reaction. Not sure what they're going to be doing which requires an extra programme for "reaction" nearly an hour after the final whistle, but there you go.

Porto v Roma- Guy Mowbray for BT
Villarreal v Monaco- Tony Jones for the world feed
Dundalk v Legia Warsaw- Nigel Adderley for the world feed

It was the host broadcaster for sure that how it looked on the uefa feeds last night,

Others have already said about Mark Scott.
I imagine we'll see him appearing a bit over the next few weeks given many of 5 Live's normal commentators are in Rio (meaning it's unlikely too many of them appear on MOTD) and obviously Simon Brotherton has been covering the cycling in Rio.

As others have said, Simon Brotherton has been fantastic on the cycling.


7/10 effort. Not enough 'better' and no 'if anything i brewed it too well'.

And no wonder he's not appeared often on BT if he's referring to Fletcher as Darren instead of Fletch.

The only person who seems to call him the former is Owen Hargreaves - and given he seems to cover a thousand or so games/week (roughly), I think he's allowed to get away with it.


FNF must be pushing the length the original Super Sunday was at this point. Nearly 5 hours to cover one match seems excessive - even wuth the week's football to chat about.

Still at least it leaves more time to discuss Joe Hart being dropped by MC - because BT and Sky have hardly mentioned it...

Every time I hear a "Fletch" reference (which I really don't like at all personally on a live match, he's a commentator not a cartoon character) -I think of Ronnie Barker in Porridge!

Fletch, Sav, Macca, Wrighty....what next?......Tylders, Hoddo, Logers, Balders and Dimbles Dimbleby?

David Coleman and Kenneth Wolstenholme must be turning in their graves!
"England win the 66 World Cup, let's get a word with the manager, pretty good stuff eh, Rammers?"