Originally Posted by Dan_LFC:
“Enjoyed Sky's coverage of Spurs vs. Liverpool today. Simon Thomas has settled quite quickly into his new role and worked well with Graeme and Jamie in the studio both engaged very well with him.
I actually quite like 'three-up-top' feature they seem to be utilizing on the bigger games. It is far more nuanced and better deployed than the through-fare or awkward moment where non of the three knows whose talking you sometimes get on BT. On Sky, where it is only occasionally and the person is invited in at a appropriate moment I actually think it adds something to the commentary and helps create a big game feel. Jamie Redknapp actually was quite good, I thought his analysis of Tottenham's goal was quite well-developed and considered.”
My favourite bit in the whole of Sky's coverage at the moment is the archive bit on the Saturday match build-up where they show the goals and headlines from this week in Premier League history. I always enjoy that. Maybe we can get more next season when it's 25 years of the Premier League.
The odd thing about Redknapp's bit is that they put "Voice of JAMIE REDKNAPP" on screen, as of course all channels do when the pundits are speaking out of vision, and I always wonder why they do that because they don't do it for the co-commentator, do they? And if you've just come in, it's far harder to recognise a co-comm than someone who's literally just been introduced with "Let's hear what Jamie Redknapp makes of this".
Anyway, as mentioned there is the potential for a goal to be scored when it's going on, but that is presumably the risk you take with any kind of replay. Perhaps they could have some kind of box on screen?
Originally Posted by Jamesp84:
“That's exactly it. I've heard him over the years on Sky etc and he was always reasonable. But since he's started appearing regularly on BT I've noticed that he talks absolute rubbish, consistently. Not even stuff that's questionable but open to debate, he's just wrong.”
I said this last season, but it seems odd to be using Trevor Francis because he seems to come from a totally different era, as opposed to all the other BT personnel who have played for or managed in the Premier League in recent memory. I can certainly imagine a huge percentage of the audience thinking "Who's this old bloke?"
Elsewhere on BT this weekend, Matt Smith of course made his debut on the Conference coverage and I enjoyed at the start how he specifically pointed out it was his first match and how much he was looking forward to it. It was like when Mark Clemmit always used to make a special point of welcoming new pundits to the coverage. That was all I enjoyed about that bloody awful match, of course.
Originally Posted by The Scout:
“It was way too OTT IMO. They can't surely treat every Friday night match like it's the Superbowl or something, can they? Personally I do not have the interest for it, but that's just me. All I'm interested in the match, and maybe the usual kind of analysis and interviews thrown in - not a 4 hour event. Depends what you want from your football coverage I guess, but I wouldn't want to invest my time in this on a regular basis. It took me most of the week to get through it all on Sky+ by watching small segments of it at a time.”
Well, you would have to wonder what they'll do when they have Everton vs Palace in a few weeks time, which as you suggest is hardly a match-up that would seem to justify extensive build-up. Monday Night Football is a long programme of course but on that you can talk about all the other matches from the weekend as well. I still don't know why neither the Friday or Saturday programmes take some time out from their extended build-ups to actually talk about the other matches this weekend. I know it'd mean talking about matches that aren't on Sky, but it would offer a bit more interest to casual fans, especially when not every match can generate sixty minutes of content.
Originally Posted by The Scout:
“Thanks for the reply, I just wondered. It was an observation of mine from several matches, not just today. It seems to me that every manager/player interview is conducted in English... as I've found it to be the only part of the programme that I can interpret - although maybe there have been some exceptions along the way. You kind of notice these things when the rest of the programme is foreign to you!”
Yes, I would only add that not everyone can speak Welsh, but everyone who can speak Welsh can also speak English. Obviously people prefer to speak in Welsh and wish to do so whenever possible, but it's not so odd to suddenly break into English if required.
Originally Posted by P.U.L.S.E:
“West Brom v Middlesbrough
world feed commentators - Ian Darke and Andy Townsend
good to have Darke back on the world feed”
Indeed, Darke getting a decent selection of matches each weekend, so he's certainly not wanting for work. I see Sky used Jon Champion on the opening montage for the second week running.
Nobody's mentioned The Premier League Show yet, which was alright I think. The main attraction was of course the Klopp interview which I notice they promoted as a "feature length" interview. The length of a feature. Ian Wright joined Gabby to pass comment on the items and he wasn't so bad, I find him quite engaging when he gets the chance to articulate his comments. Jermaine Jenas did a nice tactical bit about how to defend corners, using augmented reality to place himself on the pitch, which was a bit gimmicky but I thought worked alright in that it gave a bit of perspective to it and it seemed to explain it a bit better than Jamie Redknapp scribbling all over the screen. And the comedian Nathan Caton did a not a very funny bit about footballers on holiday, but I don't especially like him much.
It was quite a good show but I don't know if yet it offers much you can't find elsewhere, apart from Klopp swearing. Indeed I think the Jake Livermore interview they did yesterday on Football Focus, where he talked at length about his personal problems, would to my mind have been the kind of thing I'd have expected on this show, where they can talk for longer and about more complex topics. You certainly watch telly in a different frame of mind at 10pm than you do at 1pm. Still, plenty of time for it to bed in.
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