I would echo this, he is doing very well. Perhaps helped by having Jamie Redknapp on, I think, all of the Super Sunday programmes so far. The two of them seem to have a strong rapport, as you would expect I suppose from working together on SNF for three years.

I think Abdo is an excellent presenter.

There was a report a while ago that she might be leaving Sky so I wonder if no longer presenting La Liga is a signal.

Or possibly there is some other reason?

Tranmere v Guiseley- Matt Smith and Natalie Quirk there for BT. Commentary from Steve Bower and Adam Virgo, punditry from Paul Hurst and Jim Harvey.

Not much has been said on no Parry this weekend, be interesting to see if this was just one a one off!

Can anyone please tell me who the commentator was for the Hamilton v Kilmarnock game on the August 14th edition of Sportscene? Thanks

Alasdair Lamont.

What is the highest amount of guests/pundits anyone can recall on a single football match? What I'm thinking here is maybe years ago on FA Cup final day when various different people or maybe even celebrities were invited into the studio at various stages of the day as part of the build-up.

Co-commentary as ever an issue at BT. I've made this point a few times but comparing Sky and BT in that regard is chalk and cheese. Being blunt all 6 of BT's co-commentators for differing reasons are varying degrees of awful at the role (at least on BT) whereas Sky's main 6 are all at worst good and at best outstanding. BT must be doing something wrong with co-commentary.

That's not to say all BT's six are bad full stop - far from it as Hargreaves in particular is fantastic in the studio and Hoddle and Mcmanaman also have much to offer - but they're not much good at co-commentary.

Agreed on Ferdinand and Hutchinson - Ferdinand is worth a try I think and I can imagine him being good (let's face it it's hard to be worse than some of the more terrible BT efforts) and Hutchinson is strong in the role.
In fact there are plenty of good co-commentators around - the likes of Kilbane, Hutchinson, Beglin or even Ally Mccoist have all been used by BT in the past and would immediately improve the co-commentary.

That said the 3-man team in its present form simply has to go. It's even more odd too that it's only used on the Premier League - as if even BT don't seem that confident in it. I actually think the way Sky are using of a 'third man' would work on BT if you were to bring in one or two of those mentioned above.


On Humphrey, he really is awful to watch. Maybe he wouldn't have stuck out as much a few years ago when we had Chiles and Murray as main football hosts but now he sticks out like a shore thumb. For me, he's the worst of the BT presenters by a distance (Lineker, Hipgrave, Richardson and Smith are all as capable and much more knowledgable and likable) yet seems to be their main face.



I disagree on the pub show.
Along with BT's approach a while back of 'presenting outside the stadium post-match' it has huge potential for must-watch car crash TV. 10.45pm on Friday in a pub after a home defeat - what could go wrong?
For that alone I hope it remains for a while.

By any other measure, it's a horrific idea. Goodness knows what went on in the meeting where it was approved.


Interestingly I was on another website and saw quite a lot of criticism for this 'Goal Rush' programme. It sounds as if it starts on one game and stays on that throughout but then flips to other games whenever anything happens (keeping the game they're showing in the corner). Which sounds an utter pain if you want to actually watch the main game.

Not sure how accurate the above is but surprised as these sorts of shows seem to always get a lot of praise on here.

As P,U.L.S.E mentioned, Alan Shearer popped up on PLP for the Sunday matches yesterday. I seem to say this weekly but PLP viewers really do seem to do well - a nice mix of pundits, their 'regulars' are highly capable and there's much less of the nonsense we sometimes have to endure from BT and Sky.

Can anyone confirm who was co-comm for this one with Summerton?

For some reason I've found Humphrey far more smugger this season than last, not sure if the new 5.30 kick off's and program following it has gone to his head.

I watched Matt Smith presenting the confrence yesterday and even on those less profile games he came across far better then Humphrey does, would love to see him get a chance presenting prem football for the channel.

Far as co-commentators goes we always seem to go over old ground here and keep coming up with the same sort of reply's.

They do have decent co-commentators but they have stuck them out o0f the way on their European coverage, highlight being Jim Beglin, he has far better qualities than the likes of Owen Hargreaves who i truly believe is now the worst BT use.

Stuart Robson is another i would go with and certainly Don Hutchinson who like i said the other night was very good covering West Ham.

Trouble is BT seem to stuck up themselves and rather do things their way rather than maybe going out trying to poach a few decent outsiders to bolster their coverage.

As much as we moan we will be stuck with blue eyed boy Humphrey for the next 3 season's, Darren Fletcher as we know is also well in with the above and a few other's no doubt will be rock solid in their positions.

All said and done you really must have age on your side working for this channel.

Bundesliga 2:Kaiserslautern v Fortuna Dusseldorf (BT Sport 3).

Commentator: Tim Caple

As part of the service you can watch the feature game as the Goals Rush commentary and vision switches to other game incidents or you have the option of regular commentary without goal spoilers and regular vision just staying on the one game for that particular 3pm game. So Goals Rush is just an additional bonus for those that prefer that.

I dont mind the split screen at all when they cross to a major incident, usually a goal or near goal...when they do this also on screen are a list of all current Saturday scorelines which I like...its similar to the last day of the season on Sky when they cross to an incident at another game and show the updated table graphic.

There is also the picture in picture feature of being able to select 3 other games as mini clickable windows on the right side of your screen. With this setup if you want just the regular commentary and vision for the feature 3pm game, you can see goals as they go in elsewhere in the mini windows and quickly click on them to become your full screen game if you wish to see an incident.

Depends which games are on and which commentators are on as to my selection of Goals Rush or not. So overall there are some options, and then if you wanted to watch all 3pm games back to back without spoilers you can do so with the on demand replays from the start of any game, even if a game is already underway, or you can watch live in progress at whichever point any game is currently at.

Goodness no on Robson. He always sounds absolutely miserable when I hear him and if you thought Hargreaves was bad on Bayern games last season then Robson is even worse on Arsenal games but to the opposite extreme. 90 minutes of anti-Wenger diatribes that any Arsenal fan (Wenger in or Out) finds beyond irritating.

And to be fair to BT, bar Kilbane the ITV and BBC regulars aren't much to write home about either.

On Jake, I don't think it even has to be Smith. Any of the other BT presenters are far better than Jake. If Hipgrave weren't doing the Football on 5 coverage I'd happily have her presenting over Jake.
Also not sure Hutchinson is likely any time soon on PL games as he's got his regular gig over on PLP then.

As you say, I don't think the BT situation will be changing anytime soon so we've just got to accept it. And who knows maybe, just maybe they can win us over.
Let's not forget the Hawthorne and Smith partnership used to be dreaded on here and that seems to have disappeared.

And with a few minor tweaks, the BT PL coverage could easily be strong. They have shown with other competitions they can do strong coverage.


Thanks for the explanation of it all. Sounds like a good service - I guess the issue is a) fans knowing all the options and b) if someone's in a pub and wants to see just the one game then depending on the setup they may end up bouncing around games and not see the game they want to.

I assume the default set-up for most TV channels carrying PLP at that time is the main Goals Rush coverage - which is where the issue is.

I'm almost envious of you PLP viewers though.

I would say most TV channels carrying PLP would just go with the regular commentary for the 3pm game, as there are 2 commentary teams they can choose between, and some TV channels would have the means to show multiple games on multiple channels or a red button type service...pubs would have the choice of either feed

For those familiar with NFL Red Zone - its not like that at all...a very high percentage of the Goals Rush coverage and commentary stays on the 1 game and they only cross to incidents briefly, just like the last day of the title race...I suppose if there are 6 kickoffs at 3pm there will be more incidents to cross to compared to a Saturday with 3 or 4 games at 3pm...or the last day of the season would have quite alot of incidents and goals to cover...NFL Red Zone pretty much has an even share of time dedicated to all simultaneous games during the around the grounds in real time style whenever teams are close to scoring, even splitting the screen to show 2 or more potential scoring plays live at the same time

I will be interested to see if PLP ever do a Goals Rush for multiple simultaneous Sunday, holiday or midweek rounds

Cheers again for the information - genuinely an interesting read and helps to describe it to those of us who being from the UK don't have access to it.

Agree. I mean BBC have Danny Muprhy and Martin Keown as their man 2 co-commentators. It's hard to believe I (and many others) used to like Murphy but having heard him at the WC and last week on the world feed for Spurs-Liverpool he really is dire. And Keown is probably worse. ITV with Hoddle as an actual main commentator isn't great with Townsend in reserve.
I'd have Hargreaves and Macca over some of these options to be fair. It's only Sky who have the monopoly of able co-commentators in truth.
On another note, I think Michael Owen is now just a pundit, as opposed to him formerly being just a co-commentator. Last season was his transitional period and I think now we'll rarely see Owen on comms aside from perhaps for making up the numbers on some European matches in the CL/EL.

Thanks

I can confirm, as previously posted earlier on Sunday, it was indeed Adam Summerton and Richard Hughes commentating on Cagliari v Roma.

Richard Hughes seems to do the late Italian Serie A match on a Sunday, plus the odd Europa League match as well.

From Sunday night/early hours Monday:

MLS - Orlando City v New York City:

Sky Sports 2 - Dan Roebuck and Matt Lawrence


No idea who did Portland Timbers v Seattle Sounders, as I didn't see any of it, and the game hasn't been repeated.

Thanks!

Matt Smith presented the 2010 Champions League Final live for ITV and in 2016, he is hosting conference football live.

In a dream BT Sport presentation

Eng Prem League and Eng Fa Cup

Presenter
Matt Smith or Darren ( BT Sport) Fletcher. Fletch is a better presenter than commentator

Commentators
Jon Champion or Ian Darke

Co-commentators
Don Hutchinson or Jim Beglin

Pundits
Glen Hoddle, Steve Mcmanaman and Rio Ferdinand

When did Don Hutchison turn into Don 'Hutchinson'?

For those who are peckish, Sky Sports 1 are simulcasting Deadline Day coverage from 6pm-12am tomorrow.

bbc radio 5live on the bbc red button is better than SSnews

As someone who does not subscribe to the BT Sport channels, I have a quick question for those that do.

Are BT Sport Extra 1-6 (or is it 7?) available via the red button or is it just a service that is available online for subscribers? Are they actually considered channels themselves?

Many thanks.