Originally Posted by cook0891:
“I know the reporter was on site in Moscow but were Drury and Allen?”
I don't know the answer to this, but I would assume they were, if only because if they were in London they could probably get a more glamorous co-commentator than Clive Allen. I'm sure BT are sending commentators to all the British teams in the Champions League.
Originally Posted by Andrew:
“You're right. Dawson works as a rugby union pundit for 5 Live now though, and was replaced by Monye on BT.”
Dawson has always been on 5 Live, of course, even before he was on BT.
Originally Posted by pakokelso93:
“Imagine going from likes of Crocker, Hawthorne or Tyler to Darren Fletcher on a all British tie in the UCL.”
Well, this is no slight on you, but Ian Crocker? He wouldn't have done it anyway, but is Crocker really that much better than Darren Fletcher? I don't watch Scottish football so I don't hear Crocker much, but when he used to do the Premier League on Setanta I didn't think he was anything special. I don't mind Rob Hawthorne either but he wasn't that good on the 2005 Champions League Final, was he? I know that was ages ago but he'd been on the telly for longer by then than Darren Fletcher has now. I listen to them both of a weekend and I would hard pressed to tell you why one was any better or worse then the other, to be honest.
Darren Fletcher is not my favourite commentator but he's clearly highly rated in the industry and I think sometimes he gets a bad press on here mostly for a) not being Ian Darke and b) not being on Sky. And c) being BT's number one, but if BT want to make him their senior commentator, that's not his fault, is it? The Beeb clearly like him as well.
I think in many ways the BT coverage is far better than what we used to get on Sky. As mentioned the other day, the second choice match used to get ten minutes of build-up with Dave Jones and Paul Merson in a cupboard, now it gets 45 minutes of unique build-up with a proper punditry team. And the commentators on the red button matches, like Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce and Simon Brotherton, are far better and far more experienced on big games than the likes of Taphouse, Stowell and so on who used to do it on Sky (you could argue they're better than the commentators on the main matches, but clearly BT want their own names on those, not freelancers more associated with another channel). I mean, obviously you have to pay for it, and I would certainly much prefer one match at least on ITV (or another FTA channel) to showcase it to the widest audience possible, but if you've got it, it is very impressive.