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Spectator
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Rooney is a disaster on Match of the Day
Match of the Day is back and, for the first time in a quarter of a century, without Gary Lineker. That's the good news. Saturday night's anchorman, Mark Chapman, is so much better than his smug, virtue-signalling predecessor. Perhaps it's because he's a professional broadcaster rather than an ex-player. This means he asks questions that fans want to hear answers to, rather than share some anecdote about when he was playing the game. However, not even this could save MotD's return from being car crash TV. No matter how good Chapman is as a host, there remains a problem: Wayne Rooney. Now carrying even more timber than he did in his playing days, he sat rigidly in his seat like a man facing a firing squad. Great footballers do not always make great pundits (nor do bang average ones such as Jamie Redknapp and Robbie Savage) but are often hired because they have played the game at the highest level. Not unreasonably, one would expect them to be able to provide some kind of insight into the mind of the professional player, how managers work and so on. But the BBC would have got more out of Mickey Rooney than Wayne Rooney, who is being paid an estimated £800,000 of licence-fee money. He was a great footballer, a rubbish manager and now a pretty awful pundit. It would be easy to put it down to nerves but as the programme wore on (and at one hour 20 minutes, boy did it wear on), instead of settling in to his expert role, Wayne simply got worse. At first he spoke too quickly, tumbling over his words more clumsily than a Jack Grealish dive in the penalty area, before slowing down to an almost catatonic state. So much so that even Alan Shearer would help out his pal by finishing his sentences and taking over. It comes to something when an analyst is so bad they make Alan Shearer look like Sigmund Freud. Last November, when Lineker announced he was leaving the BBC to concentrate on podcasts and Palestinian propaganda, I wrote that Match of the Day was largely an irrelevance, though I hoped Mark Chapman would take over. I saw little on Saturday night to change that view. The theme tune remains. One suspects there would be Epping-style riots if they scrapped it. There are more fancy graphics on the opening along with some bizarre sound effects, possibly done by a 15-year-old son of a BBC executive, and the usual studio set with three middle-aged white men in nearly ironed casual clothing. There always was a '19th hole at the golf club' look to the show. This may change as the programme now has a rota of presenters with Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates, both experienced presenters and both daughters of top-level footballers. Chapman is very good. More so considering he had spent the best part of the day anchoring BBC Radio 5 Live's sports coverage too. Rooney was awful and Shearer was, well, the same as ever. But none of this matters. Whatever the BBC does to shake up the programme, it won't make any difference. There is a hardcore of traditionalists who will watch it. Then there are the younger generations who get their football through other means. I suspect the BBC keep MotD because it's part of the furniture more than anything else. Sky and others get the live games and anyone who wants to watch their team simply visits one of the many streaming sites. I'd spent the day making my usual 250-mile round trip to see Spurs – my 43rd year as a season-ticket holder. On the train journey home I had enough time to go on YouTube and see all the goals, incidents and other talking points, not just from the Premier League but from other games too. With so few games now being played on a Saturday, Match of the Day is often reduced to featuring fewer than half the weekend's fixtures – and on Saturday that included the stupefying 0-0 draw between Villa and Newcastle. However it still manages to ramble on for 80 minutes, getting close to midnight. Many of those who watch Match of the Day do so on iPlayer because they can fast-forward the analysis and the fancy graphics and the meaningless stats (on Saturday this included the revelation that Sunderland had scored two goals with a header in the same match for the first time since 2014). Others just tune in to see their team – if they win – or simply turn off when they realise the commentator on the next set of highlights is the insufferable Jonathan Pearce. Every week the presenter of the BBC news programme immediately before MotD turns to the day's football with the half-hearted warning 'if you don't want to know the score, look away now.' Except everyone already knows the scores. Like West Ham's start to the season, Match of the Day is all rather pointless.
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Wayne Rooney shows signs of promise in Match of the Day's new era
The credits for the new Match of the Day are in a comic-book style. Your screen bursts with fruit machine cherries when Bournemouth pop up, and freezes when Cole Palmer appears. Erling Haaland sits in the lotus pose under a blue moon. The most unlikely moment is saved until the title card appears, however, with the camera disappearing inside the bottom of the Premier League trophy, down a silver tunnel and out, directly, into Mark Chapman's face. Chapman is a long-time BBC Sport anchor and the main man on Radio 5 Live. He is hardly an unknown quantity, but here he had been grabbed by a stylist and given a vaguely modish air with designer stubble and a cream overshirt hanging loosely off his shoulders. One of three presenters charged with taking the BBC's venerable football highlights show out of the Gary Lineker era, he has to strike a balance between being familiar and fresh. He did so by making a dad joke about it; that's MotD heritage. 'You may have seen and heard that there is a big change to the show this season', Chapman said as we emerged from the trophy tunnel. 'And that is … Wayne Rooney has joined us a regular pundit.' Pause for laughter. 'Some things don't change, Alan Shearer is still here', he went on as Rooney audibly chuckled in the background. File photo dated 07-06-2025 of new Match of the Day host Mark Chapman. Photo: Richard Sellers/PA Wire. With Match of the Day there's never any time to dwell and as soon as Chapman had introduced himself and his colleagues in their ribbed polo shirts we were into the action. We began at Sunderland and their impressive opening win against West Ham, with Rooney detailing the shift in offensive width that opened up the game. 'I actually got one of my only wins against them', said the former Plymouth boss of the Black Cats. 'Got that in early, well done', noted Chapman. From there it was City and some hyperbole over a new signing (an opening day tendency as old as time): 'Almost the perfect midfield performance', said Shearer of Tijjani Reijnders. At Spurs v Burnley we watched Martin Dubravka become the first goalkeeper to cough up a corner for holding the ball longer than eight seconds. The debate on Brighton v Fulham began with penalty decisions – perhaps the most consistent fascination of MotD producers over the past decade. There was also an advert for an interview elsewhere on the BBC with, well, Rooney. 'Blimey, you're taking over', said Chapman. Rooney had been the main attraction at a football-themed bar in Westfield, Shepherd's Bush, on Thursday night as the BBC launched their new season's coverage in front of an audience of distracted influencers. This year he will not only be on MotD and interviewed elsewhere, he will also have his own twice-weekly podcast which, in the words of the BBC, will see him 'diving into the football debates that are dominating your algorithm'. When Rooney came up on stage to talk about it, he was obscured by a projection of his own face and the show was described as 'not intentionally funny, just funny'. So stay tuned on that one. The England and Manchester United icon shows signs of promise as a pundit. He's articulate, and on Saturday night was able to conjure up the right word when you could see he was looking for it. He's tactically insightful and has a wealth of experience to draw from too, obviously, able here to compare the current situation of Alexander Isak to the time he handed in a transfer request at Old Trafford. Most intriguingly he clearly preserves that bite that marked him out as a player, and strong opinions are likely to be forthcoming. Those hoping to dominate any algorithms will be excited at this prospect, but it also speaks to a tension that exists between the BBC's new strategy and a 62-year-old show that's an icon of TV. The BBC's sports coverage has always been predictable, consistent and middle of the road. It's part of what made the nation able to sit and watch it together (something that's still true, with BBC coverage of the Lionesses' Euros win last month the most watched broadcast in the UK this year). It is not, traditionally at least, a home for the deliberately provocative form of digital punditry known as 'hot takes'. On the other hand, it's hard to hide from the fact that the average viewer of BBC One is in their 60s, while less than half of 16 to 24 year olds watch broadcast TV. The BBC has a need to serve those audiences and clearly their strategy for the new season is designed with them in mind. 'We're not just covering the games, we're following the fans', is the line. The many people who build their lives around their coverage will hope it doesn't shift too much. Certainly listening to Don Hutchison on 5 Live on Friday night was as informed an introduction to the season as you are likely to hear, even if it did go on a bit. 'You could say the more things change, the more they stay the same', was Chapman's take as he signed off the first show of the season, but there is one change that could prove unexpectedly disruptive. With presenters and suits alike trying to tread an impossibly fine line between reliability and novelty, the BBC has managed this season to bring forward the time it can show Premier League highlights online. You can now watch the goals from 8pm on a Saturday night, bringing an end to years of frustration around antiquated embargoes. At the same time, it also means you can have worked through all the action hours before the BBC's flagship show has even gone on air. Funny old game, as they used to say. Guardian
The Guardian
01-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Eni Aluko, Ian Wright and a discussion on punditry that took a wrong turn
The former England international Eni Aluko's appearance on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour prompted lines to be drawn between her and fellow pundit Ian Wright. 'There's a finite amount of opportunities and I think that men need to be aware of that,' said Aluko, when asked whether it was wrong that Wright was covering women's football. The affair has been messy, with Aluko, a trailblazer in many areas, publicly apologising and Wright, a passionate champion of the women's game beloved by players and fans for that support, rejecting the apology. It has been a wholly disappointing episode that has, in focusing on Wright, drawn attention away from a legitimate conversation on whether the number of women pundits, commentators and presenters in football is improving. It is 11 years since Aluko became the first woman to appear as a pundit on Match of the Day, 18 since Jacqui Oatley became the flagship programme's first female commentator and 20 since Celina Hinchcliffe became the first woman to present the show. Things look very different today with two of the three-person team replacing Gary Lineker on MotD women, Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan joining Mark Chapman in sharing hosting duties being the most prominent example. Across TV and radio broadcast coverage of both men's and women's football female presenters, commentators and pundits are increasingly common. There is still work to be done though. There is a significant lack of ethnic diversity while, across journalism, class and disability are two woefully overlooked areas. One area that requires improvement is which games women are working on. For the England men's two most recent World Cup qualifying fixtures, against Albania and Latvia, not a single woman worked as a pundit, commentator or presenter on ITV's television coverage, and only one, Izzy Christiansen, provided co-commentary on the latter of the two fixtures for BBC Radio 5 Live. Broadcasters, as well as print and online media, need to do better, entrusting their showpiece fixtures to the excellent women on their rosters in both the women's and men's games with greater frequency. Diversity is not about being tokenistic. Research has repeatedly showed that, in business, diverse teams perform better. There can be little doubt that diversity, in all its forms, in sports broadcasting would prompt better, more rounded and broader conversations. The decision of Alex Scott, who is in a same-sex relationship, to wear the One Love rainbow armband and speak eloquently about its significance during coverage of the men's World Cup in Qatar, while players were silent on the issue, is an example of the impact diversity on the screen can have. Dinosaur views, particularly those aired on social media, will remain for as long as there are issues with gender equality in society. Outdated views on women are present in all industries to varying degrees. Gender inequality is built into the fabric of society and maintained through the continuation of historic biases and systemic issues such as the gender pay gap, discrimination at work, poor maternity pay, gender inequality in the legal system and much more. From keyboard warriors to people from whom we expect more, there will always be those looking to stamp women down. The former MOTD presenter Des Lynam, a career journalist who did not play sport professionally, told Radio Times last year that, while he had 'no gripe' with female presenters, pundits should have 'played it at the level you are talking about – ie the men's game'. He has previously described women's voices as 'grating' and 'not so attractive for actual commentating'. However, the support for Cates and Logan following their announcement they would be part of the MotD presenting team, the support for Aluko and Lucy Ward after Joey Barton took aim at them, the acclaim heaped on Emma Hayes for her punditry and the praise of Wright's women's football advocacy following Aluko's recent comments, are just some examples of the growing normality of diversity in football journalism. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion That is encouraging, but there is still a long way to go. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is back in to its twice-weekly format, delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Eni Aluko, Ian Wright and a discussion on punditry that took a wrong turn
The former England international Eni Aluko's appearance on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour prompted lines to be drawn between her and fellow pundit Ian Wright. 'There's a finite amount of opportunities and I think that men need to be aware of that,' said Aluko, when asked whether it was wrong that Wright was covering women's football. The affair has been messy, with Aluko, a trailblazer in many areas, publicly apologising and Wright, a passionate champion of the women's game beloved by players and fans for that support, rejecting the apology. It has been a wholly disappointing episode that has, in focusing on Wright, drawn attention away from a legitimate conversation on whether the number of women pundits, commentators and presenters in football is improving. Advertisement It is 11 years since Aluko became the first woman to appear as a pundit on Match of the Day, 18 since Jacqui Oatley became the flagship programme's first female commentator and 20 since Celina Hinchcliffe became the first woman to present the show. Things look very different today with two of the three-person team replacing Gary Lineker on MotD women, Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan joining Mark Chapman in sharing hosting duties being the most prominent example. Across TV and radio broadcast coverage of both men's and women's football female presenters, commentators and pundits are increasingly common. There is still work to be done though. There is a significant lack of ethnic diversity while, across journalism, class and disability are two woefully overlooked areas. One area that requires improvement is which games the women are working on. For the England men's two most recent World Cup qualifying fixtures, against Albania and Latvia, not a single woman worked as a pundit, commentator or presenter on ITV's television coverage, and only one, Izzy Christiansen, provided co-commentary on the latter of the two fixtures for BBC Radio 5 Live. Broadcasters, as well as print and online media, need to do better, entrusting their showpiece fixtures to the excellent women on their rosters in both the women's and men's games with greater frequency. Diversity is not about being tokenistic. Research has repeatedly showed that, in business, diverse teams perform better. There can be little doubt that diversity, in all its forms, in sports broadcasting would prompt better, more rounded and broader conversations. Advertisement The decision of Alex Scott, who is in a same-sex relationship, to wear the One Love rainbow armband and speak eloquently about its significance during coverage of the men's World Cup in Qatar, while players were silent on the issue, is an example of the impact diversity on the screen can have. Dinosaur views, particularly those aired on social media, will remain for as long as there are issues with gender equality in society. Outdated views on women are present in all industries to varying degrees. Gender inequality is built into the fabric of society and maintained through the continuation of historic biases and systemic issues such as the gender pay gap, discrimination at work, poor maternity pay, gender inequality in the legal system and much more. From keyboard warriors to people from whom we expect more, there will always be those looking to stamp women down. The former MOTD presenter Des Lynam, a career journalist who did not play sport professionally, told Radio Times last year that, while he had 'no gripe' with female presenters, pundits should have 'played it at the level you are talking about – ie the men's game'. He has previously described women's voices as 'grating' and 'not so attractive for actual commentating'. However, the support for Cates and Logan following their announcement they would be part of the MotD presenting team, the support for Aluko and Lucy Ward after Joey Barton took aim at them, the acclaim heaped on Emma Hayes for her punditry and the praise of Wright's women's football advocacy following Aluko's recent comments, are just some examples of the growing normality of diversity in football journalism. Advertisement That is encouraging, but there is still a long way to go. Quote of the day It feels a little bit unreal because we were not expecting to achieve that tonight … I always look for 'ideal' and 'perfect'. I'm never satisfied. I'm already almost focused on the treble and the FA Cup final. I want to thank Emma [Hayes]. I'm sure she's really happy. She left the club in such a great position for me to build on that legacy' – Sonia Bompastor reflects on Chelsea winning the WSL for a sixth consecutive season after their 1-0 victory at Manchester United. Talking points Wolves debacle: On the conclusion of the FA Women's National League, it was revealed that Wolves had not submitted an application for the Barclays Championship, despite being in the title race until the final day. Player Beth Merrick wrote: 'Imagine fighting for promotion all season to find out our Championship bid was never submitted. As a group we are absolutely devastated to finish the season this way and believe it speaks volumes about the club's ambitions for the women's team.' Quinn waves goodbye: Republic of Ireland defender Louise Quinn has announced that she will retire from professional football at the end of the season. The 34-year-old appeared 121 times for her country and played every game in Ireland's inaugural World Cup in 2023. Domestically, she won the Barclays WSL and League Cup with Arsenal and also played for Notts County and Birmingham City. Recommended listening Faye Carruthers is joined by Sophie Downey, Ameé Ruszkai and Marva Kreel on the latest episode of the Women's Football Weekly podcast to discuss Arsenal's win at Lyon, Chelsea's elimination from the Champions League and weekend action across the WSL and the Championship. Recommended viewing Kirsty Hanson's left-footed screamer was Aston Villa's second goal against Arsenal in their thumping 5-2 victory on Wednesday night and well worth a watch. Still want more? Sophie Downey hands out her player-by-player ratings for Chelsea's latest triumphant WSL season. And Tom Garry has continued his reporting on Hull City Ladies, with the co-owner accused of aggressive behaviour towards players.
