DISQUS

ProsperoDGC · 1 year ago

Match of The Day wins, hands down. The Review Show is fine, as far as it goes, but it spends way too much time on confections and not enough on substance. Some of the best football this season so far has been played outside the top four, and MotD gives those games and teams equal measure to the usual suspects. And the analysis is indeed insightful, even Lawro's woefully misguided predictions!

The absence of Alex Ferguson isn't really a great loss, let's face it. The worst parts of MotD are the post-game interviews, which rarely offer anything substantial beyond "We didn't play well" or "We had quality today." Thanks for that, Arsene.

As far as "No Sunday games" being on MotD; there's also MotD2, shown on a Sunday night in the UK, that features those games plus "2 Good / 2 Bad" which is well worth seeing every week. It's also more relaxed, with Adrian Chiles presenting.

Finally, MotD has another huge advantage: Sometimes they have guest pundits who are actually current Premier League managers. Tony Pulis was on last week, for example. (You're not going to get Phil Scolari on there, obviously, but how often do you get to hear any Premier League manager's take on the weekend's games?)

Besides which, MotD is an institution that has evolved over time and retained its best qualities while improving its deficiencies. If you're not already watching/downloading it, start. It's what BitTorrent was invented for!

Chad · 1 year ago

I haven't seen MOTD before, but I enjoy the Premier League highlight show precisely because it lacks commentators. I just want an opportunity to see the highlights of the games without some expert telling me what happened. The highlight show affords me this opportunity.

eplnfl · 1 year ago

Neither. Wait till Monday night and see Bobby McMahon on FSC.

ihuy01 · 1 year ago

MOTD is a million times better than the PL highlights. watch it week in week out, top class commentary and top class analysis. alan shearer is the worst thing on motd...talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

TokyoToffee · 1 year ago

Agree with Chad. Sick of those 'experts' and I don't even live in the country!

ihuy01 · 1 year ago

I think the fact there are experts is important...of course you dont have to agree with their opinions but dixon and hansen offer interesting tactical insight. England arent even the most focused on tactics and such, compared with the Italians... and the Germans apparently (from what ive heard)

steve giles · 1 year ago

I don't think the Review show is intended as a pundit analysis sort of programme so works well in that it does exactly what it says on the tin and reviews games. Interestingly they have introduced some interesting threads to their programme - looking at the Sunday papers for example and virtual analysis which if I'm not mistaken was brought in before the BBC introduced it into MOTD. They do also incorporate sections of analysis albeit a lot tighter the MOTD!

I also don't neccesarily agree that they focus on the big four and alienate the rest. I recall a recent programme where one of their longer games was
Villa v Pompey. Another longer game was West Brom v West Ham. MOTD also have an hour and twenty odd minutes to review just Saturdays games, the review show has 52 minutes to do Saturday and Sunday AND attempt to please those who want a little more...I think with that in mind they do a pretty good job

phil yates · 1 year ago

I agree Steve...the review show is shorter and with that in mind does a great job. It's pretty easy to cover 5 saturday games in an hour an 20 minutes on MOTD and feel you're not just focusing on the big teams. Ultimately the big four have the bigest following and need to be the main focus. However I do agree that when a game warrants it, the game review should be longer.