±«Óãtv

I love the ±«Óãtv and how they present sport, especially the foozball.

When the beeb lost MOTD a few years back I (and all of my friends) were gutted.........MOTD had gone to the B team!!!

It was great when it came back and all was forgiven, I understand the monopoly sky have on the football simply because they are getting on avaerage over £300 per person for each year, they have adverts and make a lot that way too, good to see the Prem rights have been re-shuffled a bit for next season....

I have missed two 2pm matches (working.....) but every single other game has been great to watch and the beeb especially with the top class presenter and pundits wins it everytime for me, keep up the great work guys.

I will be in Germany (Stuttgart) from the 23rd for 5 days, so hopefully England will top the group and play the runners up of group A in Stuttgart and it will be a fabulous atmosphere and hardly any trouble, I'm quite sure the 8 foot wide police will stop nearly all of that.

It would be nice, once in a while, to see some non-english football on the bbc. even via the red button would be something..

Isn't it about time the ±«Óãtv started using some football journalists as pundits? Someone like Henry Winter could provide a lot more insight than the majority of the current crop of ±«Óãtv pundits.

±«Óãtv football coverage has turned in to an old boy's network, the level of punditry is at an all-time low. Please get rid of these big-name ex-pros who never seem to have anything intelligent or insightful to add to the debate. eg Shearer, Lawrenson, Dixon, Leonardo. Ian Wright is just embarrasing.

ITV used to seriously lag behind the Beeb with their quality of football coverage.

But you only have to look at back at ITV during World Cup 94 (Matt Lorenzo? The Don Howe rap?) to see just how far they've come on.

They've certainly made some astute choices on the pundit front. (Love him, or lothe him) Allardyce is bullish, arrogant and canny, which makes him an excellent choice. And Gullit and Pearce have been good also.

And, though can be insanely irritating at times, you would have to admit that Clive Tyldesley does a better job of keeping up with the action than Motson, who really seems to be struggling at the mo.

So keep an eye on the competition, Paul. (You can spend all of today doing so.)

Given that we can rate players' performance online, why not set up something similar for giving feedback on pundits?

I understand your statement that "not everyone likes every pundit and commentator" but I have never heard of anyone that likes Mark Lawrenson or what he brings to your broadcasts.

Already spoiling this World Cup for the ±«Óãtv, he is close to plumbing the depths reached when Tony Blair was a guest on Football Focus. All he did that day was make schoolboy jokes while slumped in the corner, unshaven and looking as dour as ever.

Why can't producers see this?????

The ±«Óãtv do a good all-round job of covering most sport and the football is particularly well presented, but why do we have to have Scottish pundits giving their dreary views of England's performances in international games? Alan Hansen should be relegated to MOTD duties, and then only occasionally.
I'd bet that there isn't an Englishman in sight in the studio when the Beeb televise a Scotland game.

Hansen and Lawrenson really know their beans (or balls), Linekar is easy going (how he's improved since his wooden debut!), and Wrighty's slice of patriotism is most welcome in this age where Tesco's have banned St George's flags.

Keep it up.

Can't we get an ex-referee in the studio every now and then to give us their view on refereeing decisions. That would be interesting. Someone liek Jeff Winter of superstars fame, to show us that referees are actually human.

Ta bab

Best innovation from the ±«Óãtv has to be the "Match Sound" audio option on interactive. At last I can watch a match and get some idea of the atmosphere without having to put up with Motson, Lawrenson and the rest. I really don't feel I'm missing anything.

I'm surprised that with all the digital channel space available the ±«Óãtv don't have a "Football First" type programme late at night with extended highlights of the day's games. I only get home in time for the third game. All you get to see of the others is basically the goals, and for that you have to sit through loads of dull chat and travelogues. Mind you, I'm not sorry I missed France v Switzerland.

Lawrenson is truely appalling. Last night he seemed to be on a different planet as he endlessly eulogised about Brazil, when the actual events on the pitch seemed to be totally at odds to his uncritical drooling.
"How bad was he?"..Very!

I was watching the brazil game last night and to be honest, could not believe how much all the pundits and even worse the commentators couldn't help but praise praise praise Brazil! - Come on we all know they're good and the favourates but do you all have to drool over them like some starstruck kids at a take that concert! Yes it was a good shot - no it wasn't "sublime or genius and only the Brazilians can do that"! Rubbish! They're good but they weren't that good! I half expected to hear Lawrensono shaking his maracas!

Other than that, i'm loving it and the broadband at work is superb - keep up the good work.

Must echo Rhodri's comments from earlier, please utlise some of the excellent journalists from the written press on your MotD panels. They are articulate and knowledgeable. I know they may not always be available at this time but they can offer a lot of depth to analysis of games. At the moment, some of the panels are offering little apart from not very funny 'in'-jokes.

I watched the Brazil - Crotia game last night too and thought the commentary was poor. Overall the bbc has been excellent and the website services have been awesome, great for avoiding work. But it just seems that whenever they do a big event all they can really talk about is the 'big' team or player. Brazil didn't deserve to win last night and there have been 4 or 5 better goals scored already in this tournament. Yet thats all they could talk about!!

It was the same with Liverpool even when they were LOSING to West Ham in the F.A. Cup Final (No, before you think I'm a hammer, I'm a Forest fan for my many sins)

And on a slightly different point why is it that whenever the beeb show golf we have to examine Tiger Woods practice swings in more detail than the rest of the field combined. Even when he's well off the pace.

Rant over....well done beeb, we all know that when England get to the final we'll all be pressing 1 not 3 on the remote, brilliant coverage but there's always room to improve.

Cheers

Simple salient points about the game don't seem to be the panellists/commentators strong point...

Did they not notice that Kovac had Kaka in his pocket last night, until he went off injured? As soon as he goes off, Kaka gets a bit of space, 1-0 Brazil. or did they deem it not worthy of mention.

And the salivating over the Brazilians last night was ridiculous;
Kaka scores from outside the box "Oooh Brazilian genius". Frings does it for Germany "must be this new ball swerving about".

Will the Beeb be publishing figures on the percentage that prefer the interactive 5 Live commentary?
Pretty much everyone I know can't stand the Motson/Lawro combo... face it ±«Óãtv, Motty is long past his best.

I am a huge fan of the ±«Óãtv's coverage of football in general (including website - fantastic), and this World Cup in particular, but was truly appalled by the commentary on last night's Brazil game for the reason mentioned above. In fact, I could only continue watching by turning off the sound; if it was being shown on ITV I would have definitley turned over. Was the employment of such a cringe-inducingly fawning commentary team an attempt at getting us all to go digital as quickly as possible in order to make use of the 'commentary off' option mentioned above? If so I think in my case it has worked.

I am a huge fan of the ±«Óãtv's coverage of football in general (including website - fantastic), and this World Cup in particular, but was truly appalled by the commentary on last night's Brazil game for the reason mentioned above. In fact, I could only continue watching by turning off the sound; if it was being shown on ITV I would have definitley turned over. Was the employment of such a cringe-inducingly fawning commentary team an attempt at getting us all to go digital as quickly as possible in order to make use of the 'commentary off' option mentioned above? If so I think in my case it has worked.

Bring back Barry Davies immedialtley.

The MOTD live and highlights coverage so far has been a class apart.Please keep it up.

I was suprised but happy to see Lineker say that it was nice to see an Everton player score in a World Cup when Tim Cahill got his brace against Japan the other day. More often than not he seems to have forgotten that he had ever played for the club and lets Hansen ride all over him on MOTD with the Liverpool talk. The cynic in me thinks he was angling for an on-screen stat to say that he was the last Everton player to do that.But then again, he does seem to be genuinely interested and positive about the football on these shows...

One thing though - can we have The Lightning Seeds' 'Life of Riley' instrumental back for Goal of the Month please? C'mon, to quote Roger Mellie - it's what the punters want!

The ±«Óãtv's coverage has really "dumbed down", I'm sad to say. Amazingly, ITV's coverage is more informative. Seems to me that your commentators and pundits have forgotten why they are on the tele - they are supposed to give us expert insight. They are not there to "entertain us" with banter and repartee. Many of them lack the brain and/or the vocabulary to add any value.