This weekend saw the return of the Premier League and, with it, the return of Match of the Day. This is the first season of the football highlights show for 26 years without Gary Lineker. Having paid Lineker huge amounts and put out the fires he caused on social media for all those years, everything moved forward pretty smoothly without him.
Chappers Takes the Lead
It was Mark Chapman who took the reigns of the first post-Lineker MOTD. Unsurprisingly, given he that was the regular MOTD2 host before the reshuffle, this meant nothing felt all that new at all. In fact, the biggest change, alongside Chapman’s rather severe haircut, was Wayne Rooney’s arrival as a pundit. The former England captain was… fine. Clearly nervous, not that insightful, but not too terrible either. His presence did mean Alan Shearer was the senior partner on the pundits’ couch, though. Never a good place to be.
Sadly, I have not yet had time to see Gaby Logan’s Sunday debut. I’ve been too busy watching Richarlison’s second goal 8000 times. However, given she has also hosted before and her general calibre as a presenter, that will have been pretty straightforward too. It makes sense that Chapman and Logan were tasked with launching this new era of MOTD.
It will be more interesting to see how Kelly Cates, a total newcomer to MOTD, fares in the hot seat. Somewhat bizarrely, she was the lead anchor on rival Sky’s Friday Night Football, as they kicked off the new season with Liverpool vs Bournemouth.
Match of the Day Rebrand
One notable change is that the BBC has used the presenter shakeup as an opportunity to rebrand things. Gone is Match of the Day and MOTD2. Instead, things are now labelled Match of the Day Saturday or Sunday. There is also a preview show. It ties the whole brand together rather more neatly than before.
Overall, a drama-free weekend, with a focus on the football highlights not the personalities. Exactly what the BBC wanted.
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