Sky could have done with a Mccoist loan to deliver more joy
Thirty-million copies have been sold of The Secret, the self-help manual for obtaining whatever you want in life through the pseudoscientific power of visualisation. Its influence grows with every passing month and sports broadcasters are never afraid to jump on a bandwagon. Could Sky Sports and TNT manifest an exciting conclusion to the title race? Perhaps if they showed the Sergio Aguero goal enough times.
Sharing custody of the Manchester City and Arsenal
We will never hear the hooting noise Mccoist would have made when Kudus’s overhead kick briefly threatened to make the day interesting
games, the mood on both channels pre-game was wisely free of hype, if not hope. Plenty of Michael Thomas in 1989 as well as Martin Tyler’s finest hour, plus a rare airing on TNT Sports for the lesser-heard Peter Drury commentary from that same climactic moment of 2012: “Aguero! Staggering, just staggering,” oddly restrained in retrospect.
Team TNT began its day outside the Emirates Stadium, where Martin Keown delivered his usual forthright reasonableness despite a mischievous crowd of fans behind him chanting “William Saliba, he’s better than you.” Youtuber Dan Potts, presumably also worse than Saliba but spared the songs, arrived to reach the parts that mere former players cannot, by revealing that Bukayo Saka’s absence was a big blow.
The whole segment felt like the Youtube tail wagging the TV dog, a grown-up outside broadcast imitating the look of a permanently livid fan TV channel. Rio Ferdinand did not look convinced and seemed more at ease on the pitch, where TNT relocated after the first ad break. Intriguing decision from Rio to dress in an all-tan ensemble with brown-shaded sunglasses, as if attempting to blend in at a 1970s Coventry away match.
Over on Sky there was the briefest mention for City’s 115-charge limbo. Micah Richards seemed to invite us to feel sympathetic for the players, staff and executives whose noble aim is to improve the lot of their football club. That may not wash in the Court of Arbitration for Sport when the case is eventually heard, in the year 2087.
TNT’S usual number one Darren Fletcher was in Saudi Arabia for Fury v Usyk on Saturday night, so Adam Summerton was in charge for Arsenal v Everton. Early credit for creative interpretation of language when he called it “a title race which has to’d and fro’d”. Drury had to maintain the ruse of competitiveness for all of 78 seconds before he was back in his happy place of shouted verse, Phil Foden’s goal saluted with “that’s the boy, the power and the glory”.
A pity broadcasters do not go in for pundit loan moves. TNT’S Ally Mccoist is a man for football’s most joyful matches, not the tempered misery of Arsenal’s afternoon. Sky Sports’ Gary Neville is never slow to praise City but when he does it sounds unavoidably pained, like conceding the bloke who beat you to your dream job is actually quite good at it. A temporary swap would have spared Neville the trauma of another City trophy and we will never hear the hooting noise Mccoist would have made when Mohammed Kudus’s overhead kick briefly threatened to make the day interesting.
A pitch invasion at City deprived their players a chance to celebrate organically in front of their fans, but it made little difference for the broadcast. We were inside City’s dressing room for the usual “campeones” mosh pit, then saw the odd sight of City’s squad loitering in the tunnel, during the prolonged trophy presentation. Few seemed excited.
There was still the odd glimpse of final-day fun. The kid in the Arsenal shirt seeing the screen of his neighbour’s phone after City had gone ahead and visibly swearing, one of Foden’s children attempting to open a bottle of champagne, the harrowing mixed media piece one bucket-hatted City fan brought with him showing four Premier League trophies rendered in peeling paper, watercolour and ribbon by the hands of a troubled outsider artist. Notably, there was an uptick of excitement soon after the final whistle in the Sky Sports studio, when David Jones, Richards and Jamie Redknapp teed up the forthcoming A League Of Their Own: Mexican Road Trip.
At least we do not know how that will end.*