Match of the Day was far better without Gary Lineker… but Wayne Rooney’s mumbling and habit of speaking at 100mph made him impossible to understand

Match of the Day (Saturday, BBCOne)

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Mark Chapman was in cheeky chappie mode when he kicked off the new series of Match of the Day on Saturday night.

‘You may have seen and heard that there’s a big change to the show this season and that is… Wayne Rooney has joined us as a regular pundit,’ quipped the presenter occupying the seat that Gary Lineker sat in for 26 years before standing down last spring.

Lineker quit after coming under fire for using his social media platforms to air his political views. Things culminated in him sharing a post about Zionism that included an image of a rat – a symbol long linked to antisemitism. He apologised but the damage was done.

The question was – after being the face of MOTD for so long, would the show be the same without him? The answer was: no it wouldn’t. It was actually far better.

Mark Chapman, or ‘Chappers’ as he’s known, has been presenting MOTD 2 for 12 years and is as safe a pair of hands as they come. He’ll be doing the gig on a job share basis with fellow sports presenters Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates.

As Chapman mentioned, Wayne Rooney has joined as a regular pundit, on a rumoured salary of £800,000 and, on Saturday, he was paired with old hand and fellow striker Alan Shearer.

Chappers sported a new buzz haircut while the BBC wardrobe team appeared to have gone for a ‘Dad’s Night Out’ vibe for the trio, all dressed in fashionable, smart casuals.

After failing to set the management world alight, Rooney is turning his hand to TV work and to use a footballing phrase: it was a nervy start.

I’m sure he had good insight but good luck to anyone trying to decipher it without the use of subtitles. A combination of mumbling and speaking at 100mph made him impossible to understand at times.

Armchair pundits on X were also quick to point out his annoying habit of peppering his speech with ‘errrm.’

A good new MOTD drinking game might be to take a swig every time Rooney starts a sentence with ‘obviously’ (although be prepared to be as hammered as he is on one of his nights out by the end of the programme.)

Let’s give him a chance though, it’s early days and quite a few other player-turned-pundits (Lineker and Shearer included) were pretty unmemorable when they started out.

The first programme of the series showed highlights from all five of Saturday’s Premiere League fixtures as well as Friday’s Liverpool v Bournemouth season opener.

Instead of going back to the studio, most of the matches ended by switching directly to onscreen graphics and analysis, the around-the-table chat kept to a minimum. It was a move that made sense. Many football fans will have already seen the matches and know the outcome by the time MOTD airs – it’s this expert analysis that keeps 3.5million tuning in every week.

Fans of MOTD, which first aired over 50 years ago, had been worried that the show, like so many other BBC favourites, might become an unwatchable woke-fest following the revamp. Their fears were unfounded.

Ok, they shoe-horned in a plug for the women’s rugby world cup but other than that it was business as usual, there was even a lively discussion about Newcastle player Alexander Isak’s refusal to train and play (he’s out of order was the consensus).

When Jeremy Clarkson left Top Gear, the show never really recovered. BBC bosses must have been worried that Lineker’s departure might have had the same effect on MOTD, but it wasn’t the case.

Was the former presenter watching at home, munching on Walkers crisps and regretting being quite so slapdash with his social media? Who cares?!