There was a storm on twitter this morning, although you might not know about it. It seemed to galvanise football fans, football journalists and one ex-professional. And it was all about Match of the Day. Before I get to that, let me paint the background to this for you...

Saturday just past, I was still on holiday in Spain but thanks to the technical marvel that is satellite TV, I was able to watch BBC1 and settled down to watch Match of the Day (henceforth MOTD). It was a usual episode filled with the day's action and for once I was happy to watch as Spurs had won that afternoon. Later on, I watched as Newcastle beat Everton, as Hatem Ben Arfa scored a cracking winner on his debut. As part of the post highlights analysis, Alan Shearer commented, "No one really knows a great deal of him". At the time, I thought that was a laughable summary. Now I know I might not be the world's foremost Ben Arfa expert, but as fan of football I know he's been around for the last few years making a name for himself in France and in the Champion's League playing for Lyon (and later Marseilles I read this morning). In short, it seems I know more than a professional football pundit, who gets paid (by us the license payer) to offer some insight and analysis. I was hardly surprised though as Shearer generally rivals Jamie Redknapp in the football knowledge stakes. 

So this morning, as I browsed the Telegraph app on my phone, I came across this provocatively tilted piece - Alan Shearer, a television pundit? More like a large, well-paid child. The piece goes on to question Shearer’s value as a pundit and also the programme which is held in high esteem in this country. I then noticed that Stan Collymore had weighed in to the debate over the weekend with some choice quotes:

‘The standard of MOTD is so poor - and sorry, it is - that you may as well Sky-plus it, skip the analysis and use your own judgement... 'It's a lazy show that doesn't provoke debate in our game and just says, "We've been there and done it and we don't have to do anything but sit here and dole out cliches". Shake it up someone, please.’

By this morning, a number of journalists that I follow on twitter such as Sid Lowe, Gabriele Marcotti and Raphael Honigstein had offered their own thoughts on the subject as well as this piece by Martin Samuel of the Mail:

There was also a good piece by Martin Samuel of the Mail.

For whatever reason, this debate really caught fire this morning and it seems to have raised some meaningful questions about MOTD. Is the level of analysis good enough? Does the show need a revamp? Is it what football fans want, and probably more over, can one 90 minute programme ever cater to all types of fans?

My own view is that I regularly watch MOTD to watch the goals and that some of the analysis offered by Alan Hansen is pretty decent but it is quite a light touch. It would be impossible to offer in-depth analysis for each of the day’s games as there simply would not be time. Personally, I would get rid of most of the ex-professionals on the Beeb and replace them with proper football journalists who can give us some insightful analysis about the game we love. Luckily, we live in an era where we have multiple options for football news and analysis consumption – online, TV, radio, press and podcasts. Luckily, I don’t need to rely on Shearer et al. when I can listen to the Guardian Football Weekly podcast or watch the Sunday Supplement on Sky Sports. And I would suggest doing the same, even if it means listening to Stan Collymore on TalkSport!