Alan Fraser's screen test: It's just another Beeb repeat with goals and gobs

Never, it is often said, change a winning side.

But the best managers anticipate the need to make substitutions and, if necessary, to alter the style of play before a winning formula becomes a losing one.

So, in the confident knowledge that the powers that be at the BBC would never be so pompous as to rest on their laurels, I returned from Beijing looking forward to a revamped — or at the very least a refreshed — Match of the Day.

Fat chance.

Same signature tune, of course.

Same set and couches, it appeared.

Same graphics.

Same personnel, of course, except for the recruitment (perhaps for holiday reasons) of some new commentators.

An irritatingly whining Roger Johnson talked bizarrely about Hull’s dream being ‘well and truly punctured’.

Not the only punctured dream, I suspect.

And rather than some new-fangled piece of technology adding to the analysis, it seemed as if the programme had been calorie reduced, leaving a diet of goals and gobs.

Principal mouth remains Gary Lineker, who has become a highly professional presenter, albeit one occasionally too smart for his own good.

A smirk usually heralds the imminent arrival of a horrible pun or a singularly unfunny ‘joke’.

I did, however, like his crack about Stoke City.

‘A win would give them their best ever start in the Premier League,’ he said.

‘Then again, as this is their first season, so would a defeat.’

Joining him were Alan Shearer and Mark Lawrenson.

The former gives the impression of having been around for years, more’s the pity; the latter has been around for years.

And years.

He could do with a lick of emulsion.

‘Lawro,’ Shearer said, looking for his opinion on whether Do-Heon Kim’s crossbar-wobbling shot should have been given as a West Bromwich Albion goal.

‘Well,’ he replied, like an overfed walrus interrupted in the process of falling asleep, ‘from the second angle it looks over but there’s a little bit of doubt certainly, so...’

Thanks for that, Lawro.

On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, Match of the Day showed two images which spoke more loudly and more damagingly than anything their panel of pundits could ever say.

There was Mike Ashley, club strip-wearing Newcastle owner and punter, quaffing a plastic beaker of ale in what looked like a oner.

Man of the people or misguided proprietor who does his great club a disservice?

Then we had the disturbing sight of a chillingly smiling Joey Barton following a challenge on Arsenal’s Sami Nasri.

Was that the face of someone who had rehabilitated himself?

Did that look like a transgressor full of remorse and ready to rebuild his life?

Was he giving off the impression of having learned his lesson?

As Lawro might have said: ‘There’s a little bit of doubt certainly, so...’