Saturday, for the armchair football fan, was a busy day on the football front.
For those with nothing more pressing to do, it was a chance to watch, almost back-to-back, two of the richest finals football provides, the Championship Play-Off Final and the Champions League Final.
The first of those saw Brentford finally return to top-flight football after a 74-year absence and, here at Vital Luton Town, we would like to offer them our congratulations.
The second saw highly fancied Manchester City take on a rejuvenated Chelsea, in Porto, for the Holy Grail of European football, the Champions League.
Ahead of the game, we ran a poll asking who you thought would win the game and the result, with 59% of those who voted, agreeing with the pundits, and predicting that Manchester City would claim the prize for the first time in their history.
But the game showed that the underdog should never be written off as Thomas Tuchel’s tactics engineered a third consecutive victory over Pep Guardiola’s side, who would have predicted, back in January the Hatters would have been knocked out of the FA Cup by the Champions League winners.
However, while admitting I was enthralled by the action, one thing did attract my attention, throughout the 90 minutes, the performance of the referee.
Here on Vital Luton, a common theme these last few months of the season has been the poor standard of refereeing we have witnessed in the EFL, but on Saturday evening, Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz, provided a refereeing masterclass.
Not only was he in full control of the game, getting all his decisions right, but he looked as if he was enjoying the occasion knowing he was in full control and had earned the respect of those competing in this prestige showpiece.
Wouldn’t it be great to see something similar in the EFL Championship next season?
But, finally getting on to the crux of this article, the two matches were shown on different TV channels, the first on Sky Sports and the second on BT Sport, but who do you believe provides the best coverage when it comes to football?
Please feel free to have your say in the comment facility beneath this article and in our poll?
COYH’s
Who Provides The Best TV Coverage?
Sky Sports
BT Sport
The BBC
Previous article by Mad Hatter
Luton – Midfielder Divides Opinion
I have really enjoyed being able to watch live football during the last 15 months, although it can’t compare with a visit to Kenilworth Road on match days.
One thing that does irritate me with live football coverage is the over-use of “action replays” and close-ups of players, managers and even people in the crowd now. I find that constant replays of incidents, sometimes innocuos fouls, from all angles spoils the flow of the game and, occasionally, a goal or other incident is missed as a result (so you then get a replay of that!). With BT they advertise an app during the game that enables you to view incidents “of your choice” from all angles. No thanks – we’ve already seen them multiple times.
Action replays are useful in theory but completely over-used in my view. I think the BBC coverage is possibly less guilt of technology overkill so gets my vote. Here’s hoping we can all watch proper uninterrupted live football at the Kenny next season.
it might help if they had unbiased experts, why do Sky insist on having Neville co-commentate on United games and Carragher on Liverpool games?
To be fair mh both have been highly critical of there clubs an not just over the super league. This season an neville at least tells it like it is
Fair point Chris, loved it when he criticised the Glazers but neglected to mention they paid his salary for 7 years lol