There have been big changes at Soccer AM this season.
Helen Chamberlain, the face of the show for the past 15 years has moved on and Jimmy Bullard has joined the team full-time. The former Wigan and Fulham midfielder is joined by comedian Lloyd Griffith and Fenners as the trio hosting the show, which still gets weird Indie bands from around England who know literally nothing about football on for a chat.
One of these weird indie singers is a space cadet who doesn't know who Depeche Mode are, and he is to blame for not knowing the Premier League legend that is Ruel Fox is and calling him Roy on live television at the end of one of the most excruciatingly awkward sketches the show has produced. And I say that as someone who still has time for it.
The whole thing runs for close to 9 minutes, which thankfully have been trimmed down for just the grand finale. It's three blokes working in a sports shop trying to give clues to the singer to guess who the surprise footballer is, and all you've missed so far is a joke about Spurs wanting to order 25 jerseys with Europa League patches for next February...
Wow.
Three weeks into the season and they've gone drag.
In all fairness to the singer, he should never have been asked to guess who Ruel Fox is based on the clubs he played for, and sadly he thought he could get away with 'Foxy' and then 'Fox' as the player's name. Perhaps Fenners should have accepted that.
We just feel bad for Ruel Fox. He handled it like a pro, as you would expect Ruel Fox to do, but that was painful.
As I've said, there are still good elements to the show. Tubes' interviews with footballers are quality, and football guests on the couch are still decent weekend viewing, but notice that those moments are when they keep it to football?
I'd happily listen to what Ruel Fox has to say without the need for whatever that was supposed to be.
