Comedy analysis letting Setanta down...

For the second week running I watched a live Premier League game on Setanta Sports, this week it was Chelsea v Blackburn Rovers. The result was 0-0 and Blackburn fully deserved a share of the spoils.

Setanta are obviously feeling their collective way given this is their first season showing live Premier League games, but on the evidence of today their analysis both in the studio and live on-air leaves a lot to be desired.

The main talking point of the game centred on a disallowed second half Chelsea goal scored by Kalou - replays cleared showed that the Ivory Coast striker was half a yard off-side - the linesman and referee Howard Webb got the decision spot on.

However, Setanta's in-game match summariser Craig Burley wrongly stated that it should have been a goal - predictably so did Jose Mourinho in his post-match interview. The Chelsea manager somewhat childishly went on at length saying he now expects a phone call off Howard Webb apologising for his mistake. You can sort of understand the Portuguese manager getting it wrong, given he's not had time to see the replays several times over. There is no excuse for the whole of Setanta's studio 'experts' making fools of themselves in getting their analysis completey wrong as they did to a man stating that the referee had made a mistake in ruling the goal off-side.

Craig Burley made many mistakes throughout his analysis - his comments did not add anything to the game, as his insight and analysis was flawed, none more so when he criticised Shevchenko when his second half effort was saved by Brad Friedel - the fact is the Ukrainian striker was very unlucky not to score with his text-book header and only a superb save by the American keeper denied the Chelsea striker. Setanta's presentation is fine on the whole, but the station is currently being let down by sub-standard punditery.


As for the game itself, Chelsea huffed and puffed throughout the match and Jose Mourinho minus his talisman Didier Drogba tried to ring the changes. Chelsea's best player on the day was Joe Cole who appeared to have been given a free role. Normally Cole plays on the left side of Chelsea's attack, but against Blackburn he played in a more central position behind Shevchenko. Cole was very effective in pulling the Blues strings, but still the home team could not break down Rovers resistance. Mourinho switched to a three man back line late on when he pushed John Terry forward in a bid to unlock the Blackburn back four. It did not work.

In the end Rovers fully deserved their point and Mark Hughes looks to be doing a fine job, the quiet man deserves a lot of credit for his work. On the evidence of today at Stamford Bridge, Blackburn will continue to take points off the big four.