Full disclosure here should be, I don't like either Phil Thompson or increasingly Charlie Nicholas (never seems to have a good word to say about Everton) so I can't say I'm opposed to the decision. However what I would say about that group, was they had a very natural chemstry between them. I never felt it was that forced. I watched some of the BT equivalent and it just felt really forced to me, liuke they were trying to emulate the stupidity of soccer saturday, whereas the buffoonery of soccer saturday seemed quite authentic. Thats not a dig at BT either, there are things they do that are better than Sky as well.
I suspect Sky have felt that they needed to get some fresher blood into the studio. You do always feel the msot interesting pundits are the ones who've just retired, so I suspect they've looked at them and their ages, and when they finished playing football and probably concluded they've lost touch a little. I would imagine they are on a fair whack and want to go in a different direction.
I like Sue Smith when I've seen her, albeit I am slightly biased that she's an Evertonian. I'm not sure about Clinton Morrisson, but they may feel he reaches a new audience (younger, more urban, more ethnically diverse) and TV people are always lookign to expand their horizons rather than just pandering to what they've got. It's a bit of a risk, but maybe they felt the time was right to take it?
As a slight aside, they did something similar with cricket, and there's been some discussion on it, moving on Gower, Botham to a degree David Lloyd and brought in Rainford Brent, Rob Key, Ian Ward etc and I've been very impressed with the coverage and analysis. Particularly with Rob Key, who I have to say I wasn't expecting to like, but he's been a really good find for them.
Companies regularly like to freshen things up. They've had a good run. I can't understand the disappointment, but some of the more extreme conclusions I find a bit odd.
