Champions League (Last 16)

[AQMP]

Stink. Wretched. As was Lawro's apparently on TV3. The only miniscule consolation was that you didn't have to listen to both together.

TV3 absolutely awful...Welsh & Lawrenson couldn't (or were just too lazy) to tell the difference between Di Maria, Ozil and Khedira.  Also when the commentary was lost Matt Cooper(??) in the studio asked why V d Vaart wasn't offside when he received the ball from a throw in.

[EC Unique]

How bad was Ray Wilkins "commentary" last night! Woeful.

He kept saying 'Spurs don't deserve this' towards the end. When a player picks up two stupid yellows and gets sent off and then the team gets completely dominated and spanked 4-0 how the fcuk do they not deserve it....? He was terrible.

[Bingo]

How bad was Ray Wilkins "commentary" last night! Woeful.

He kept saying 'Spurs don't deserve this' towards the end. When a player picks up two stupid yellows and gets sent off and then the team gets completely dominated and spanked 4-0 how the fcuk do they not deserve it....? He was terrible.

The mad thing was he was saying that they don't deserve it, not on that game, but because of how they performed this year - beating AC, beating Inter, qualifying for the group stages and then the knock stages! They a great team according to him and Harry has worked miricles on the side.

It was terrible - "we" the whole time, calling players their first names all the time, coaching the players throughout the game, Harry this, Harry that.

[Archie Mitchell]

What about Jamie Redknapp saying he know's his Dad very well

[mouview]

Ray took the biscuit when he said Spurs 'had defended stoutly in the second half'; moments later he said they'd been 'ripped to pieces'. You couldn't make it up!

[Minder]

Ray took the biscuit when he said Spurs 'had defended stoutly in the second half'; moments later he said they'd been 'ripped to pieces'. You couldn't make it up!

I only saw bits of the game, I flicked it over and they were 3-0 down and Ray was telling us how impressed he was with Spurs defending.

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

My favourite Wilkins moment was when he twice expressed his admiration for the manner in which Spurs had defended from corners.

He must have missed the first two goals.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Maybe the occasion got the better of him. Or the intensity of the crowd clouded his thinking. Perhaps it was simply too much sun.

Whatever the reason he had a shocker. He had no one to blame but himself, of course, even if his game defining lack of judgement was out of character. Just a bad day at the office for an Englishman abroad, then, when it mattered most.

I'm talking of course about Raymond Colin Wilkins MBE, on summarising duty for Sky Sports, whose performance last night achieved the almost unimaginable of being worse than any Tottenham player on the pitch. Peter Crouch included.

It is difficult to fathom just what got in to Ray. Usually a softly spoken, almost silken voiced purveyor of easy charm and understatement, his performance last night was one of excitable chaos. One where he appeared to have been transported in his mind from the commentary box to some long forgotten wind swept training ground where he felt compelled to bark the same few orders in a repetitious staccato.

Statisticians are still pouring over footage to tally up the exact number of times he told those in blue to 'stay on their feet', a phrase destined forever to be conjured at the slightest mention of Ray's name; Charlie Sheen may be #winning, but Ray is standing proudly tall, like some unmoving giant oak, #stayingonhisfeet .

As with John Terry's obsession with 'the armband', Ray just wouldn't let it go. By the end of the match he sounded like one of those men who stand on the corner of high streets imploring Saturday shoppers to repent and find the love of Jesus Christ, convinced beyond certainty of their own wisdom, but screaming out forlornly in to an uncaring ether, forever to be ignored, even quietly mocked.

And it wasn't just his blunt tactical advice – now to be copied by ranting fathers on the touchline of every Sunday league match this weekend as surely as their sons screaming obscenities in to Mum's camera phone on completing a hat-trick will pay homage to another of England's finest – that jarred.

It was his attempts to complicity cast us all as an amorphous whole, with one dream and one vision.

"We," Ray repeatedly said, where 'they' or indeed 'Tottenham' might have been better employed, to open any observation about Harry Redknapp's team. "And I say 'we' as an Englishman," he would interject to almost but not quite cover himself, before continuing his point (most often, that someone should have stayed on their feet).

The implicit belief in Sky's coverage that everyone watching in the UK will naturally support the English side is understandable in their selling of a product, even if woefully misguided, but Ray took it to its nth degree. Had Tottenham scored you imagine he would have ripped his shirt off and swung it round his head like one of those goons invited to offer an alternative commentary on Sky's matches.

As message boards and Twitter buzzed with both concern and derision for Ray, someone even tried to start a campaign to bring back Andy Gray, suggesting that Ray's crazed dementia may have been such that it was starting to become contagious.

What prompted this switch in personality we may never know. He sounded as if he had been running late for the game, perhaps caught in traffic for several hours before kick off, getting more and more agitated before a quick sprint up the Bernabeu steps landed him in his position moments before the start, breathless and distressed, but suddenly euphoric about his success, the heady cocktail erupting in a volcanic explosion of unthinking, knee-jerk stock phrases.

Regardless, he deserves to be selected for the return leg. How appropriate for the dead rubber at White Hart Lane to be described by someone whose one bad performance has left immediate redemption out of reach, but with plenty of tattered pride left to be played for.

[Denn Forever]

Just saw the highlight of the Schalke match.  Maybe it wasn't such a shock with Edu and Raul scoring his 70th(?) CL goal.

[gallsman]

Barca match is wide open. Both teams could have scored two or three!

[laoislad]

Barca match is wide open. Both teams could have scored two or three!

Yeah watching bits of it between breaks in the Golf,seems like a decent game.

[Dinny Breen]

should have finished about 9-4 to Barca unless Chelsea get through hard to see any team stopping them, they've already beaten the next best in England...

[new devil]

Yea Barca will walk it.... But hey it's still nice to be in it

[clarshack]

should have finished about 9-4 to Barca unless Chelsea get through hard to see any team stopping them, they've already beaten the next best in England...

in a one off game and with plenty of luck (which is very likely), utd could pull it off!!!

[Dave]

Yea Barca will walk it.... But hey it's still nice to be in it

Will you get a start next game?