According to the BBC’s Lizo Mzimba, last night’s Match of the Day was watched by 2.58 million TV viewers on BBC One. Up nearly half a million on last Saturday’s figure of 2.09 million according to the BARB overnights. This was the show’s biggest audience this year.

An impressive audience increase of 23.4% for the new format platitude and cliché free version of Match of the Day. Political fans of Lineker are claiming that this it is due to rubber-necking, Guido’s pretty certain that they would have been making a very different claim if the #BoycottMOTD campaign had succeeded. Football without punditry could be the future. Would save TV licence fee payers millions…