Football: View From the armchair: Commentary of cliches, whinges and wines

OF ALL the novelty bets available to World Cup punters, not one embraced the possibility that ITV's Barry Venison would start a match analysis with the phrase, "This rain will really affect the grape harvest here in Bordeaux." What odds would you have expected on this, 500-1, 5000- 1? What price could you have got for a "claret-mentioning" Yankee on Venison, Bob Wilson, Clive Tyldesley and Kevin Keegan because they all did during Thursday's game between Italy and Chile.

Quite apart from marking another milestone on Venison's apparently ceaseless cultural ascent - he will probably finish the tournament by taking out French citizenship and applying for the Sorbonne - the sudden outbreak of wine-speak among the ITV team will have the accountants back at Network Centre checking the expenses claims with renewed vigour.

But ITV's march into BBC territory is, as I predicted, underway as they begin to sift out the Sheringhams from their line-up in favour of the Owens, in search of the younger audience which their masters, the advertisers, covet so much. The dance-beat theme and strobing lasers on the Eiffel Tower which form the opening credits to the World Cup broadcasts seem to be a direct appeal to the E-generation of viewers. When Bob Wilson appeared in Montpellier sporting a huge pair of earphones, I thought it was a joke at rival Gary Lineker's expense, but plainly it was an attempt to boost the market for Madonna headsets.

However, I suspect that Wilson is being eased towards the touchline in favour of the more relaxed and screen-friendly Jim Rosenthal, who has been seconded from ITV's Formula One coverage to be studio anchor in Paris. Wilson's usual wooden approach, which involves feeding the panellists a plonking line as a way to set up a video clip, has therefore been supplanted by Rosenthal's more confident, ad-libbing style.

But Bobby Robson has yet to adjust to this, judging by Thursday's late- night highlights programme in which the former England manager was so thrown by a Rosenthal question that he imagined he was first in Italy, and then in Spain before the host pointed out the electronically-projected skyline of Paris behind him. With Brian Moore already set to retire at the end of this tournament, he may yet find other ITV stalwarts going with him.

Meanwhile, the BBC coped quite well with their first crisis, a dire first half between Austria and Cameroon which left new boy David Ginola dutifully struggling to say something good about it. "Don't worry," Des Lynham reassured him, "This is the BBC, you can say what you like."

Unfortunately, this is only too true as commentators John Motson and David Pleat were demonstrating. A two-man "Group of Death" in their own right, Motson's stat-attacks and Pleat's tactical outbursts, conspired to make a disappointing game worse. The BBC may come to regret their recent tribute to Motson (The Full Motty) because the subject has failed to notice that it was an ironic piss-take rather than a ringing endorsement of his style.

Encouraged by this, Motson was in pure heaven with the exotic Cameroon team. Nobody doubts Motson's sincerity or his expertise, but he's beginning to assert a malign influence on fellow commentators who seem to view his style as the route to success. Thus, ITV's Tyldesley offers almost a replica of the voice and those buttock-clenched crescendos, while the BBC's John Champion, comes pre-prepared with Motsonian sound-bites.

The new boy, Peter Drury, hired by ITV from BBC Radio 5, nevertheless made an auspicious debut yesterday afternoon which marked him out as a commentator of great potential. Calm, authoritative and keen to make sure that the basic business of identifying who is on the ball was achieved, Drury coped well with the first goalless game of the competition, Paraguay against Bulgaria, and the first red card. He was also the first person on either team to hint at the reasons for the open style of the group games so far.

My theory seems obvious - that the previous system of allowing three teams from each group of four to go forward encouraged a cynical realisation that beating up on the weakest team, and staging a couple of stale draws, was enough to quality. But with only two teams advancing now, the need for two wins is imperative, hence the dog-eat-dog determination. Drury's appreciation of this underpinned his astute reading of the game. Less seriously, he was able to resist the temptation of a cheap George Michael joke at the Bulgarian Yankov's expense, thereby scuppering my 50-1 bet with Tote Credit.