DAVID COVERDALE: Sky kids stunt was a flop despite the broadcaster’s good-intentions 

‘GOOD luck keeping your jobs,’ said 12-year-old Naveed as he strutted past pundits Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards pitchside at the Gtech Community Stadium. ‘Good luck keeping your viewers,’ thought anyone watching Premier League Juniors on Sky Sports on Monday night.

Naveed was one of four children picked from schools in West London and Merseyside to host Sky’s alternative coverage of Brentford v Liverpool — a concept dreamt up by the channel for reasons known only to themselves. 

Mercifully, Kelly Cates was in place as the responsible adult stopping the show from descending into chaos. But Naveed, Rishi, 12, and Delilah and Aman, both 11, were trusted to carry out the pre and post-match interviews and co-commentate on the game.

Naveed was one of four children picked from schools in West London and Merseyside to host Sky’s alternative coverage of Brentford v Liverpool

‘This is going to be fun,’ said Cates as she introduced the kids. And there were some amusing moments. Take Rishi telling Brentford trio Bryan Mbeumo, Mads Roerslev and Saman Ghoddos in an interview that he was predicting a 3-1 Liverpool win. 

Or Naveed asking Ben Mee if he was only a defender because he wasn’t good enough to play striker. Naveed was also responsible for the best one-liner claiming, ‘My dad could have finished that and he’s useless,’ when Darwin Nunez missed.

The Sky Sports pundits were seen breaking out into laughter after the incident took place

The kids were also seen interviewing Virgil van Dijk before Liverpool’s game on Monday

The commentary was novel, even if largely incoherent, and the idea of it was no doubt well-intentioned. Yet it is hard to imagine that anyone, barring family and friends, stuck with it. 

‘The younger generation are the future of Sky Sports,’ said the channel’s director of football, Gary Hughes. Like Fanzone before it, though, surely there is no future for Sky’s latest innovation.