When Terry Wogan's chat shows of the 1980s began to struggle for viewers, Clive James, a declared Wogan admirer, believed he had the solution. Being a talented presenter simply wasn't enough, claimed the Australian: the BBC would have to make their man work harder for his money.

There have been times before and after his move to ITV, when similar observations might have been made regarding Desmond Lynam. Like Wogan, he has the talent to make the job appear remarkably easy and that that, of itself, is sufficient to justify his existence.

Even with Lynam at full throttle, however, it became clear to ITV that their viewers simply didn't want Premiership football early on a Saturday evening. So, the experiment came to an end when, at roughly 8.10 p.m. on Saturday, Lynam closed the programme with the words: "For us, it's our new, improved (his emphasis) time of 10.30 next time. See you in a fortnight."

The fact that its earlier slot is to be taken over by Cilla Black's Blind Date, would hardly be designed as a major morale booster to Messrs Lynam, Venables and McCoist. Meanwhile, by way of reaction to the change, a presumably charmed Ms Black declared: "Women Rule, OK." Which is richly ironic, given that the Clare-born Lynam has been widely touted as the housewives' choice.

But Lynam was in fine fettle when rounding off Saturday's show by interviewing Newcastle's Alan Shearer, scorer of a wonderful goal on his 400th league appearance earlier in the day, against Aston Villa.

Shearer referred to his attacking partnership with Craig Bellamy as an "old man and young man" thing. Which gave Lynam the opening to chide: "I won't have this old man business with you. Do you regret sometimes your decision to not play with England any more?" "I have to say I don't, Des," said one of the finest strikers of recent decades. "I had tremendous times with England, but one of the reasons I gave up England was so I could continue giving performances like this. I know with my body and the operations I've had - I think 14 at the last count - I couldn't go on forever playing three and four games a week. "

And what of the future?

"Football is all I know," came the reply. "I didn't get any qualifications at school, as you might imagine, and I want to stay in the game in some capacity. I'll worry about that when it comes along."

One suspects Shearer will not be unduly worried, given current earnings estimated at £5 million sterling per year.

Over on Network 2, the snippets I caught of The Premiership looked decidedly flat compared with ITV's glossy presentation. Eamon Dunphy was in the chair, in one-to-one exchanges with Johnny Giles which made one nostalgic for Scrap Saturday. Still, the content was strong, especially when the pair got to discussing the forthcoming World Cup qualifying play-off with Iran.

Dunphy: "They (Iran) came through a two-leg play-off against Australia in the last World Cup and then, at the finals in France, they met and famously beat the United States in a match with more than sporting connotations. "

While acknowledging the Iranians' strength, Giles disagreed with Dunphy's preference for having the second leg at home. "In my time with Leeds when we played in Europe, we always wanted to play at home first," said Giles. "Hopefully with home advantage you're going to get a lead and it's much easier to go and defend a lead than to come from behind when you come back home. You can pack the defence, do what you like, when you know what you have."

All of which was considerably more illuminating than the chat on Sky Sports 1 yesterday, when presenter Richard Keyes had former favourites, Kenny Dalglish and Gary Pallister, in the studio as analysts for the match between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield. Dalglish, who plays a very useful game of golf, would make a perfect partner for the notoriously taciturn Bob Charles.

So, we shouldn't have been surprised as this pre-match exchange. Keyes: "The last time we were here, we saw you sitting in the stand over there with Michael Owen. We wondered, a penny for your thoughts at the time. What was being said?" Dalglish: "There was nay much." At least he then had the good grace to join Pallister and Keyes in laughter.

Alex Ferguson is reported to have said "a wee prayer" on hearing that his friend, Gerard Houllier, was removed to hospital last month with a heart condition. On this, his last visit to Anfield in the Premiership, it was Ferguson who looked to be in need of prayers as his team toiled unavailingly against their great, Lancashire rivals.

Indeed Liverpool assistant manager Phil Thompson assured us that in a post-match conversation with his boss, Houllier had thoroughly enjoyed the match on television at home.

Courtesy of the special knick-knacks associated with Sky Sports we also learned that the second Liverpool goal by John Riise was from a shot of 28.6 yards struck at 65.8 m.p.h. Presumably the player himself would have identified more with measurements of 26 metres at 105.3 k.p.h.

But to borrow the weekend words of Cilla Black, in the English Premiership, the imperial system rules, OK.