Sky Sports were forced to improvise with their coverage of the Premier League clash between Chelsea and Aston Villa after experiencing technical difficulties on Sunday.
Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards, now a regular pundit for the broadcaster, had to step in as an emergency commentator in an awkward segment of the programme.
Ex-Chelsea striker Daniel Sturridge, who was also in the studio, contributed some remarks while sat alongside their popular pundit Roy Keane.
It came after crackling noises could be heard just seconds after the game began on Stamford Bridge before Sky’s audio went down altogether in a major technical fault.
Lead commentator Bill Leslie and co-commentator Alan Smith, who had begun the game behind the microphone, were no longer audible through the TV coverage.
That left Super Sunday presenter David Jones to continue with his own comments and observations about the game, using his sidekick Richards to provide his analysis on the early events.
The pair were sat in the studio at Anfield ahead of Liverpool‘s clash with Manchester City, before they were drafted in at the last moment to keep the coverage moving along.
Jones was clearly uncomfortable with being thrown into an untested new role and the 50-year-old addressed the commentary outage and joked it was Richards’ time to shine.
“So you are left with us, this could be interesting, commentary from Anfield on Chelsea against Aston Villa,” he said. “You always ask for more time to talk about football so this is our time, Micah.
When describing the events on the pitch, he awkwardly added:”This is Aston Villa… playing through the press and away up the field they go.”
Keane was also in the studio, but the Irishman could not be audibly heard getting in on the act – leaving Jones, Richards and Sturridge to discuss the game between themselves.
Jones, a long-time presenter with the broadcaster, apologised for the inconvenience to viewers at home. Sky Sports are yet to publicly address the reason behind the temporary outage.
He then declared the issue to have been fixed, adding: “Disappointingly, it seems like our errors are fixed at Stamford Bridge.”
Fortunately for the trio, the awkard period only lasted around three minutes before Jones announced that their coverage would resume as normal, with Leslie and Smith returning to their rightful roles.
The return to normal service came just at the right moment too, as Chelsea took an early lead through Nicolas Jackson just six minutes into the game at Stamford Bridge.