Life after Lineker Dad jokes and a lot of Wayne Rooney in Match of the Day's reassuring new era

The credits for the new Match of the Day are in a comic-book style. Your screen bursts with fruit machine cherries when Bournemouth pop up, and freezes when Cole Palmer appears.

- Paul MacInnes

The credits for the new Match of the Day are in a comic-book style. Your screen bursts with fruit machine cherries when Bournemouth pop up, and freezes when Cole Palmer appears. Erling Haaland sits in the lotus pose under a blue moon. The most unlikely moment is saved until the title card appears, however, with the camera disappearing inside the bottom of the Premier League trophy, down a silver tunnel and out, directly, into Mark Chapman's face.

Chapman is a long-time BBC Sport anchor and the main man on Radio 5 Live. He is hardly an unknown quantity, but here he had been grabbed by a stylist and given a vaguely modish air with designer stubble and a cream overshirt hanging loosely off his shoulders.

One of three presenters charged with taking the BBC's venerable football highlights show out of the Gary Lineker era, he has to strike a balance between being familiar and fresh. He did so by making a dad joke about it; that's MotD heritage.

"You may have seen and heard that there is a big change to the show this season," Chapman said as we emerged from the trophy tunnel. "And that is... Wayne Rooney has joined us a regular pundit." Pause for laughter. "Some things don't change, Alan Shearer is still here," he went on as Rooney chuckled audibly.