We weren’t to know then that it was to collapse into financial disarray less than two years later, but tuning into ESPN’s coverage of Everton vs Arsenal on Saturday teatime, you may have wondered if it had ever gone away. Jon Champion was in the commentary box, Rebecca Lowe was interviewing anyone she could grab and even the anthropomorphic Bet 365 letters were still jumping around their cartoon stadium before the ad breaks (no surprise, given everything in football now appears to be sponsored by betting companies). Yet this was always going to be the case – ESPN only landed the rights a matter of weeks ago, which is not much time to create a production team from scratch, and obviously there was an entire Setanta crew sitting around doing nothing. Indeed, alongside Champion, Setanta refugees Steve Bower and Jim Proudfoot have already turned up on ESPN voicing European football.

However the channel simply couldn’t produce Son Of Setanta, so there were some obvious changes. The most notable was in the anchor’s chair, where we met Ray Stubbs. The affable Merseysider is not, perhaps, the first person you’d think of to launch a new enterprise, thanks to his two decades or so as the Beeb’s jack-of-all-trades, but he brings professionalism and a no-nonsense approach to the coverage, and from its first match it seems that this is something ESPN are emphasising. The most obvious change was that rather than lounging around in open-necked shirts in an executive box, Stubbs and his guests were behind a formidable desk in a studio and had donned smart suits and ties. That’s surprising as in recent years both the BBC and ITV have moved towards a more smart casual closing policy (as did Setanta), and only Sky continued to enforce a more formal dress code, but the outfits seemed to point out that ESPN were a serious and professional outfit. Given the disaster of Setanta, that’s presumably something ESPN (and the Premier League) want to emphasise – these people know what they’re doing.

One of the best things about ESPN’s Premiership coverage is what they’re not doing. Coverage of Setanta’s Saturday teatime matches always began at 4pm, over an hour before kick-off, with the first hour interspersing the build-up with a rolling scores service. This was the worst of both worlds, though, as it meant the build-up was constantly interrupted and more often than not goals and major incidents came in the middle of a feature so they were always late announcing them anyway. ESPN have rightly taken the view that everyone who’s interested in the scores is watching Soccer Saturday so they don’t start their coverage until 5pm and, apart from a quick rundown of the scores at the start, concentrate entirely on the match in hand.

ESPN’s concentration on experience has also manifested itself in its choice of pundits, with Peter Reid and Ian Wright in the studio (obviously Wright didn’t wear a tie, but he did don a restrained dark jacket and shirt) and the veteran Joe Royle replacing the perennially pissed-off Craig Burley as Champion’s co-commentator. However ESPN haven’t yet installed any permanent pundits and, to my mind, they needn’t bother. Setanta almost always used Steve McManaman, Tim Sherwood and Les Ferdinand on all their matches, and seeing the same faces say exactly the same things every time made for boring build-up. A rotating panel of pundits isn’t a bad move at all, at least it’ll be a bit more interesting.

Similarly, ESPN haven’t yet commissioned any support programming for their Premier League output – they simply show the live games and that’s it. This could well be a side-effect of their frantic rush to get on air but Setanta’s magazine shows were never that interesting and added very little to the channel. In many ways it was a question of timing – the Beeb and Sky have nabbed all the decent timeslots, with Andy Gray’s Last Word analysis on Sunday teatimes and Match of the Day 2 on Sunday nights. By Monday night, when Setanta finally had the chance to run through Saturday’s goals again, we’d already seen them umpteen times and all the papers had had their say, and Setanta’s pundits rarely had anything more illuminating to add.

ESPN’s first match certainly had a memorable result, but was the actual coverage memorable? Well, the level of coverage demanded by the Premier League ensures that every match on television is filmed to the highest standards (and ESPN, eager not to break the bank like Setanta did, have farmed out their actual match coverage to Sky Sports anyway, thus guaranteeing quality) so there’s no problem there. The subdued red and black colour scheme is a bit easier on the eye than Setanta’s revolting bright yellow. Jon Champion’s as good as he’s always been. Rebecca Lowe is bright and intelligent in her interviews. And all the familiar aspects of a live football match are present and correct – forthcoming attractions are plugged every twenty minutes, there are unenlightening vox pops with the fans in the build-up as if anyone cares, and an actor, in this case Steven Berkoff, has been hired to recite a supposedly “stirring” monologue to accompany the montage at the start of the show. ESPN may be making their first steps in British football but there’s no deviation here from the well-worn Premier League template.

At the moment, ESPN simply haven’t had the time to think about anything but getting on air, but it could be said that this has been to the company’s benefit. Setanta desperately wanted to be Sky Sports, splashing the cash on rights of questionable value, aping their formats and presentation style to the letter and pretending its rivals didn’t exist. ESPN know that about 90% of its audience will be watching both channels, because if you want to see all the Premier League matches, you have to. It may be that, in the future, ESPN will dominate the UK sports television market as they do in the USA, but for now, as the signing of the unassuming Stubbs proves, they know their place.

Well, unfortunately for ITV, most people would suggest Everton’s winner against Liverpool being replaced by a Tic-Tacs advert, the coverage of Histon vs Leeds looking more like a ninety-minute documentary about raindrops and Portsmouth’s defeat by Swansea being filmed from a mole’s eye view. Of course, none of these are the fault of ITV Sport – they were caused by an automation cock-up, freak weather conditions and a condemned gantry at Fratton Park – but it’s not been a great way to launch into the new contract.

Their broadcast partners Setanta Sports haven’t really enjoyed huge success either, but you’d question the value of a deal like this for a pay channel. You’d get pay TV for the Premier League as it’s the only way you could see live Premier League football, but unless your team’s playing in one of Setanta’s live games, most fans would be happy enough with the ITV live matches and highlights shows.

However, Setanta are really pushing the boat out with their coverage of the final, with programming beginning at 9am! The idea is to bring back the fun and excitement of Cup Final Day, back when it was more or less the only live match on TV, and to this end they’ve even hired Saint and Greavsie to take part in the coverage. Exactly who’s so nostalgic they’ll sit through the whole six hours build-up, I’m not sure, but at least they’re making the effort.

So far ITV’s not promised much for their Cup Final coverage, with a more conventional 1pm start time and presumably, lots and lots of Andy Townsend. I can’t bear Townsend, who blatantly exhibits more naked ambition than an Apprentice contestant, and it doesn’t help that ITV use him on 99% of their live matches. The man’s clearly desperate to be promoted to the anchor’s chair, talking longer and louder than everyone else, and a worrying development in recent months has been that he no longer sits with the rest of the pundits in live games, but on the other side of the table alongside Steve Rider.

In Townsend’s mind, at least, this seems to suggest he’s now the co-host, giving him scope to talk even more, now taking it upon himself to interview the other pundits. Well, I say “interview”, instead he just talks and invites the others to agree with him. In the build-up to a recent game when Teddy Sheringham was a guest, he reviewed some footage of the players and said “D’you remember this, Ted?” so often he sounded like he was talking an elderly relative through some cine films.

When you watch Townsend in action you sometimes pine for the days when footballers knew their place and were incredibly ill-at-ease in front of the camera, never trying to upstage their hosts. So it was a treat to see the performance of the former Arsenal and Liverpool star Michael Thomas in his role of pundit on Setanta’s coverage of the FA Youth Cup Final on Friday night. Here was the old “I kicked the ball and there it was in the back of the net” approach to football punditry back in full effect.

Thomas got off to a flying start when he advised viewers that the FA Youth Cup Final “is a massive game, because it’s like the FA Cup Final for the youth team”. It’s exactly like that, Michael. That’s why it’s called the FA Youth Cup Final. When asked if the match would be a chance for the managers to see if the young players could cope with the pressure, he said, “Yes, because it’s a pressure situation and some players can’t cope”. Later, too, he talked about some of the Arsenal players who had gone out on loan this season, “like Gibbs who went to Norwich and, er, um, er, um, the other one at Burnley”.

Still, at least Thomas was enthusiastic, and it was something of a treat to see a fomer player who clearly hadn’t bothered with the media training, someone completely inarticulate. For my money this was just as nostalgic as the return of Saint and Greavsie. It’s often said that there’s too much football on television, and if Thomas can get punditry work, it’s probably right.

Thomas’ fellow pundit was Jason McAteer, a man who, when he arrived at Liverpool, announced his nickname at his old club was “Trigger”, as his team mates decided he was about as intelligent as the fanously slow-witted Only Fools and Horses character of the same name. However, Liverpool already had a “Trigger” in Rob Jones, so McAteer announced that he now wanted to be known as “Double Trigger”. Remarkably, on Friday night, he finally found a double act where he was the brains of the operation.

There’s always a danger when sporting contracts change hands for the new incumbent to try too hard to stand out and stuff their coverage with gimmicks. Setanta certainly haven’t gone in this direction, and indeed it looked very much like you’d expect it to look – perfectly professional and adequate, it did what it had to do and that was about it. There were no real innovations but, in the end, all that matters is the 90 minutes.

One thing that might need sorting out is the opening of the show. The build-up to the 5.15pm kick-off begins at 4.30pm, while the rest of the day’s matches are being played, so the first half-hour intersperses the features with a scrolling vidiprinter and match reports. Sadly, host Angus Scott was unconvincing at this when he was alone in the studio on ITV’s unlamented results service The Goal Rush, so to expect him to try and link a live game from a stadium at the same time was asking for trouble. Given 99% of fans will be watching Soccer Saturday or Final Score, it might make more sense just to assume viewers can get this info elsewhere and just start the build-up at 5pm, or have someone in a studio monitoring the scores alone all afternoon, rather than this rather awkward compromise.

Still, it was nice to hear Jon Champion for a full 90 minutes, as he’s a fine commentator and has been inexplicably marginalised by ITV (who apparently he’ll continue working for throughout the season). Interviewer Alex Hayes was a bit at sea at the end (“Steven, you’re the Barclays Player of the Week, er, game, er, Man of the Match!”) but he’s a print journalist first and foremost so let’s give him time to get used to it.

In the end, Setanta made a decent start of it, and there was enough professionalism to make it look like their 101st Premier League game rather than their first. It doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of Sky Sports but it’s no England vs Poland on Channel 5-esque disaster either. And because I’m on Virgin, I’m getting it for free, so how can I complain?

However, Sky aren’t resting on their laurels and have amazed us all in the new season by … putting the commentators in vision at the start again, after an absence of many years. I always love seeing this sort of thing, and what better way to emphasise the dynamism and razzmatazz of the Premier League than putting ugly, balding sixtysomething Alan Parry in vision?