The Incredible Brutality of Chris Sutton: Reviewing A Particularly Intense Match of the Day 2

When the time comes to settle down and watch Match of the Day 2, most of us have 'that Sunday feeling'. The weekend is over, we've had some time off, and the combination of a massive lunch and several hours of day drinking have left us feeling something between sleepy and medically comatose. Sprawled on the sofa, subsiding into its warm embrace, we await the mundane pleasure of Swansea vs. Chelsea, '2 Good 2 Bad' and Mark Chapman's affable chit-chat. We expect an hour of humdrum entertainment before bed, with some friendly debate about a couple of semi-controversial incidents thrown in for good measure.

We do not expect Chris Sutton to storm in, arms windmilling, taking on all comers in a whirlwind of fury. We do not expect to be caught up in the punditry equivalent of being glassed in the face outside a nightclub at three in the morning, all because we don't have a particularly strong opinion on the incident between Gary Cahill and Leroy Fer.

Some strong words from Chris Sutton on Swansea's second goal… #MOTD2 #CFC https://t.co/mvLZ3MEQie
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) September 11, 2016

Honestly, it's hard to know how to react to Chris Sutton. It's hard to sum up the contempt in his voice when he's analysing mundane refereeing mistakes. He speaks with sheer hatred in his heart, with poison dripping from his every word. "It was an assault," he hissed, having watched a replay of Swansea's second goal against Chelsea. We almost expected him to get up, walk over to Chapman, bring his face intimidatingly close and scream: "IT WAS FUCKING EVIL. FUCKING EVIL IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY."

Now, it's understandable that Sutton's extreme approach to punditry isn't to everyone's taste. He is a footballing misanthrope, a seething firestorm of hyperbole, aggression and rage. He looked like he was going to start choking Jermaine Jenas at one point in the programme, on account of his colleague quite liking Claudio Bravo. Sutton's views on the debutant goalkeeper can be paraphrased thus: he should time behind bars for his mistimed tackle on Wayne Rooney, his distribution from the back was utterly worthless and, were there any decency in this world, he would never, ever play football again.

These are not the sort of opinions we expect to hear on Match of the Day 2. They aren't even good opinions; quite the opposite in fact. Nonetheless, Sutton delivers them with such brutal conviction that it's impossible not to be bowled over by the intensity of it all. He is a punditry terrorist, an incendiary bomb in the BBC studio. He's hijacked the nation's second favourite highlights programme, and Sunday evenings will never be the same again.