Russell Brand 'as boring as Shearer' as he takes a turn on Match of the Day, says JIM SHELLEY

By Jim Shelley for MailOnline

Published: 04:31 EDT, 23 March 2014 | Updated: 08:51 EDT, 23 March 2014

The art of comedy is timing.

But Russell Brand couldn’t have picked a worse week to make his unprecedented appearance as a guest pundit on the traditionally celebrity-free, sacred terrain that is Match of the Day.

The justification for his presence may - in theory at least - have been to raise money for Sports Relief.

But in the end, even fans of the vainglorious self-publicist would have preferred he had chipped up another time.

Match of the Day guests: From left, former Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer, Brazilian World Cup winner Leonardo and comedian Russell Brand

With 32 goals and some incredibly eventful, exciting drama from the top of the table - including arguably the most sensational, surprising match of the season – Saturday’s Match of the Day was one of the best for years.

The results in the opening half an hour - 6-0, 3-6, 5-0 – looked more like the score after three sets at Wimbledon. So Brand would have been a less irksome intrusion if he had brightened up a day of nil-nil draws.

As it was, after all the publicity and a big build-up from Gary Lineker, his contributions were put in the shade on what turned out to be an extraordinary day.

Brand prides himself on being outrageous but even he couldn’t compete with Jose Mourinho who had the audacity to maintain that Chelsea were still not favourites to win the league.

The mischievous Mourinho also suggested that he had disappeared down the tunnel five minutes before the end of the Chelsea-Arsenal match because he was going to phone his wife and tell her the result - an excuse which would be terrific if all managers started to adopt it.

Most experienced Mourinho watchers realised that chances are he was just being attention-seeking or delighting in taking the opportunity of snubbing Arsene Wenger by avoiding shaking his hand.

Nothing Brand said was as funny as the way the heavily hyped love-in over Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game in charge of Arsenal immediately turned into a horror show with Chelsea thrashing them six-nil.

Goals galore: After all the publicity and a big build-up from Gay Lineker (left), Brand's contributions were put in the shade on what turned out to be an extraordinary day

Brand’s penchant for the absurd was over-shadowed by the hilariously farcical ineptitude of referee Andre Mariner sending off the wrong player, inexplicably giving Kieran Gibbs his marching orders instead of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, despite Oxlade-Chamberlain’s protestations not of innocence, but of guilt (which was original if nothing else).

Thankfully, Brand wasn’t allowed to invade the analysis of all the games and so his only gag about this was the tweet 'I'm meant to be on Match of the Day tonight. Might send Kieran Gibbs instead.’

Pretty feeble and not a patch on the send-up of Mariner’s blunder going round on Twitter.

‘Ref: ‘Gibbs, you’re off !’ Oxlade: ‘But ref, it was me!’ Ref: ‘Shut up Walcott, get on with the game.’

The best one-liner of the day came not from the famous stand-up comic but Cardiff City manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

‘Do you consider Liverpool as title contenders?’ a reporter asked him after Liverpool had beaten Cardiff, recording their sixth victory in succession.

‘I couldn’t care less,’ the former Manchester United striker stated brilliantly bluntly.

Brand was also out-done by Hull City’s Liam Rosenior who quipped about the rarity of his goal against West Brom: ‘I’ve had two kids since my last one. I don’t even score in training.’

By contrast, Brand’s appearance was such an anti-climax, it proved totally pointless, devoid of any zest or edge that the producers must have been hoping for.

Nothing Russell Brand said on Match Of The Day was as funny as Arsenal losing Arsene Wenger's 1000th game in game six-nil, or referee Andre Mariner sending off the wrong player

Brand started off in strangely serious style, batting back Lineker’s commiserations about West Ham’s defeat to Manchester United with the disappointingly earnest insistence: ‘Nothing can mar this experience for me.’

Yawn. His contribution was mostly restricted to commenting on the West Ham game.

Even though he had had three hours since it had finished, it was a surprise that all of the jokes he had come up with were tame variations of the same theme.

He playfully argued that Wayne Rooney had fouled a West Ham player before scoring his wonder goal from the halfway line – which was not so much a joke as merely an exaggeration of the claim made in all seriousness by Hammers’ manager Sam Allardyce.

It would have been funnier to say that Rooney's shot was meant to be a pass.

Russell Brand tries to persuade Alan Shearer and former World Cup star Leonardo that Andy Carroll should be in England's squad for the World Cup - a view met with inevitable hilarity

‘The East End has not seen that kind of injustice since the days of Jack The Ripper,’ Brand persisted, a dated cliche at best.

At least he made Alan Shearer crack up with his line that referee Lee Mason had betrayed West Ham even though he looked like EastEnders’ hard man Phil Mitchell.

It was surprisingly lame.

You would’ve at least expected him to say something more scandalous (or humourous) about David Moyes than ‘he needs a bit more time’ – the type of insight that made even Shearer seem interesting.

Comparison: Brand made Alan Shearer crack up with his line that referee Lee Mason (left) looked like EastEnders' hard man Phil Mitchell (right)

It was strange he didn’t have a pop at Wayne Rooney’s rug, especially when he said that David Beckham’s similar strike from the halfway line had been superior because ‘Beckham had a better barnet.’

The remark summed up the way Brand’s ‘cor blimey guv’nor’ persona has become grating and affected; a post-modern Dick Van Dyke.

It’s hard to explain otherwise why someone who can speak so eloquently at the United Nations about legalising drugs or debate the ethics of withholding your vote with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight then sums up West Ham’s plight by saying ‘there ain’t enough options.'

'The thing is right, I used to be a drug addict...' Alan Shearer goes into a trance and Leonardo pretends to look interested as Russell Brand returns to his favourite subject on Match of the Day - not West Ham, himself

His appearance ended with Gary Lineker asking: ‘Alan Hansen is retiring at the end of the season. Are you available for consideration?’

‘You cannot win anything with kids,’ Brand replied, a hackneyed gag referring to Hansen’s famous faux pas that Hansen has done better himself.

Even he seemed to have become bored (by himself) at the close, playing with his phone rather than listening to Lineker or joining in the discussion.

In the end, even Brand seemed to have become bored (by himself), playing with his phone, rather than listening to Gary Lineker or joining in the final discussion

It was a shame to see Match of the Day succumb to the cult of celebrity, turning itself into a football version of Top Gear, especially as Brand’s appearance seemed more like an experiment that might be repeated in the future, with other star guests.

The only time this cross-over ever works is when the guest is Noel Gallagher, who is always witty and alarmingly knowledgeable on his regular appearances on Andy Goldstein's Sports Bar on talkSPORT and certainly funnier than Brand was.

It always had been hard to see how the idea of Russell Brand appearing on Match of the Day was actually going to raise any MONEY but even more so as, bizarrely, there were no plugs for Sports Relief, or mentions of how we could donate, when he came on.

Eventually there was a token (unspoken) inclusion of the Sports Relief link ‘www.bbc.co.uk/getinspired’ at the end of the closing credits, after a montage of former football managers telling jokes that were better than any of the contributions Brand had made.

It’s a great cause of course so I made a donation. But only on the understanding that neither Russell Brand, or any comedians or celebrities like him, appear on Match of the Day again.