Soccer Saturday's Simon Thomas lays into Paul Merson live on air in 'scathing' rant

Simon Thomas laid into Soccer Saturday co-star Paul Merson in a 'scathing' take down, with the host taking aim at the pundit and Arsenal legend for eating a packet of crisps as cameras rolled.

Ex Blue Peter presenter Simon brought the dawn of an new era for the long running Sky football programme at the start of last season, stepping into the shoes of much loved anchor Jeff Stelling, who eventually walked away from the role after doing a u-turn on his future months earlier. While opinion was very much divided on if Simon was the right person for the job and a worthy successor for Jeff, he grew with confidence as the campaign went on and is now back at the helm of Soccer Saturday for another run.

On the second week of the new Premier League season and, after Brighton beat Man United 2-1 in the early kick off, Simon was in the Sky studio with all the scores as they came in on Saturday, with Paul, who is on the line-up for Strictly Come Dancing this year, one of the pundits who joined him on set.

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The ex Arsenal man was given the job of watching and commentating on title holders Man City's home game against newly promoted Ipswich, with Paul getting very excited when the away team took an early lead, only for City to end up going into the break 3-1 up. After recapping some of the goals that had gone in during the adverts, host Simon crossed over to Paul right after an ad break midway through the second half and was immediately annoyed by the sound of him eating crisps, which was clearly picked up by microphones in the studio.

Not holding back, Simon blasted: "Mers, stop eating crisps! Everyone can hear in the gallery and surely they can hear it at home as well?" After the pundit replied that he was 'trying to be subtle', Simon then added: "You can't be subtle with a packet of crisps and you can't do that on Strictly!"