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Yessss! The legendary TV show's back on a Saturday night, albeit minus the inimitable Jimmy Hill. Never mind, I'm sure he'll take it on the chin. The latest offering from Zeppelin ensures he's still a star of the small screen, sharing his comments at half- and full-time in this football management game.

Stalling your career at any Fourth Division club, you open the first page of your footy diary. This is the game's main innovation, enabling the planning of your week by dragging various icons into each day's five time slots to organise training, buy players, pick the team, etc. It certainly makes a refreshing change from reams of text menus.

Sadly the management fails to live up to expectations. Tactical options are limited to selecting the team and general player positions (goalie, defence, midfield, attack). There isn't even a choice of formations, never mind the sort of positional/marking tactics permitted in Tracksuit Manager.

Instead, the emphasis is on handling your finances. As you start with a side of no-hopers, you need to spend wisely on players. One of the game's best aspects is sending scouts out, then reading their detailed player reports. As well as the various skills, these also show popularity and notoriety - sign a popular player and your gate receipts go up.

Instead of buying, you can get players via the free-transfer market. The only problem is that they usually command high wages (especially if from higher divisions). Classy players do make an immense difference, though: just two or three can turn your team overnight from the league doormat into promotion contenders!

Much more authentic are the slow improvements made by training - taking several days to raise a single skill by the tiniest amount. Progress can be speeded up by employing a top trainer, but it's still a lot easier to acquire better players.

After the slick presentation, including player pics with facial expressions, the match section is disappointing. There are always live static, overhead-view highlights per half (the maximum score is 10-0!). It's fairly entertaining to watch but commits the cardinal sin of not identifying individual players. So there's no way of telling how team members are performing.

Worse still, the teams always play in blue and red, and you don't even know which side's which until one scores!

Along with the severely limited tactical options this consigns Match Of the Day to the lower divisions. Great presentation lifts it slightly, but not enough to justify the high price. As for Jimmy, he chooses from a handful of set comments, so he hasn't a great deal to say. Oh well, that's one thing to be thankful for!

In a market saturated by second-rate footy managers comes Match Of The Day, a game that nearly (but not quite) succeeds in being enjoyable. The addition of icons and absence of the now-legendary "Please Wait" messages are welcome surprises. Unfortunately, the animated sequence is diabolical.

How on earth are you supposed to ascertain how players are performing if the graphics show nothing more than ten shots at the goal by three forwards per match? Match Of The Day may be slickly presented by Des and Jimmy!), but its shallowness soon becomes apparent.

Presentation 83%
Excellent diary and icons, and even a save position.

Graphics 70%
Fair match selection and good player pictures

Sound 0%
Not a peep - even from the ref's whistle!

Hookability 70%
At first there seems plenty of choices to make...

Lastability 55%
...but at the end of the day, it really lacks depth.

Overall 59%