{"id":253832,"date":"2026-01-20T07:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253832\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T07:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:18:14","slug":"sky-sports-woeful-in-the-box-idea-is-utter-drivel-their-worst-attempt-yet-at-moving-with-the-times-and-an-insult-to-roy-keanes-talents-writes-ian-herbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253832\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky Sports’ woeful ‘In The Box’ idea is utter drivel, their worst attempt yet at ‘moving with the times’ and an insult to Roy Keane’s talents, writes IAN HERBERT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Feel my heart. My heart is beating,\u2019 a large Manchester United<\/a> fan called KG, who was once handed some chicken by Bruno Fernandes<\/a> after a match in Thailand, screamed at Danny Jackson, a Manchester City<\/a> fan, as he tried to force the man\u2019s hand on to the fabric of his red replica shirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m not doing that,\u2019 recoiled Jackson, briefly looking like he was ready to land more than his hand on him.<\/p>\n

This was perhaps the moment of peak drama, at the weekend, in the latest episode of the worst concept Sky Sports have yet dreamed up in their supposed attempts to \u2018move with the times\u2019.<\/p>\n

KG and Jackson were standing uncomfortably close to each other on In The Box, a show for which three fans of the rival teams had their phones confiscated, were locked in the room and asked to shout a lot, as occasional stills on a big screen offered clues to the course of the match. When he wasn\u2019t rolling around on the floor, KG really did shout a lot.<\/p>\n

It had clearly been difficult to tap into the celebrity world for this one, given that there were only TikTokers, vloggers and podcasters for the Manchester derby episode, while Ossie Ardiles (who looked utterly disinterested) and Gary Lineker<\/a> (who made the best of a bad format) appeared for the north London derby equivalent in the autumn.<\/p>\n

\"Sky <\/p>\n

Sky Sports presenter Dave Jones keeps the fans ‘In The Box’ guessing as to the result of the Manchester derby on Saturday\u00a0in Sky Sports’ latest bizarre concept\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"United <\/p>\n

United fans react in raucous fashion after learning the result, delivered by Roy Keane.\u00a0If you like people screaming, this could be the show for you\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Sky\u2019s quest for\u00a0In the Box\u00a0razzle dazzle saw Roy Keane<\/a>\u00a0playing a starring role, by appearing on the big screen to reveal who\u2019d won the game 2-0, sending KG into such overdrive that you really started to worry for his health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2019He seems surprised, doesn\u2019t he?\u2019 observed Keane, and you wondered in that moment whether content at this intellectual level is really the best use of a man who was being paid so well for his highly intelligent professional insight.<\/p>\n

Football talk is no longer enough to sate the audiences, Sky seem to have concluded, despite the levels of controversy which men like Keane are being asked to reach to feed the broadcast and podcast beasts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In The Box, viewable through one of Sky Sports\u2019 YouTube channels, meets the appetite for football\u2019s watch-along style which was a big hit for Arsenal Fan TV and Mark Goldbridge, who covers Manchester United. Though Sky Sports’ brains trust have come up with the idea of a watch-along without a match to actually watch.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The net result on this show was people screaming. The first match clip, of Harry Maguire hitting the bar, extracted an \u2018In your face!\u2019 from KG to City fan \u2018Big Steve\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An image of Pep Guardiola with his finger on his lip, perhaps looking worried, met with something a little less impolite from \u2018Big Steve,\u2019 who sagely observed that when City have conceded, Pep always \u2018drinks his water\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"City <\/p>\n

City supporters (from left) ‘Elz the Witch’, Danny Jackson and ‘Big Steve’ look despondent as they realise their team’s fate\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"It <\/p>\n

It was all a bit of a climb down from the first episode in the series in November, when the Tottenham representatives included Ossie Ardiles, Gary Lineker and Michael McIntyre<\/p>\n

\"Sky <\/p>\n

Sky Sports’ brains trust have come up with the idea of a watch-along without a match to actually watch\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mercifully, the digital sphere is preserved from the prospect of 90 minutes of this drivel by those excellent video editors at Sky, who have boiled it all down to 13 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But how long, you have to wonder, before\u00a0In The Box is reduced just to the moment when Keane delivers the score to that box of people who, for reasons known only to themselves, have been willing to forego watching the actual match?<\/p>\n

As of Monday night, a clip entitled \u2018Roy Keane reveals the result of the Manchester derby to fans locked In The Box’\u00a0had been viewed 6.7million times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s enough to make you want to lock yourself in a box.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Feel my heart. My heart is beating,\u2019 a large Manchester United fan called KG, who was once handed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7815,539,1128,12560,61,60,8579,917,1102,271,850,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-253832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-bruno-fernandes","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-gary-lineker","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-manchester-city","15":"tag-manchester-united","16":"tag-premier-league","17":"tag-roy-keane","18":"tag-sport","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}