Early favourites to replace Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday revealed

Early favourites to replace Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday has been revealed following the presenter’s announcement.

After Stelling surprised viewers last Saturday when stating that he would be leaving at the end of the season after 30 years, bookmakers reveals who could be next in line for the job.

The 66-year-old said: “This is my decision. There has been no pressure. Sky have been absolutely brilliant with me, as they always have done.

“I am not intending to retire but it is time to let somebody else have a go at what is the best job in the world.

“I wouldn’t want to get to the stage where I’m calling Raith Rovers ‘Roth Ravers’.

“I’m going to be here until May, when I’ll be leaving the show and the company.”

Ex-Sky Sports pundit Phil Thompson claims Stelling’s shoes are impossible to fill, while also giving his say on the current favourites, which you can see below according to Ladbrokes…

6) Kirsty Gallagher – 6/1

Kirsty Jane Gallacher is a British television presenter and model.

She began her career at Sky Sports News in 1998 and hosted Kirsty’s Home Videos, RI:SE and Simply the Best before returning to Sky Sports News from 2011–2018.

Since June 2021, Gallacher has co-presented The Great British Breakfast on GB News.

On the 3rd of April 2021, she hosted for the first time on Smooth Radio, starting at 4:00 pm BST.

Gallacher was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Royal Television Society Television Sports Awards in 1998.

She won Satellite/Digital TV Personality at the 2002 Television and Radio Industries Club Awards, and Kirsty’s Home Videos won her the following year’s Satellite/Digital Programme award in 2003.

She also won a “Platinum Award” for Best Entertainment Programme at the 2002 Houston International Film Festival.

5) Laura Woods – 5/1

Laura Woods is an English presenter working for Sky Sports and talkSPORT.

After graduating from university, Woods got a job at Sky Sports as runner in 2009, working her way up to editorial assistant, then into production as assistant producer, associate and producer.

Woods started presenting by doing behind-the-scenes interviews on the darts coverage for the Sky Sports’ YouTube channel.

Woods then got a job on a Saturday morning kids’ show Game Changers and from there she started reporting on the NFL and joined the Soccer AM online presenting team, which included a trip to Euro 2016 in France where she broadcast live on Facebook every day.

By 2018, Woods became a regular pitch-side reporter on Super Sunday, occasionally reporting with Gary Neville.

In March 2020, Woods was announced as the main presenter for talkSPORT’s breakfast show, presenting Monday to Wednesday with Thursdays and Fridays presented by Alan Brazil.

Woods dated former England Rugby player Alex Corbisiero for eight years. She is currently dating former rugby player turned model, Elliott Reeder. Woods is a supporter of Arsenal.

4) Kelly Cates – 4/1

Kelly Cates (née Dalglish) is a Scottish presenter, currently working for Sky Sports, Radio 5 Live, and ESPN.

Born in Glasgow, Kelly is the eldest of four children of former Celtic and Liverpool player and manager Sir Kenny Dalglish and his wife Marina and grew up in Southport.

Her brother Paul also had a professional football career.

She also has two younger sisters, Lynsey and Lauren.

Cates presented the news on The Biggest Breakfast Ever, the 8-hour Millennium special of The Big Breakfast. She was a presenter on Sky Sports News, and was part of the presenter line up for Virgin Media’s new portal. She interviewed managers and footballers as part of Setanta’s Premier League coverage in 2007, and was a presenter on Setanta Sports News.

In the 2009–10 football season, she was part of the ESPN team for their Premier League coverage and co-presented Talk of the Terrace alongside Mark Chapman and for Series 2, Nat Coombs.

In May 2010 she presented the sports news on GMTV in the absence of regular host Dan Lobb. Cates then worked as a reporter for ITV at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa as well as for the 2011–2012 UEFA Champions League.

In 2012 she presented the sports news on Daybreak in the absence of Gavin Ramjaun. She was part of the UK Channel 4 presenting team for the London 2012 Paralympics.

In the Autumn of 2012, Cates presented the six-part Scottish television series Coached Off the Couch for STV.

From the 2015/16 football season, Cates hosted Football League Tonight on Channel 5 with George Riley presenting weekly highlights from The Football League.

On 3 August 2016, Sky Sports announced that Cates had rejoined them to present their live coverage of the Sky Bet English Football League. From August 2017, Cates has switched from the EFL to become the host of Premier League matches notably Friday Night Football (FNF) and also on Saturday mornings (Premier League Live) on Sky Sports.

Cates returned part time to ESPN to cover Euro 2020.

Cates was a regular presenter for national radio station talkSPORT, and hosted the Monday evening talk show between 7pm and 10pm alongside Jason Cundy.

Cates has presented Fighting Talk on Radio 5 Live, standing in for Colin Murray, and then presented on the station in Summer 2009 and since August 2013 presents the 606 show most Sundays alongside pundit Ian Wright. She also presents the midweek sports show, 5 Live Sport.

3) Hayley McQueen – 5/2

Hayley McQueen is a Scottish TV sports presenter, reporter, RTS award winning producer, and event host.

McQueen is a lead anchor on Sky Sports News and currently the presenter of Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup.

Previous to that she hosted Sky Sports’ flagship Saturday evening Football First Premier League highlights show Match Choice, when Sky had the rights Hayley anchored the live 3 o’clock Premier League game which is shown exclusively in Ireland with full build up and post match.

She is also an awards presenter and regularly hosts corporate events. Alongside her Sky work Hayley presented for Premier League TV worldwide and has appeared as a guest host on BBC 5 Live football phone-in show as well as hosting duties for Radio X show The Kickabout standing in for Johnny Vaughan.

She is the former co-presenter of Sky Sports Champions League (BT Sport have the rights from 2015/16 season) as well as other Sky Sports football programming and once weekly Sportswomen programme.

She is the daughter of former Leeds United, Manchester United, and Scotland footballer and Sky Sports pundit Gordon McQueen.

McQueen is engaged to German-born model and actor Kirk Newmann. She gave birth to daughter Ayla McQueen-Newmann on 3 October 2019.

She supports Manchester United.

2) David Jones – 2/1

David Jones is an English sports presenter working for Sky Sports and a non-executive director for Sunderland. He currently fronts the live coverage on Super Sunday and Monday Night Football.

Jones went to Stokesley Comprehensive School in North Yorkshire. He became a presenter on Sky Sports News in February 2003 after spending two seasons as a pitch-side reporter on Premiership Plus.

Starting his journalistic career as a news reporter on the Derbyshire Times in Chesterfield, he joined Sky for the launch of Sky Sports News in 1998, presenting alongside Georgie Thompson for a number of years.

Jones presented The Football League on Sky Sports from the 2007–08 season until 2011. Jones started presenting live Premier League matches in 2010.

Starting in 2012, Jones was announced as the host of The Footballers’ Football Show, a programme which discusses the key football issues of the week.

In June 2013, Sky Sports announced a brand new show for the 2013-14 season called Saturday Night Football, for their coverage of 5.30pm Saturday evening Premier League fixtures.

The show was presented by Jones alongside Jamie Redknapp with an audience of football fans debating current football issues.

The audience was later dropped but Jones and Redknapp continued to host the show until Sky lost the rights for the Saturday evening matches in 2016.

After the departure of Ed Chamberlin to front ITV’s coverage of Horse Racing, Jones became the main football presenter on Sky Sports in August 2016.

Jones now presents the flagship Super Sunday and Monday Night Football programmes alongside pundits such as Jamie Carragher, Graeme Souness, Micah Richards and Gary Neville.

When Sky Sports launched their new week nightly football discussion programme The Debate in August 2017, Jones hosted the first show.

In addition to this, Jones was heavily involved with Sky Sports’ live UEFA Champions League coverage and has fronted numerous live England international matches.

He is a fan of Sunderland and has mentioned it many times on Sky Sports News. He also took part in ‘The Match’ on Sky1, playing in front of 50,000 people at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park Stadium, and was once voted Company Magazine’s ‘North East Bachelor of the Year’. On Monday 5 May 2014 Jones played In Jody Craddock’s testimonial game for Sunderland XI.

Jones also became a non-executive director of Oxford United on 11 February 2015. After manager Michael Appleton left to take up a role with Leicester City, he was part of the 3-man panel to find the next Oxford United manager in June 2015. The club ultimately appointed Pep Clotet, the former Swansea and Leeds assistant manager. On the 18th of December 2019, Jones was announced as a new non-executive director of Sunderland.

1) Julian Warren – 11/10

Julian Warren is a familiar face to sports fans across the UK, as both a senior presenter on Sky Sports News and the host of Soccer Special, the popular, unscripted and sometimes chaotic, round-the-grounds Football score show.

He has also been seen many times deputising for Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday, delivering all the action as it happens to the nation, alongside a panel of famous Football faces.

You may, or may not, know that Julian also happens to be a mad Evertonian, something that cannot be easy working at Sky Sports, a place which has seen many a former Liverpool player at every turn.

When asked in a 2020 interview with Obstructed View ‘a particular highlight or moment he has enjoyed the most?’, he replied: “I never take for granted how lucky I am to do my job and I’ve got to cover some amazing events and stories in my 12 years at Sky.

“I’ll always remember presenting the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup play-off against France, the night of Thierry Henry’s infamous handball.

“Getting to anchor Sky Sports News’ build up to Euro 2016 live from a boat on the River Seine in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower was pretty cool too.

“But the event that always sticks with me is the London Olympics in 2012.

“We had a studio overlooking the stadium, and I just remember the incredible atmosphere in the city every day, everyone chatting to each other on the tube each morning (that doesn’t normally happen!), the buzz as you arrived at the stadium, the success of Team GB, with gold medal after gold medal. Anyone who was anyone came in to our studio to be interviewed, from Mo Farah to Greg Rutherford to the Prime Minister, it was just a really special two weeks which was a privilege to be a part of.

Julian was asked what stresses him out consdering he seems to exude such a calm and unflustered demeanour.

​The presenter replied: “That’s kind of you to say! I can assure you there are many occasions when it’s all going off in the studio or the gallery, maybe a big story is breaking or there are technical issues and inside it feels anything but calm and unflustered.

“I might be receiving lots of information in my earpiece or being told to fill while they try to sort a problem, but that’s when the old “swan analogy” comes in; under the water I’m kicking like crazy but above it I need to look calm and in control, that’s part of the expectation on me as a presenter.

“Of course with live TV there are times when things go so wrong which you can’t hide, in which case I usually try and make light of it.

“I always think if a presenter looks stressed and uncomfortable, the viewer will feel the same sat at home.

“But the buzz of live sport, when anything can and usually does happen, is one of the main reasons I love the job so much.

“I still get nervous and a bit stressed before presenting Soccer Specials or sitting in for Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday, they’re such big shows and it’s a great responsibility to be presenting them – I just want to make sure I do the best job possible.”

Others listed include the likes of Pete Graves, Charlotte Coleman, Tom White, Adam Leventhal, David Garrido, Gary Lineker, Adrian Chiles, Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Piers Morgan, Warwick Davis, Chris Kamara

Meanwhile Paddy Power have also had their say, however there is some more bizarre listing that raises questions, however stranger things have happened. Even Kammy his his say…

Just seen the odds & had a few quid on the lovely Alison 😂 pic.twitter.com/AYhdHZGQNR

— Chris Kamara (@chris_kammy) November 3, 2021

A Paddy Power spokesman said: “The transfer window may be closed but this saga looks set to rumble on for a few weeks as the race to host Soccer Saturday hots up.

“Kammy is adored by huge swathes of the show’s fanbase and is the dark horse of the bunch to make a ‘unbelievable’ switch to become the face of the show.

“Who knows what’ll happen next, but one thing is for sure, we‘d love to see that trademark ‘tache back on our screens!”

As the early favourites to replace Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday are revealed, who would you like to see? Let us know via our socials!

Thompson, who was let go by Sky along with fellow Soccer Saturday pundits Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier in August 2020, believes Stelling’s replacement will have a tough time in his shoes.

Thompson said: ‘There’s nobody ideal to replace him because Jeff is the best and it would be very difficult for somebody to be the exact same as him. However, the show will evolve.

‘Julian Warren presents the Soccer show on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and he’s always been very capable. He’ll probably be up there in terms of replacements but he’s not Jeff Stelling and he’d be the first to say that. But he’s a great lad

‘With the likes of Kammy (Chris Kamara) and Roy Keane, you have to be of a certain personality and while they’re great pundits, I’m not sure they have what’s needed.

‘There’s a lot of others things to be done. They have to read auto-cue, ad-lib a lot of the time, and have the knowledge required for the job as well as be in that journalistic mode. Jeff has all of that and he leaves massive boots to fill.’

The Liverpool legend added: ‘If we were to compare this situation to a manager leaving and a replacement coming in, it’s like when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester Utd and David Moyes stepped in.

‘Like in Moyes’s case, everybody is going to scrutinise everything that Jeff’s replacement does. Have they got the knowledge of Jeff? Are they funny like Jeff? Can they get the best out of the pundits like Jeff did?’

Earlier this year, Thompson told Sportsmail that he ‘misses’ his ‘band of brothers’ in the Soccer Saturday studio, with the former pundit sharing the screen with Le Tissier, Nicholas and Paul Merson – who is still part of the show – for 16 years.

Thompson, who was the same age as Stelling is now when he was axed by Sky, revealed he spoke to Stelling after his announcement but does not know what the popular anchor will do next.

‘With regards to Jeff’s future though, it’s not the last we’ve seen of him on television,’ Thompson claimed. ‘Where we’ll see him next, whether it be in the UK or elsewhere, we’ll have to wait and see.

‘He’s looking for a fresh challenge and we definitely haven’t seen the last of him on TV, which is great.

‘It’s like a manager when he comes out of a job. They’re no sooner out of a job than they want to get back into another job and that’s the same with Jeff.

‘What it will be I don’t know, and Jeff doesn’t know yet either. ‘The world is his oyster. He is, and has been, the best sports presenter on television. You can see that because of his knowledge, his humour and because of the way he connects with people.

‘When Matt (Le Tissier), Charlie (Nicholas) and I left, it was very difficult for him to move on without us. The Soccer Saturday show is evolving but I think it was probably difficult for him in that regard.’