Gary Lineker owns up to BBC error during England match that fans 'probably didn’t notice'

Gary Lineker revealed he made a bit of a blunder during the BBC's coverage of the England vs Denmark match - but thinks nobody really noticed.

Gareth Southgate's team made several errors of their own against the Danes and their sloppiness appeared to spill over into the BBC studio in Germany. The ex-Barcelona and Tottenham star was leading the coverage of the game with ex-Manchester City captain Micah Richards, Brentford manager Thomas Frank, and Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand as pundits.

After the match concluded, Lineker asked Frank for his opinion on Southgate's performance as manager. As he finished asking, voices in his earpiece informed him that he asked the question far too early as they were about to switch to a video of Southgate's post-match interview following the 1-1 draw.

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Swiftly halting Frank in his tracks, Lineker signalled for Southgate's comments to be played before posing the same question to Frank again. Richards confessed he was taken aback by the mistake, especially given millions of viewers back in the UK were watching.

However, the ex-City skipper conceded that Lineker's response was so smooth, he doubts fans even noticed, reports the Mirror. "Something magical happened today on air," Richards said on the Rest is Football podcast.

"It was the fact that you managed to keep your composure in an incident where I would have scrambled. What basically happened was you were supposed to go to a Gareth Southgate interview, but you went to Thomas Frank to ask him about Gareth."

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Lineker admitted he mucked up as he was "supposed to do that after the Gareth Southgate interview". Richards added: "My head was scrambled, I was thinking 'Oh my God'. It was one second in TV world in the TV studio, but the viewers at home might not have sensed anything at all. The way you transitioned from one thing to another was impeccable."

Lineker then compared his error to something that happened to England defender Marc Guehi during the clash. The veteran TV presenter said: "It was probably like Marc Guehi, who had a brilliant game. At one point, he messed up, gave the ball away and he retrieved it, which is fine.

"Live TV is a bit like that sometimes. I'd forgotten that we were going to do the Southgate interview first. I had got it into my head that I was going to ask Thomas about Southgate and his thoughts on his job and stuff like that.

"Halfway through asking that question Richard (the producer) is going 'Oh we've got to go to Gareth Southgate first'. But it's fine, it's live, it's like when you make mistakes on football pitches. You deal with it."

When asked how he is able to be so cool under pressure, Lineker added: "You know what Micah, it's because I've got a lot of experience. I also know that, ultimately, a television is not going to change anyone's life and no one's mood, particularly.

"And also, people at home like it if you muck up. They don't mind when you make a mistake. The only thing you can never do, and I'll give this advice to you now, because it will happen to you on live television as it happened to me tonight, is you suddenly go 'oh no'.

"Don't worry about it. Sometimes it's better to tell people at home, which I did on the way back when I deliberately asked him the same question and perhaps share the fact that you got it wrong."