There was a surreal moment in the TV3 studio last night as Graeme Souness argued in favour of the superiority of British football, writes Stephen Barry.

Souness was asserting that the end-to-end, action-packed nature of the English league is better than continental games without fire and anger – or, to give a more specific example, ‘pretty’ Dutch football.

“English football is the most popular game in the world to watch because it’s generally end-to-end and things happening,” began Souness.

souness speaks his brexit brains pic.twitter.com/X7Ts3rk6xD

— Ken Early (@kenearlys) April 18, 2017

“What we can’t have is tip, tip, tip… I’ll give you another example. I live down on the south coast in England and I went to watch Bournemouth play Swansea City three weeks ago. I came away with my 17-year-old son saying, ‘I didn’t enjoy that’.

“It was like watching a Dutch game of football. Lots of nice little, pretty technique with little passes. There was no fire. There was no-one smashing into someone.

“There was no real anger in the game. It was just all about, ‘Oh, we’ll outpass you and just maybe we’ll get a chance at the end of it’.”

Presenter Tommy Martin mischievously interjected: “I think you voted for Brexit, Graeme. Did you?”

The response was just as emphatic: “Oh, I certainly did, yeah.”

It wasn’t exactly a shocking admission but just look at that grin…