Le Tissier let go from role at Sky Sports

The former Southampton player will no longer appear on the Soccer Saturday show, along with Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson, who collectively have tallied up nearly 50 years of service.

They were sacked on Tuesday.

Sky Sports have been cutting staff numbers recently, but Mr Le Tissier took to Twitter to say he had enjoyed his time there.

‘Time to look forward to life’s next challenge, thank you for the support down the years and special thanks to the backroom team, amongst others, good luck all,’ he wrote.

Ex-footballer and ex-manager and current TV presenter and football pundit Chris Kamara responded, saying: ‘Good luck Tiss, it’s been a pleasure working with you.’

Soccer Saturday has been one of the most popular football shows in the UK for a number of years, with thousands tuning in every week to check on their team’s latest score.

It has not yet been revealed who will be brought in to replace the three men, but there are talks of Sky having a big ‘shake-up’ of the show.

Mr Le Tissier had spent his entire professional career with Southampton and won eight England caps.

Retiring from the game in 2003, his passion for football continued and he joined Sky’s punditry panel shortly after hanging up his boots.

He recently came under the media spotlight for voicing his opinions on the coronavirus pandemic, saying people needed to look beyond the headlines, as well as wearing a Black Lives Matter badge on the show but disassociating with some of the intentions of the race equality campaign, namely the call to defund the police and its ‘anti-capitalist’ aims.