Leading article: This is the moment for Alan Hansen to up his game

Alan Hansen is as efficient and as imperious a performer on the Match of the Day sofa as he was when he bestrode the field for Liverpool and Scotland in the 1980s. Steely, emphatic, possessing a distinct air of menace, he is the pundit whose right to pronounce on footballers' failings – and when Hansen is speaking, failings are generally what we hear about – has gone largely unquestioned.

The revelation, however, that his utterances work out at £40,000 per MoTD appearance come as quite a shock. In 20 years of scornful appraisal, Hansen has only really bequeathed posterity one catchphrase – his rapidly disproved pronouncement that "you'll never win anything with kids". That was all of 16 years ago, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the BBC doling out such largesse to its big names, isn't it time Hansen gave us one or two more lines to remember him by?