Gary Lineker leapt to Alan Shearer's defence after the pundit came under fire from Micah Richards following Saturday's Match of the Day.
Lineker revealed that the BBC is restricted by how many minutes of a Premier League match they can show on their highlights programme.
Saturday night's edition of Match of the Day lasted just 35 minutes.
That was because there were just two Premier League matches played on the day, with half of the teams in the league on their mini winter break.
Gary Lineker explained that Match of the Day can't show more than 12 minutes of a match
Getty
Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 5-0 in the early kick-off before Brentford beat Nottingham Forest 3-2 in the evening.
Lineker had a weekend off, with Alex Scott hosting and Shearer on punditry duty alongside former Wales captain Ashley Williams.
Some fans wanted to see longer highlights from the matches due to there being only two to choose from.
However, there was instead extended analysis of both games from Shearer and Williams.
One topic included Williams noticing an apparent secret signal from Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard.
Shearer joined Lineker and Richards on the latest edition of The Rest is Football podcast.
Richards poked fun at the Newcastle legend for the analysis.
The former Manchester City star joked: "Talk about overdoing it! You're talking about Odegaard with the socks!
"Talk about over-analysing a situation!"
Shearer replied: "We had two hours spare in the afternoon, we had to do something."
Lineker then defended Shearer by revealing that the pundits had to fill time due to a limitation placed on the BBC.
He claims the organisation can only show a maximum of 12 minutes from a single match.
Lineker said: "I'm not sure if people know this but you're only allowed a certain amount of time of each game.
"I think it's limited to something like a maximum of 12 minutes.
"Therefore whereas normally we would squeeze in six or eight games and condense our chatting into two or three minutes per game, when you've just got two games in 35 minutes you've got ten minutes or so to chat.
LATEST SPORTS NEWS:
Pundits were struggling for ideas for analysis on Match of the Day
BBC
"It's a contractual obligation - I think it's 12 minutes but I'll check that."
Williams and Shearer were short of ideas when analysing Arsenal's win as they attempted to fill their designated air time.
They reckon that Odegaard fiddles with his socks as he prepares to take a set-piece, in a signal to his team-mates.
Williams said: "There's always a trigger for what the movement's going to be.
"We can see they have worked on whether it's a front-post corner or a back-post corner.
The BBC pundits noticed a clue from Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard
Getty
"If you keep an eye on Odegaard, we feel - maybe we've had too much time on our hands - but we feel that maybe he's signalling something to the corner taker.
"He's in the same place for every corner and he's playing with his socks.
"There is synchronicity regarded whether they go to the front or the back. Every clip we see here he is doing the same thing where he's playing with his socks. It might be coincidence, yes.
"But it is a big coincidence that he's always there and always doing something with his sock."
