Lurk behind the scenes for long enough and one thing quickly becomes clear: Monday Night Football is Gary Neville’s world and everyone else involved just lives in it. The four-hour Sky Sports football marathon is ostensibly a live three-hander between Neville, fellow pundit Jamie Carragher and the presenter Ed Chamberlin, backed by a 30-strong on-site support staff. Over the course of several hours watching them plan, rehearse and broadcast, it becomes abundantly clear that Neville is something of a control freak whose enthusiasm and quest for perfection borders on the endearingly psychotic. If everybody was as fastidious about their work as Neville, the world would be a far more efficient place.

Quite what the MNF producer Scott Melvin and the director Duncan East, whose job it is to control this control-freakery, make of this is unclear. Consummate pros, they seem content to let the former Manchester United full-back’s remit extend to floor-managing, cue-delivery, stage direction and assorted other aspects of the production process and merely roll their eyes good-humouredly at the occasional mini bouts of petulance that ensue when things do not go his way.

Jack Hazzard, the clips guy: “We can’t change the order of the clips, Gary. Not now.”

Gary Neville: “But you’ve got half an hour.”

Jack: [Sighs] “We’ll see what we can do.”

Neville’s perfectionism is matched by that of Carragher, who seems equally determined to get things just so, albeit in a more relaxed fashion. In afternoon rehearsals for their season debut – four hours of detailed analysis interrupted by a match between Chelsea and Burnley – the pair stand at their respective video plinths, sonic screwdrivers in hand, refining a discussion on the excruciating minutiae of wing-back play that began via a series of text messages the previous Saturday afternoon. The five-man defences deployed by Manchester United, QPR and Hull last weekend are being discussed and the veteran Clint Hill is one of few players under the microscope to emerge with anything resembling credit. Neville bemoans the paucity of decent left-sided centre-backs in the transfer market.

Neville: “Name two or three left-sided centre-backs Manchester United can try to get.”

Carragher: “Ehhh ...”

Neville: “OK, name one.”

Carragher: “Clint Hill?”

On stage and in the production gallery, all present dissolve into fits of laughter. With the aid of damning video evidence unearthed by the put-upon Jack, the pair proceed to savage each other’s dire performances in the five-man defence England fielded in defeat against Croatia in 2006. “It’s simply the best example we’ve got of players not being able to do the job they’re given,” Chamberlin deadpans, prompting more laughter. It’s late afternoon and the troops have been assembled at Sky HQ since 9am for a long day that will not conclude until 10.55pm.

“There’s no other thing that we do that tests us like this show, technically and in terms of pressure,” says Neville, who appeared alone with Chamberlin for two seasons until being joined by Carragher 12 months ago. “The first hour is pressure, then after that you’re reacting to live things that happen during the game. I always remember once after a match at Fulham with Arsène Wenger, where he said afterwards that his team should have had a penalty. We didn’t know what he was talking about, so all of a sudden we had the lads in the back frantically looking for this penalty Arsenal should apparently have had that we’d not even seen.”

Carragher takes up the cudgels: “We try to have a theme in every show,” he explains. “What’s our thing this week? Three at the back. Next week? Who knows what it will be because we don’t know what’s going to come up or what might happen. We discuss what we’ve seen the other shows do as well, because you can’t copy them. You’ve got to do something different.”

Obsessive attention to detail is the duo’s unique selling point, with each citing the other’s ability to spot the small but significant nuances that can turn a game as the trait they most admire. Their passion for what they do is evidently boundless, which pleases Chamberlin no end. “I love their enthusiasm for the show, but what I have enjoyed doing with them is getting across to viewers what they’re really like: good fun. They love the show clearly and they really want to get it right. Trust is a big thing in what we do. They’re quite easy guys to steer, really, because they’re full of ideas and full of talk, but they listen to me as well.”

Ten minutes before broadcast and the production gallery is a hive of urgent activity. The teams have arrived at Turf Moor and footage of their respective walks from coach to dressing room is being edited for broadcast: “We need Courtois. Get an external shot of Costa.” Rather than walk in single file, Burnley’s players have congregated en masse to sign a football for somebody, which causes all manner of havoc. Little details. The team sheets come in and graphics are prepared accordingly. Sky’s touchline interloper, Geoff Shreeves, has interviewed both managers and these interrogations are whittled into shape.

In the studio, Chamberlin, Neville and Carragher are suited and booted, having returned from their customary pre-show constitutional around the perimeter of the Sky Sports car park. Earlier, Neville had got wind of a statistic which revealed the Burnley right-back Kieran Trippier had provided eight assists for the striker Danny Ings in the Championship last season. “Jack, create a graphic of the Ings-Trippier goals-assists, like the one we did with Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll a few seasons ago,” he ordered. Jack obliges, but now Neville’s wondering if he’ll have time to use it.

Show-time at 7pm. Chamberlin delivers his opening line: “New era, new system, same old story at Old Trafford.” In the production gallery, director East issues a steady flow of instructions with calm assurance: “Listening. Stand by to come back to C next. Coming back to C. Chelsea wipe again. Cue on Ed. Straight to the graphic, Ed. Animate. De-animate. Stand by X.”

Everything seems to be going smoothly, which suggests that in somebody’s ear all these instructions must make sense. With the constant distraction of director and producer-babble in his earpiece, Chamberlin moves behind the desk to join his colleagues. Stepping, in his own words “into the Formula One car to try to steer the boys where we need to go”.

“The first hour of the show is the show,” Carragher had previously explained and in that opening 60 minutes Chamberlin takes the boys to Loftus Road and Old Trafford, via Turin, Zagreb and Amsterdam, before pitching up at Turf Moor. Watching Neville and Carragher watch football is an education. Their favourite toy is boot-room cam, a camera providing a view of the entire pitch so they can monitor the whereabouts of all 22 players at all times. “The viewer wants to see where the ball is and what’s going on around it, so we watch it differently,” Neville says.

Burnley’s welcome back to the Premier League ends in encouraging defeat, while Monday Night Football ends an hour later with no obvious ricks or gaffes. “We’re happy with that,” reports Neville. “I think your first one of the season, you’re just getting back into it because next week we’ve got Man City against Liverpool and that’s big. Everyone will be watching that.”

Chamberlin decides the show was “a bit rusty, but it was fine”, a view with which Neville concurs. “Yeah, we were a bit rusty, but you’re going to expect that after four months away or whatever it was.”

In his quest for improvement, Carragher has one final suggestion: “Let’s get a pint,” he says. “I need a bevvie after that.”