Laying it on a little thick
‘IT WAS not easy for Wayne Rooney to talk, on the defining day of his career. The day everybody will remember what they were doing when they heard England’s captain had been axed’ – Neil Ashton, The Sun.
It’s like JFK being shot and landing on the moon all in one. Although Mediawatch is struggling to remember where we were and it was only yesterday.
England’s brave lion
Mediawatch was impressed that Wayne Rooney asked to attend the press conference after being dropped by Gareth Southgate, but it isn’t particularly hard to see why he would want to get his message across on Tuesday’s back pages.
What Mediawatch doesn’t believe is that Rooney is some brave soldier. It was an intelligent PR move.
So we feel for the Daily Mail’s Matt Lawton, who wrote a perfectly reasonable column about the logic of Rooney’s place on the bench but also applauded him in passing for asking to attend the press conference.
The headline to Lawton’s piece?
‘Dignity in his darkest hour: Rooney has courage to face music.’
Sheesh, nobody died…
Cutts your losses
Mediawatch was intrigued to see another Daniel Cutts ‘exclusive’ sitting prominently on The Sun’s football homepage on Tuesday morning.
These exclusives have gained some notoriety in our circles (okay, it’s just us, drinking alone) because they are splashed front and centre of the website, but never make the newspaper. That seems odd; surely news is news?
Today is no exception:
‘Exclusive – Karamoko Dembele: Manchester City target transfer swoop for Celtic 13-year-old sensation to add to their academy ranks.’
Now Mediawatch appreciates that things can change __with transfers, making those __with information sometimes unfairly look a bit foolish. It is one of the realities of the industry, but the cream will still rise to the crop. There are journalists who work on identifying relationships with credible sources, and thus get accurate information.
It’s just that we’re having a bit of trouble with Cutts. Here is a selection of exclusives, taken solely from the last transfer window:
On June 13, we were told exclusively that Manchester City would miss out on Oleksandr Zinchenko in order to get Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. Zinchenko signed less than two weeks later.
On July 4, we were told exclusively that Arsene Wenger had held talks with Alexandre Lacazette and Romelu Lukaku.
On July 4, we were told exclusively that Aleksandar Kolarov would leave Manchester City for Besiktas later that week. He has yet to do so.
On July 6, we were told exclusively that Manchester City would bid £60m for Toni Kroos and that the player wanted the move.
On July 10, we were told exclusively that Bacary Sagna would retire from France the next day. He has yet to do so.
On July 12, we were told exclusively that Andreas Pereira was joining Leicester.
On July 14, we were told exclusively that Bastian Schweinsteiger was joining Paris St Germain.
On July 18, we were told exclusively that Arsenal were in for a double swoop for Manchester City’s Jason Denayer and Borussia Dortmund’s Matthias Ginter.
On July 23, we were told exclusively that David Moyes would raid former club Manchester United for striker Will Keane.
On August 7, we were told exclusively that Pep Guardiola would replace Joe Hart with Marc-Andre Ter Stegen.
All exclusively wrong.
Sale of the century
Wonderful non-sequitur work from Charlie Sale in his Daily Mail column on Tuesday.
‘Irritant football pundit Stan Collymore has been active on Twitter boasting about berating your Sports Agenda columnist in front of 15 colleagues ‘for transparency’ reasons in the Wembley press room about Saturday’s item on his acrimonious departure from talkSPORT,’ Sale begins.
For those unaware, Collymore responded on Saturday to Sale’s own column in which he accused the former talkSPORT employee of several things that prompted his departure from the organisation. Mediawatch is no huge fan of Collymore, but his response consisted of several tweets directed to Sale in which he picked apart each of the accusations in that column, explicitly calling him a liar.
Later on Saturday, after many Twitter users had asked Collymore what he was referring to, he explained that he had called out Sale in front of his colleagues at Wembley before England’s game against Malta.
Sale continues:
‘This is the same Collymore who blocks his critics – including myself and a number of talkSPORT staff -from reading his tweets.’ And there the piece ends.
As responses to being accused of lying about a man’s professional reputation go, ‘Yeah, well he blocked me on Twitter, so…’ is on the weak side.
One-man army
‘Dragons in a fox hole!’ reads The Sun’s headline on Phil Cadden’s Wales piece, but it was the tagline that most caught Mediawatch’s attention: ‘Bale’s 2nd season struggle’.
That seems a little harsh, given that Bale has scored three goals in Wales’ three qualifiers so far, and has three goals for Real Madrid too.
We were also a little confused as to what ‘2nd season’ meant in relation to Bale. This is his fourth season in Spain and his tenth as an international?
The article actually explains that it is Wales who are struggling to live up to the hype after Euro 2016, although Ben Davies believes they will respond. Nothing more, nothing less. Davies doesn’t even mention Bale. Cadden himself only does once, referring to him scoring on Sunday.
Which all begs the question: Are Wales and Bale now just synonyms?
Don’t just transcribe everything he says
From Charlie Nicholas’ international predictions on Skysports.com:
‘There’s this issue with Wayne Rooney, but what are the specifics of it? Are people are suggesting if he doesn’t play No. 10 then he doesn’t play? Dele Alli has clearly been picked to play somewhere else? There seems to be (a) personal agenda against Rooney.’
Mediawatch has read this paragraph four times and can’t make it make sense – there are just too many question marks. To answer Nicholas’ question, the ‘specifics’ of the argument are that people don’t think Wayne Rooney is good enough to get into the England team, and nor does Gareth Southgate. It’s quite easy, really.
‘This is one of those games where you’ll create a few chances, take one and leave with the points,’ Nicholas continues with an odd amount of certainty; it’s a given. Mediawatch is tempted to presume that Nicholas doesn’t know all that much about Slovenia’s players, but we’re in a good mood.
‘But if Southgate is bold enough to stick with the forwards that he picked against a Malta then I think they’ll win by more than goal and actually get more of a cut through with Theo Walcott’s pace away if it’s more of an open game.’
It’s an incredible sentence, we hope you agree. ‘Against a Malta’ and ‘more than goal’ are amusing, but unfortunate; ‘actually get more of a cut through with Theo Walcott’s pace away’ is exceptional. When does Nicholas actually breathe?
As ever, we know what he’s trying to say. It’s just that writing it down word-for-word isn’t going do him any favours.
No really, please don’t
‘Well I know they did well there last time they met there’s less pressure on the Germans this time’ – Charlie Nicholas.
You’re really not helping him out here.
To Hull and back
From the BBC Sport gossip column:
‘Meanwhile, Championship side Hull are ready to make forward Abel Hernandez, 26, the highest earner at the club in bid to ward off January suitors.’
So easily forgotten.
Question of the day
POLL – After Gareth Bale revealed his long flowing locks during yesterday’s game against Georgia, should men have long hair?
— talkSPORTDrive (@talkSPORTDrive) October 10, 2016
You’ll be shocked to learn that the type of person who votes on an Adrian Durham poll believes that no, a man should not have long hair.
‘Long hair looks feminine on men, short hair masculine on women. F*ck all the gender neutral bullsh*t. #truth,’ as @truthhurts11299 so eloquently replied.
Worst headline of the day
‘BROOTAL’ – The Sun.
Having the ‘ROO’ in red doesn’t help.
Five more ridiculous headlines from far more successful sites
‘Agent Pogba: Man Utd fans get excited as star is snapped with TWO top targets’ – Metro.
Alternative headline: ‘Pogba photographed with French teammates in dressing room after international match’.
‘Watch: Man Utd outcast Depay destroys Arsenal target to remind Mourinho of his talent’ – Metro.
Depay performed a relatively simple turn on Monaco’s Djibril Sidibe.
‘Former Aston Villa manager discusses shock return but tips this man for the job’ – Daily Express.
It’s Paul Lambert on Steve Bruce. Can you even imagine anything more dull?
‘Manchester United midfielder makes unexpected return to former club’ – Daily Express.
Juan Mata went to watch Real Oviedo play. This sh*t is laughable.
‘Paul Pogba danced on a plane while Memphis Depay rejected croissants as the Manchester United duo prepared to meet in Holland vs France showdown’ – MailOnline.
Truly the headline of our time.
Recommended reading of the day
Mark Ogden on Blackburn Rovers.
Ed Aarons on Deportivo Maldonado.
Rory Smith with Charles Porter.