Reel in shock as you spot which national newspaper leads their sports coverage with the clash between two teams who started the night in 15th and 18th…
Almighty choke, almighty nonsense
Cast your minds back a full seven days to The Sun‘s coverage of Liverpool’s draw with Aston Villa which left them only eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table.
‘SURELY they are not going to blow it. Or could Liverpool really mess this up?’ wrote Sun Football Editor Charlie Wyett, so giddy about what he had just witnessed that he wrote utter gibberish.
‘After this draw at Villa Park, and it was actually a real cracker, there will be a few worried Liverpool fans out there, fearing their team are about to deliver one almighty title choke.’
All the signs were there: They drew at Everton in the last Merseyside derby at Goodison Park and then drew at one of the best home sides in the Premier League. And lost at…well, nowhere since September against Nottingham Forest.
‘Whether Liverpool experience a bit of a blip or a full-scale disaster remains to be seen.’
Bombastic nonsense born of The Sun’s long-standing enmity towards Liverpool.
A whole seven days later Wyett is back on Liverpool report duty. Oddly, there is no talk of an ‘almighty title choke’ or ‘full-scale disaster’. But there is some nonsense:
‘With 10 games left, Liverpool have the cigars out so why don’t the Premier League get on with it and hand over the title now?’
Not really how it works, Charlie. Please make better attempts to hide your disappointment.
Five get over-excited
‘Liverpool “Fab Five” will fill the highlights reel of this season when Virgil van Dijk lifts the Premier League trophy in a couple of months,’ writes Mike McGrath in the Daily Telegraph, making Mediawatch stop dead in its tracks and wonder if this is A Thing before concluding: Is it f*** A Thing.
Liverpool have had a Fab Three (Salah, Mane, Firmino) and a Fab Four (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr), but let’s not pretend that Darwin Nunez is part of a Fab anything at all.
‘The firepower of Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez has helped establish their 13-point lead at the summit,’ writes McGrath, seemingly unaware that Nunez has scored just four Premier League goals this season.
‘Titles are not won with a sheer weight of goals. Van Dijk has had one of his best seasons, while Slot’s midfield trio have been the unsung heroes, coming together to dominate the central areas of the pitch with legs and possession. They are now adding goals too,’ writes McGrath, seemingly describing football to an eight-year-old; other players are important too, guys!
Pesky fact: Dominik Szoboszlai has exactly as many Premier League goals as Jota and more than Nunez.
It’s almost like the Fab Five isn’t A Thing.
Over at the Mirror, they tell us that ‘Liverpool WILL be champions as unsung heroes make Arsenal pay’. Listen, if you’re a football fan and you think Alexis Mac Allister is an ‘unsung hero’ then congratulations for you are eight and you have your whole life ahead of you…
Pointing fingers, naming things
The Mirror claim that ‘Mikel Arteta names one thing Arsenal lack after falling 13 points behind Liverpool’ while the Express say ‘Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta points finger as Liverpool title race all but over after draw’, but the truth is that Arteta was not remotely interesting in the wake of their 0-0 draw with Nottingham Forest.
“We dominated the game. We tried in many different ways. We insisted but lacked that spark, that final pass to unlock a well-organised team.”
Saying his team lacked a ‘spark’ and ‘that final pass’ is neither ‘naming one thing’ (basic maths, guys) nor ‘pointing the finger’. Sometimes quotes are boring. Sometimes quotes are anodyne.
Arsenal have no strikers so are a bit toothless. That is all.
Quote unquote
We clicked on this headline…
”Nuno just crushed Arsenal fans’ heart out of their chest’ – Martin Keown brutally silenced by Nottingham Forest boss’
…in The Sun, fully expecting the words in quote marks to have been typed frantically on X by an anonymous Arsenal fan – we know their usual games – so imagine our surprise to find the words in quote marks are not actually mentioned anywhere in the piece.
Indeed, Google tells us that the words ‘Nuno just crushed Arsenal fans’ heart out of their chest’ exist nowhere on the entire worldwide web than in the headline to this actual piece.
There’s scraping the barrel and then there’s licking it out with a mucky tongue…
