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| Engaging AND Perceptive As you know, ESPN broadcast their first live Premier League game on Saturday, striking gold with Arsenal's boning of Everton. And their coverage was, you know, okay. It was all right. Passable. However, The Daily Mirror's Darren Lewis was rather more fulsome in his praise for their coverage, in particular the chaps in the studio. 'The chummy Ray Stubbs eased us in with his bloke-ish charm while his pundits - Everton and Arsenal legends Peter Reid and Ian Wright - were engaging and perceptive.' Whoa, let us just stop you there Darren - engaging AND perceptive? This would be the same Wright who referred to "us", "we" and "our" throughout when discussing Arsenal, reasoned that Thomas Vermaelen would be "half-decent" purely on the basis that Arsene Wenger had bought him (Igor Stepanovs? Abou Diaby? Amaury Bischoff?) and cleverly picked out Robin van Persie as their man to watch, commenting he "should really be stamping his mark on games". Perceptive indeed. Influential Incidentally, Mr Lewis was recently named as one of the 30 most influential black people in football. The list, compiled by The Voice newspaper, while commendably lauding the work of campaigners like chairman of 'Kick It Out' Lord Ouseley, was split into six categories, including 'Media' (which funnily enough featured The Voice's sports editor), 'Administration' and 'Commercial'. Depressingly, they could find no room for 'Players', with Rio Ferdinand making the list under the 'Commercial' banner. Wrong Ground Mediawatch has always wondered if Shaun Custis has been watching the same game as everybody else, if some of his match reports for The Sun are anything to go by. And we might have discovered why. According to his byline in today's paper, instead of shuffling across London to watch Chelsea beat Hull, he went all the way up to the KC Stadium to see the game. It explains an awful lot. A Few Days Late... In all the excitement about the impending new season on Friday, we clean forgot to have a look at the season's first exciting preview by Mark Lawrenson. Don't worry though, he came up with a belter to kick the season off in fine style. On Wolves, he commented: 'In Mick McCarthy, they have a manager who knows what it takes to stay in the Premier League.' Hmmm. If Mick does know, he's keeping it to himself, as in his only previous full season in the top flight with Sunderland, McCarthy finished stone bottom with 15 points The Frozen North The Daily Mirror are clearly happy with Stan Collymore. So happy in fact, that they've promoted his weekly column from a half to a full page in their Monday morning 'Mania' pull-out. It's not entirely clear why though. Stan fills his few hundred words with some impressive bulls**t, explaining exactly why Arsenal won't win the league with the following oft-repeated myth: 'They have the qualities to genuinely beat any football team on the planet by that margin, whether it is a club side or national team. 'But you just know come November and December on a cold night up north they are liable to succumb to defeat away from home.' Last season Arsenal lost as many games in their balmy home stadium as they did in the snowy tundra otherwise known as 'The North', intrepid excursions that also included results such as a 4-0 win over Blackburn, 3-1 win over Hull, a 3-1 win over Newcastle, a 0-0 draw against Manchester United, a 4-4 draw with Liverpool and a 3-1 win against Bolton. Linked From F365's 'Big Season For...Part 2' posted on August 14: 'The good news for Gordon is that Steve Bruce seems to have some amount of confidence in him. He has neither signed another keeper nor been significantly linked with one, which either means he has faith in Gordon, or reckons Martin Fulop is a perfectly convincing alternative.' From F365's Gossip Column on August 14: 'Sunderland boss Steve Bruce is after Portsmouth duo David James and Sylvain Distin and is also chasing Lucas Neill.' The Big Announcement "I have made up my mind, I want to leave. It will be Real or nothing. I am waiting to see how things will evolve. Then, I would like to have a talk with Bayern's hierarchy" - Franck Ribery, July 2. "I never said I wanted to go to Real Madrid. If I had wanted to leave, I would have made an announcement. What bothers me is that I have never spoken about it. I cannot stop clubs making offers. It was not just Real - there was also Barcelona, Manchester (United) and Chelsea. What I can tell them is that today I am still at Bayern. The door was well and truly closed" - Franck Ribery, August 16. Doom/Gloom You'll probably have spotted over the weekend that David Beckham was sent off in a questionable decision while playing for the LA Galaxy. 'Things not getting any better for Beckham' droned Sky Sports News on Sunday, giving the impression that Beckham and the Galaxy have been lurching from one calamity to another. Hmmm. Not quite. The loss to Seattle on Saturday was the first time LA had lost in seven league games, just their fourth defeat so far this season (from 21 games) and they currently sit in third place in the 'Western Standings'. Misleading Headline Of The Day 'Kenyan renews Chelsea goat offer'- The BBC Website. Misspelled, but we got excited for a second. Quote Of The Day "When you throw yourself into that kind of tackle there's a chance you're going to get sent off. He's been in enough rodeos to know that" - LA coach Bruce Arena reacts to Beckham's red in baffling fashion. Sage Appraisal Of The Day "It will be a case of one of the big four dropping out" - David Platt earns his money when discussing the possibility of Manchester City disrupting the top boys. Homo-Erotic Report Of The Weekend 'Rodallega was beyond doubt the star of the show, tall, broad-shouldered with pipe-thin legs; but what legs!' - From Brian Glanville's report of the Villa v Wigan game in The Sunday Times. Non-Football Secret Keepers Of The Weekend 'This selection panel is watertight with its information, and the only leaks yesterday related to the lunch order: cheese sarnies and wedges with salsa dip' reported The Times on Saturday of the meeting of the England cricket selectors. Watertight indeed. Which is presumably why both The BBC and The Guardian knew the correct squad 24 hours before it was announced on Sunday morning. Non-Football Story Of The Day 'Religious leaders in India are baffled by a bizarre new transvestite cult for men to live as a Hindu love god. Thousands of devotees are now dressing up as Radha - the goddess lover of Krishna - like retired railwayman V K Saxena, 72. "I can't put it into words properly but I feel more holy dressed as a woman," said Saxena of New Delhi. The Lord told me he wanted me as his bride." But the cult has astonished traditional religious leaders. Senior priest Mohammad Ahangar said: "There are many ways to be closer to the Lord without trying to be his girlfriend" - Ananova. |
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| Slight Difference Of Opinion - Part One "I have apologised to Robin van Persie" - Emmanuel Adebayor. "I have not received an apology from him, there were no words exchanged afterwards" - Robin van Persie. Douchebaggery While some may have gone a little overboard about Adebayor's 90-yard dash, they were undoubtedly the actions of a douchebag. "I didn't plan it, not at all," bleated your man in The Sun this Monday morning. Really? An interesting statement, given that he also said after the game: "Before the game, people have been saying and writing things and the emotions took over." In any case, what were people saying before the game? Maybe he was referring to these quotes, doing the rounds on Saturday morning: "What is good at City is the fans. They love you. Arsenal have a lot of fans who are not fans. Arsenal have fans from America and Jamaica. Today they are Arsenal fans, tomorrow they will be Liverpool fans, after tomorrow they will be Manchester United fans. "If you boo your player every weekend, I am very sorry, you are not true fans. It hurt me a lot. That was the most difficult moment of my career." Or maybe these ones, which appeared in The Daily Mirror on Saturday: "Their hate for me is the thing that will stay in my heard, not until the end of my career, but until the end of my life." You probably don't need us to tell you who spake those words. Slight Difference Of Opinion - Part Two "Emmanuel Adebayor sustained a tremendous amount of personal abuse from the kick-off but strongly maintains that there was no malice intended in the challenge on Robin van Persie and apologised to him when he hugged him on leaving the field of play at the end of the game" - Mark Hughes. 'Van Persie hit a post before studiously ignoring Adebayor at the final whistle' - Match report from The Guardian. Pretty Unimpressed You may have spotted that FA grand fromage Ian Watmore had a word or two to say about Adebayor's celebration at the weekend. Watmore went on BBC Radio 5Live's Sportsweek programme to say: "I was pretty unimpressed really because the problems between the Arsenal fans and Adebayor are well documented, and he ran the whole length of the field to celebrate, so I think we're going to have a good close look at that one on Monday when we see it properly in the cold light of day. "Our governance team will take a good look at both of the incidents that have been highlighted and will come to the media with the answers early next week." Mediawatch was slightly surprised to see a man of such influence publicly commenting on the incident when his organisation will be investigating the whole hoopla this week. Of course, his eagerness to condemn Adebayor has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is a confirmed Arsenal fan. Slight Difference Of Opinion - Part Three "The referee had a great view of the challenge from Ade and the one that preceded it by Van Persie and deemed at the time that neither were worthy of either a yellow or red card" - Mark Hughes. 'Although Clattenburg gave Adebayor a yellow card for his goal celebration, he is set to confirm he did not see the incident involving Van Persie' - Match report in The Daily Mail. Arresting Behaviour Having said that, for anyone p**sing their pants too much about Adebayor's disgraceful conduct, Mediawatch would simply like to point out that - as far as we're aware - it wasn't the City striker who throw the bottle that struck a steward on the head and drew blood. Also, it should be noted that while six people were arrested at the City of Manchester Stadium, 14 were arrested at the Birmingham v Aston Villa game. Gaby Agbonlahor will be grateful that Adebayor is even more of a plank than him, otherwise he might be getting a little more heat for the fingers-on-the-lips shushing gesture - a picture of which adorns the back page of The Daily Mirror - he made after his goal in the Birmingham derby. Taunting And Goading While Adebayor was certainly pretty excitable on Saturday, The Sun make a terrible mess of their trousers with their 'EXCLUSIVE!' quotes from Adebayor. 'I'm Not Scared...Adebayor taunts Gunners again' barks their back-page headline. 'Emmanuel Adebayor goaded Arsenal fans again last night by saying: I can't wait to see you at the Emirates,' splurts the intro. Actual quotes from Adebayor: "I can go and play at the Emirates for the return game, why not? I play for Manchester City and if they want me to go and play, I will play." So 'man says he'll probably do his job in a few months' time'. Quite the taunt. Stanley Victor's Phoned-In Bulls**t For those that doubt Stan Collymore's promising punditry start has descended to the mindless, inconsistent, phoned-in bollocks we originally expected needs only to be pointed towards The Daily Mirror website this morning. Collymore writes under the headline, 'Gareth Barry is the key to World Cup victory for England': 'Congratulations to Fabio Capello for guiding England to the World Cup finals in South Africa with tread to spare. 'But when the euphoria of a fantastic 5-1 win against Croatia settles down, and Capello assembles the jigsaw which will hopefully lead to glory next July, I believe the essential ingredient in his recipe for success will be Gareth Barry. 'Not John Terry, not Wayne Rooney, nor Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. Barry is the man who makes this England team tick. When he first broke into the England set-up, a lot of people thought Barry was probably just a short-term fix covering for injuries and suspensions - but he has become indispensable because he is the man who gives Lampard and Gerrard the licence to play.' Not so ludicrous, you may quite reasonably say. However, this is the same Stanley Victor Collymore who wrote a mere seven days ago that Barry should be moved from the position that 'makes this England team tick' and 'gives Lampard and Gerrard the license to play', and that another man was England's most important performer. 'England seem to be wasting some of their most creative, attacking influences as playing Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard as defensive midfielders really bothers me...Barry's sweet left foot is vital for clever passes in and around the opposition box as well as delivering a good cross from the left... 'I would play 4-1-4-1 with King in the holding midfield role, Aaron Lennon on right, Barry on the left and Gerrard and Lampard bombing forward taking it in turns to play off Wayne Rooney. 'And I would tell Manchester United hot-head Rooney at the start of the tournament to watch his behaviour. He is our most important player and we cannot afford to see him suspended for matches by getting frustrated upfront on his own and reacting.' You'll note that we specifically mentioned the Mirror website, and that's because it seems the Mirror sub-editors have spotted that their man is churning out an extraordinary amount of bulls**t and didn't actually include this piece in the paper. Rumour Of The Day 'A classic exchange took place on an Edinburgh-Heathrow flight between Sky Sports News presenter Jim White and Rod Stewart's daughter Kimberly, who was sitting next to him. When Kimberly said that her father was a keen Scottish football fan, White, who was unaware of her identity, replied that he was covering the game against Macedonia and her dad was sure to know him because he was famous. Kimberly responded that her father was quite famous, too - cue total embarrassment from White when told his name' - The Daily Mail. This anecdote is made all the funnier when one imagines White shouting at Ms Stewart, as he does when barking out the 'BREAKING NEWS' on SSN. Non-Football Story Of The Day 'A French teenager who was enjoying a deep sleep between rail tracks escaped injury when a high-speed train passed over him. Police said that the driver of the TGV train between Paris and Quimper in Brittany noticed the 19-year-old man lying stretched out on his stomach between the rails as the train approached him close to the western town of Vannes. But the train was moving too fast to stop and continued for a further 900 yards before finally halting after it had passed right over the man. The driver left the train and checked out the teenager, who he found to be unhurt. But the man could not be woken and was taken by firemen to hospital in Vannes. Police said they hoped for an explanation about what happened when the young man regains consciousness. The teenager who is from the area had a ticket in his pocket for a music festival which finished in the early hours on Sunday' - The Daily Telegraph. |
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| I imagine that if I ever do want to find out what Ian Wright thinks about a particular topic, all I would have to do is hit myself around the head a few times, and either the urge would go away, or I'd be suitably deranged to deliver the apropos. |