It’s advantage Spurs in north London with one Arsenal star ‘jealous’ and yet another ‘blow’ in the interminable Viktor Gyokeres saga.
Bitter rivals
One of the weirdest tropes of tabloid football journalism is the bizarre insistence on pretending that it’s impossible to imagine footballers at rival clubs being friends.
Even in today’s world of toxic fandom it makes no sense on any level. Nobody, for instance, expects Spurs fans to have no Arsenal-supporting friends. Because that would be nutty.
Yet the players themselves, with their obvious shared experiences and potential for similar lifestyles while living in similar locations and even – as in today’s example – being international team-mates, are expected to shun each other based purely on which team they play for.
It really doesn’t make any sense at all on any level, and today’s entry from The Sun is a notably odd one.
Inside jet-setting England star Dominic Solanke’s honeymoon with wife Erica that even Arsenal rival can’t help but like
It really shouldn’t need explaining to the actual adult who wrote that, but Arsenal players don’t automatically hate Spurs players. Apart from Jack Wilshere, and even that was mainly just Erik Lamela.
But this is also a rare case of the actual copy proving even weirder than the headline. Because when we get into it, Declan Rice – for it is he – is way beyond ‘can’t help but like’ Solanke’s happy news. He is in a jealous rage. Truly, north London is white and this proves it.
The incredible pictures even left one Arsenal rival jealous, with Declan Rice liking both posts.
Why’s he jealous? What on earth is that based on? Look we get that social media is toxic as all hell, so the passive-aggressive hate-like cannot be ruled out.
But on balance is it not perhaps slightly more likely that the 27-year-old Premier League footballer from England who’s based in London and the 26-year-old Premier League footballer who’s based in London just happen to be mates?
And even if football does colour absolutely everything about their existence, they were also in the same England squad less than four months ago. They are literally team-mates. But no, this must be another front in the North London Rivalry. Any doubt over whether Spurs or Arsenal had the better 24/25 season have now been put firmly to bed.
What Sup
Mediawatch is painfully aware of how carefully it must tread here lest our beautiful glass house be destroyed by all these massive great rocks we’re yeeting around, but we do always enjoy a chuckle at the self-indulgent way in which journalists cover stories about other journalists.
There is an entire absence of self-awareness here. Not so much a refusal to accept that normal people just don’t give a shiny sh*te but more an unwillingness even to consider the notion.
We saw it recently with the mournful tone in which the loss of ‘household names’ from Sky Sports News was reported. It’s sad when anyone loses their job, of course, but the idea that anyone outside this insular little world would care more about someone who reads out transfer rumours than, say, a steelworker is very odd.
Today brings happier news for journos talking about journos, though, with the revelation that Sky Sports are going to bring back Sunday Supplement five years after it was axed.
Mediawatch was very much of the view that the Supplement’s penchant for navel-gazing circle-jerkery meant it was far better suited to its more recent home as a podcast that we can cheerfully forget exists but no, apparently it is returning to our screens.
The collective shrug of the shoulders from the general public is matched by the cheers of excitement for the journo-class for whom this news knocks Gyokeres-to-Arsenal into a cocked hat.
Sky Sports bring back hugely-popular football show – just five years after it was axed from their schedule
That’s the Mail’s headline on a story given higher billing on its football homepage than the latest on Gyokeres or Harvey Elliott or Marcus Rashford. Mediawatch is, as ever, open to accusations of hypocrisy here but while yesterday we did reach something of a breaking point with transfer boosts and blows we do at least accept that people are interested in those updates.
Sky Sports ‘bring back iconic football show that ran for 20 years’ after it was axed in 2020
The Sun go with this, and are we just too cynical now about how headlines are used to deceive in believing there might be a deliberate attempt to hint that the returning show is Soccer AM rather than the Sunday Supplement? It does mean crediting tabloid journalists with a level of self-awareness that makes us slightly uncomfortable.
Blow over
Mediawatch dealt – at punishing, exhaustive and exhausting length – yesterday with the non-stop rollercoaster of transfer boosts and blows.
With today’s reports suggesting a pretty major breakthrough and increased likelihood of Viktor Gyokeres joining Arsenal and us all being able to get on with our lives without worrying about the multiple daily updates, this Daily Express report from yesterday afternoon has already aged like milk.
Man Utd and Arsenal suffer Viktor Gyokeres blow as Sporting ‘accept transfer bid’
Now ‘transfer rumour update that ages like milk’ is not something Mediawatch always bothers with – we’d never have time for anything else if we did. And we’d have to have a few uncomfortable conversations with colleagues.
So why single out this one? Because it is egregious ‘as’-based bollocks even by the standards of the day.
The transfer bid Sporting had accepted that represented such a blow to Man Utd and Arsenal hopes?
A £47m bid from Crystal Palace for Ousmane Diomande. Because:
The centre-back’s switch to Selhurst Park would relieve the pressure to sell star forward Gyokeres on the cheap.
What pressure? Sporting have never had any intention of selling Gyokeres ‘on the cheap’ and have two of the biggest clubs in England on the hook. But yes, this Diomande deal is a real blow.