Chelsea will outright refuse to sell Martinez, whoever he is. And Fabrizio Romano versus Luke Edwards is dreadfully depressing fare.
You won’t find David Ornstein frantically searching back through someone’s timeline for a four-year-old Newcastle tweet.
But first, some England guff.
Pledge your bets
It’s been less than a week since everyone just decided to pretend that Thomas Tuchel promised to sing the national anthem if England reached the World Cup final.
The Sun, for example, heard Tuchel say “I think we are not there yet. At the very end maybe. I am still a bit shy. I don’t want to offend people and don’t want to have the focus on that now,” and translated that to ‘Thomas Tuchel has vowed to sing the national anthem if the Three Lions reach the World Cup final’.
With a few days having since passed, have we all calmed down? Have we f***. Nick Parker and Charlie Wyett double down in The Sun:
‘Bavarian-born Tuchel opts not to sing England’s national anthem when the teams line up before games – but has pledged to join in God Save The King if we reach the final.’
It just isn’t what he said, is it? But you can bet your arse that if England reach the final on July 19 and Tuchel breaks a ‘pledge’ he never made, there will be calls for his head even if they win the sodding World Cup.
Enzo the earth
Jeremy Cross appears to have professionally lost his mind for the Daily Mirror.
On Enzo Fernandez, decent enough against Austria but probably not the story from Argentina’s win, he writes:
‘Fernandez can be perpetual motion when he wants to be. He can also be petulant as well. As Chelsea have found out at times. A Chelsea club which will attempt to foot its foot down and stop Martinez from leaving Stamford Bridge.’
Definitely looking forward to a Chelsea club attempting to foot its foot down over Martinez. Also looking forward to finding out who Martinez is. And how exactly a foot is footed down.
With Cross having already tied himself in knots over Elliot Anderson’s valuation, you fear for him, you really do.
Brutal honesty
John Cross is on top form for the Daily Mirror as ever. But he needs to have a word with whoever writes his headlines for the website.
A story based on quotes from Tuchel pointing out that “the best thing is to be calm and focused and in good spirits within the group to be ready to face adversity,” and that “it always can change in an instant, you’re always just one red card away from a completely new situation,” becomes…
‘Thomas Tuchel sends brutal warning to England stars as FIFA rule change takes effect’
Bloody hell, Thomas. The players have enough on their plates with the Ghana game on Tuesday night without your ‘brutal warning’ that red cards exist.
Norway out
The award for the most MailOnline headline of the day, and possibly ever, goes to…
‘Martin Odegaard and Erling Haaland lead Norway in incredible anti-woke Viking Row celebration after cruising into World Cup knock-outs
No-one knows what it means, but it’s provocative.
Soft Tuch
And the award for least surprising headline of the day, and possibly ever, goes to The Sun website for this:
‘Frank Lampard backed by uncle Harry Redknapp as ‘fantastic’ future England boss and questions ‘stupid’ Tuchel contract’
Textbook.
Not sure Redknapp should be calling anything to do with Tuchel “stupid” either. Wonder if he still think he’s “a German spy” “sent over to f*** us up”?
Here we go
The big story of the day is, of course, Fabrizio Romano and Luke Edwards making varying degrees of fool out of each other, themselves and their industry as a whole.
It started with Romano’s reporting of Julian Alvarez’s statement confirming his desire to leave Atletico Madrid. Then in steamed self-appointed actual journalism protector Edwards with this mini-rant…
…before Romano handed in his (admittedly very funny and fair) receipts…
…and Edwards replied with a(n admittedly very funny and fair) dig of his own:
It’s an argument in which everyone comes off brilliantly, we’re sure you’ll agree.
Good of Edwards to confirm he basically just reports whatever Newcastle tell him, obviously making it ‘simple for simpletons’ along the way, while finding a four-year-old tweet to back him up.
And great of Romano to just completely sidestep the legitimate point that was made about how he conducts himself in the media, and the absurd influence he somehow commands over the transfer market.
In conclusion, if these are among the bastions of football reporting then we are in trouble. It’s difficult to imagine David Ornstein debasing himself by point-scoring for likes on social media, isn’t it?
Instruction Manuel
A couple of notes on this Manchester Evening News headline:
‘Manchester United’s World Cup transfer masterplan could be in tatters’
Can something ever be described as a ‘masterplan’ if it is left ‘in tatters’ after a week and a bit?
Can hoping Manuel Ugarte boosts his value by playing football matches ever be described as a ‘masterplan’?
Manchester United have a few ‘transfer tricks’ to learn from Liverpool before we can start pretending they’ve cracked it.
Admission impossible
‘Nico O’Reilly admits he loves his reputation as a big game player’ – John Cross, Daily Mirror.
Is…is he supposed to not like being really good in big games?
Aha!
All the time in the world for this Sun website picture caption in a story about the second half to France v Iraq being delayed by a couple of hours:
‘Fans tuning in for Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa were left disappointed’
Our thoughts are with the millions who planned to stay up until 12:30am on a Tuesday morning to watch a Partridge re-run.