There’s some Marcus Rashford nonsense, some Trent Alexander-Arnold nonsense, some Arsenal striker nonsense and some Lionel Messi nonsense. You could check out all that nonsense, or you could go outside, couldn’t you? In the sunshine? You really could do that instead. Seriously.
Call and response
We’re not judging here. There is no football-adjacent online outlet in the land that hasn’t at one time sat scratching its head on the bleak second interlull Thursday and landed on ‘Something about Marcus Rashford?’ as the least worst available option for #content.
But just don’t take the p*ss, lads, yeah? Like the Mirror have here with yet another of those headlines where through sheeer bad luck they have sadly had no option but to cut off the crucial, tone-changing final few words.
Aston Villa issue response as Marcus Rashford informed he must make Man Utd return
The missing words in this case being ‘by Bryan Robson’ at the end there, rather than as is alas implied by what’s left anyone with the power or authority to tell Rashford he must do anything whatsoever.
Something Robson himself even acknowledged when he told Express Sport with betselect.co.uk his thoughts on the matter six entire days ago.
“[Whether he comes back] is the manager’s and Marcus’s decision. But for me, he’s got the talent, and you’ve got to get the best out of him.”
And that’s without even getting started on how you can even begin to justify calling Villa sporting director Monchi telling Radio Marca the following counts as a ‘response’ to anything Bryan Robson has been telling the Daily Express.
“Unai is a coach who has historically helped players grow.
“Coming here makes players better, and that’s our main selling point, beyond offering a project that’s fighting for the top eight in the Champions League, that wants to continue growing, and that wants to keep playing in Europe.”
The sun is shining, the international break is almost over, all is right with the world and Mediawatch is in a forgiving mood. So we will accept there is some pretty clear subtext going on there, but it’s still interesting to note a certain two words conspicuously absent from Monchi’s ‘public appeal to Rashford’ in ‘response’ to some quotes he is almost certainly unaware of – unless of course he’s an unusually keen follower of things former footballers have told Express Sport with betselect.co.uk.
Striker light
We noted Martin Keown having a guess about Arsenal having already signed a striker yesterday, but here’s why Mediawatch will never earn the big bucks. Because we saw that and laughed at the idea of crafting a story based solely on Martin Keown having a guess about something, while the Mirror churned out all these headlines instead.
Arsenal eye Alexander Isak alternative amid striker ‘already signed’ claims
Arsenal news: Martin Zubimendi transfer update as striker deal ‘already signed’
Mikel Arteta has ‘already signed a striker’ for Arsenal as transfer bombshell dropped
They know what they’re doing.
Dig for victory
Funny isn’t it, how the language of football has evolved to the point that certain words just go together and it just feels right. Derisory bids, toenail offsides, genuine pace, sliderule passes, crunching tackles.
And another for that list occurs whenever one player has a pop at another player, especially on social media. This is, by tabloid law, always known as a dig. But more specifically than that it must also be a ‘brutal dig’ no matter what the actual level of brutality present.
So you end up with this.
Lionel Messi aims brutal dig at Raphinha after foul-mouthed jibe backfired
Now we all enjoyed the Argentina-Brazil antics, and Mediawatch has no problem with wringing the last drops of content from it. Especially when the GOAT has got involved.
But what he actually said was this.
“In, out, I’ll follow this team anywhere. We always talk with our football. Congratulations on the great match last night and also for the victory against Uruguay.”
Oh, the brutality. It’s lucky it isn’t a brutal dig really, because if it were then ‘We always talk with our football’ would be a very funny thing for a brutal-digger ruled out of the football match through injury to have said.
Intro of the day
We know it’s the last knockings of the international break and news is slow, but The Sun are out here scraping right through the very bottom of the barrel.
RASMUS HOJLUND stocked up on milk as he returned from international duty.
That is literally the entire story. Rasmus Hojlund went to the shops and bought some milk.
Actually, no, that’s unfair of us. There are lots of other important angles to this huge breaking news. Hojlund also ‘appeared to be in good spirits as he popped out’ and even more importantly was ‘Wearing a navy blue T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans’.
Very wrong and very naughty of us to pretend there isn’t real and vital information here.
Bottoms up
Just bizarre stuff here from The Sun.
BROKEN ENGLISH: Liverpool would be BOTTOM of Premier League table for English stars’ playing time without Trent Alexander-Arnold
First of all, that isn’t how even hypothetical tables should work. They should still be broadly fair and apply their criteria – however bizarre – consistently and evenly, otherwise it’s (even more) meaningless.
This is really just an even weaker variation on that quiet-news-day staple where you take one player’s goal contributions out of one team’s season while a) not changing anything about anyone else’s season and b) pretending that player would have been replaced in the team by literally nobody at all, and then reacting with shock and horror when it turns out this would have made that team’s season look far shabbier than it has actually been.
But it’s also worse than that. Because even if we allow The Sun their daft little league table in which everyone else gets to include all their English players but Liverpool don’t get to include their highest-profile and most-used England player because reasons, the facts are by their own story’s admission these:
Take the right-back out of the team and the total falls to 2,101, only slightly more than the 2,075 that puts Wolves in 20th place.
That’s SECOND BOTTOM, guys.
MORE TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD ON F365
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