Football journalism

bascombe at it again with another spiteful little club pr job masquerading as an 'article' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/12138423/Daniel-Sturridge-is-exhausting-Liverpools-patience-and-his-absence-is-killing-the-team.html

especially enjoyed how he brings up the idea that sturridge decides whether to play or not depending on what God tells him, then dismisses this as far fetched, then suggests it's probably true anyway

Again, there is no suggestion Sturridge believes he has a direct line to the Almighty determining whether he should put his body on the line, but it must be tough to change a player’s mind on his fitness 24 hours before a game if he thinks his creator is sending him a message his destiny is to watch from the executive box.

also thinks the player should feel guilty for being injured and costing rodgers his job.

the latest example of Jurgen Klopp heading into a gunfight against one of the quickest draws in the west armed with only a pocket knife.

Liverpool’s attackers play like they’re being guided by a faulty sat-nav

It’s rather like waiting for Superman to come to the rescue, only to realise he is incapable of getting out of the phone box.

discussing the prolonged absenteeism of the England striker often feels like ballet dancing on eggshells.

as if a room of Harvard professors have convened to ensure each full-stop is in the right place for fear of misinterpretation or litigation.

ikr?

just risible

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03189/chris-bascombe_3189184j.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbVcAsdUEAA5KnM.jpg

Now we're talking. Back when an opening para was an opening para.

an attempt at trolling so transparent and moronic that they couldn't even find a journalist to put their name to it http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/players/zlatan-ibrahimovic/12162472/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic-would-flop-at-Man-Utd-heres-why.html

Distance covered per game - Premier League 2015/16

Interesting table. Seems to demonstrate that running around a lot makes no difference to your league position.

Hugh Mcilvanney retires. His writing on football and boxing is among the greatest sports journalism I've ever read (he also wrote on horse racing but I think it's vile and stupid so I haven't read much of it).

Can't fucking wait till "Gary Neville's Valencia" becomes "Valencia" again.

there's a crowdfunder for a Scottish equivalent of the blizzard that has just about reached it's 10,000 pound target : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1406994286/nutmeg-the-scottish-football-periodical
some decent names on there. but also bill leckie.
and the sample articles are not that promising.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3519872/Marcos-Rojo-pays-visit-Post-Office-defender-deliver-Manchester-United-Argentina-smoking-storm.html

really liked sid lowe's interview with Monchi https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/17/sevilla-monchi-liverpool-europa-league-final

"Negotiations come next, where you have to know the market, have an alternative, and be realistic. “The guy selling a Seat Leon will claim it’s a better model,” Monchi says. “Kanouté wasn’t the first option; we were going after Fred, the Brazilian. We wanted [Kevin-Prince] Boateng before Keita. And if a player says: ‘Chelsea want me,’ I say: ‘What are you talking to me for, then?’ But if Swansea or Spurs want you, let’s talk. I sell the city, the club: a serious club that pays as promised, which sounds trivial but isn’t.”"

lol

:)

https://twitter.com/SkySportsNewsHQ/status/732665863497650176

What Ancelotti lacks in fire, he more than covers with deep, deep sanity.

https://next.ft.com/content/720cae92-1c32-11e6-a7bc-ee846770ec15?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Flife-arts_lunch-with-the-ft%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3628180/Roy-Hodgson-football-man-course-England-thankful-manager-that.html

He has been to the opera but would rather listen to Sixties pop and soul

Translating the piece, the 22-year-old said: “Today is the birthday of my princess.

My love I wish you a happy birthday, good health, peace and that God always blesses and protects you.

Thanks for everything you do for me, thank you for making me so happy. I feel so loved.

It is good at the heart of the people when you have someone to share a great love.

Like the breeze of the morning, so you arrived.

A perfect optical love, a bridge on a river of pain, in my life a beautiful dream came true.

A gift sent by my Lord.

Congratulations my great love.”

Coutinho and Aine have been married since 2012 and the pair seem very happy.

Kevin McCarra gone missing in Avignon. Worrying.

https://www.facebook.com/hugh.stewart.146/posts/10154316375224337

Confirmed he's been found safe and well.

"A three-times world player of the year, the headline act for Portugal is entering the zone marked high-end functional footballer as with each outing the dazzling performer who wrests contests his way recedes in the distance.

At 31 this is understandable. Unlike England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, a sonnet by Shakespeare or a burgundy grand cru, elite athletes do not age well."

-_-

henry winter's book about the england national team really is quite smthg. he goes to great lengths to shoehorn in terrible jokes. eg when describing the 1990 WC s-final he mentions gazza being told to stick close to matthaus except gazza doesn't know who matthaus is. this lack of awe about opponents is summed up by winter as "no fear and lothar"

or when england secure a 0-0 draw in rome to top their group in WC '98 qualififying and thus avoid a playoff in moscow in november which would have meant going "to russia in gloves". the whole book is like this, kinda amazing.

goes out to interview steven gerrard in l.a where it's hot and humid -"california steamin'".

http://tvnewsroom.site/images/news-staff/henry-winter/henry-winter-Image-0001.jpg

he is like three drawings on from nult in an "evolution of football man" graph.

in his chapter on the supremacy of the premier league over the england national team he goes to a pub/bar in L.A where they show epl games on a saturday morning, or as winter would have it - california streamin'.

also gets in a chapter on 'washbag culture' (which should be the new prem thread title really) where waddle, barnes, mark wright bemoan the youth of today seemingly forgetting that the england teams they played in never won fuck all either and in some cases failed to even qualify for tournaments.

Mark Wright - When I was an apprentice I had to clean boots, make tea. You can't get them to even make tea nowadays - Health and Safety.

Hull’s Robert Snodgrass starts Leicester title defence with shock defeat

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/aug/14/ander-herrera-chief-inventor-manchester-united-jose-mourinho

while on the left Joshua King is a converted striker who made diagonal runs into positions alongside Callum Wilson [...] This lopsided system is reminiscent of the approach popularised by Egil Olsen when managing Norway – it’s probably no coincidence King is Norwegian.

enjoyed this by Daniel Taylor re: Andre Gray's tweets

There are memories of school (“Ma teacher told me a was a piece of shit.. saw her the other day driving a piece of shit”)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/09/05/12/37EDD11100000578-3774270-image-m-21_1473073758718.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3774270/Inside-Wing-s-Chinese-restaurant-s-favourite-haunt-Premier-League-stars.html

https://twitter.com/immolations/status/649362287891980290

✓✓✓✓✓

oh hang on which fitba sribe did i think m white was

Hatoful Journalist

The Telegraph’s sting worked because Allardyce and his associates wanted to believe he was a keynote speaker worthy of payment in hundreds of thousands. Allardyce was then foolish enough to try to impress them with a lot of big talk about third party ownership, plus the odd indiscretion about people in football. He didn’t have to play that game. He could have been immune and untouchable, happy with his new job and his £3m salary, completely focussed and committed. He didn’t have to be trapped. Anyway, that’s it for a short while. I’m taking a break and leaving you with this. If it isn’t huge by the time I get back, I’ll lose my faith in this country even more than I did over Brexit. Until next time.

then samuel drops loyle carner - no cd

Roy Keane has the face of a mercenary.Meet him before the walls of 15th Century Florence and one's heart would sink.

re 2006 Euros, England vs Portugal

At the start Ronaldo comes up behind his Manchester United team-mate and nuzzles him, saying something that seems to be kind but almost certainly isn't, as Rooney then swings round to watch him go. It's like an impossibly beautiful Iago goading a simple lumbering Othello, an impression confirmed when , after Othello gets the red card, Ronaldo comes away with a tranquil smile.

Contained in the media-activity schedule for England’s match with Scotland is this intriguing detail. ‘Friday, November 11. 11am — Two minutes’ silence during walk at The Grove (not open to media, however imagery available on request).’

Football has now reached peak Remembrance. It is not enough for England’s players to be silent in respect for the dead, they have got to be known to be silent and seen to be silent, too. There must be photographs of the silence, so we can marvel at how silently silent it was. Indeed, it raises that old philosophical question: if silence falls and nobody is there to witness it, does it make a sound?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/01/04/strange-beauty-watching-vincent-janssen-tottenhams-ghost-christmas/

http://i.imgur.com/iJBShnV.jpg

yeah might wanna work on that sales pitch

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jan/04/premier-league-possession-manchester-city

this is the most incoherent dreck i've read in some time

That is spectacularly bad. ManC is of a different class this season. That leads to 70% or more possession most games. Taking effing Newcastle to prove a moot point.

"it is much harder now than it was even 15 years ago to bully creative players out of the game. The result is an era in which the likes of Xavi, Luka Modric and David Silva have thrived."

Oh noes brilliant players are ruining the game!

This article coming the morning after what was arguably the best game of the season, uhave2laff

man utd have not quite spent enough to ruin the spectacle of the game by forcing teams to be much worse than them, but at the same time it would be arrogant for us to insist upon enjoying the spectacle, after all, managers just have to win games (unless it's through possession football)

tbfttl, City-Newcastle was probably the most abject game i saw in 2017 and Pep's style has always been unbelievably boring to watch against anyone but a handful of elite teams. It's an issue with City, not the culture of the league as a whole, though. Spurs, United, Chelsea, etc have been involved in plenty of interesting / competitive games despite having over 70% of the ball.

Otm, it's City not the PL. Which makes stuff like this "The Premier League is walking in the shadow of the uncanny valley." utter nonsense (it's a good one for a new thread title tbf).

I love watching City idg the hate

I love watching them too, and don't find them boring at all.