Mediawatch: The problem(s) with United’s summer plans

Matt Stead

Agony Aunt
Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘agony’ as ‘extreme physical or mental suffering’. Other definition offered by various sources are as follows:

‘Extreme and generally prolonged pain; intense physical or mental suffering.’

‘A violent struggle.’

‘The sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.’

Well then consider Wayne Rooney as the son of God, and depict the garden of Gethsemane as his summer, because the Daily Mail‘s back page lead screams – in an exclusive – ‘ROONEY’S AGONY’.

What is ‘Rooney’s agony’, you ask? Well, the poor bairn is torn between staying at Manchester United and earning millions, moving to China and earning millions, or returning to boyhood club Everton and earning millions.

‘Wayne Rooney has at least two £50million offers from China to consider as his Manchester United career draws to a close,’ Matt Lawton and Sami Mokbel team up to write.

‘But it is thought that Rooney would find it difficult to reject an emotional return to boyhood club Everton, despite the riches on offer in the Far East.’

 

We accept it must be a fairly difficult decision, particularly when the uprooting of a young family comes in to play. But still, ‘AGONY’?

 

Spree, to do what I want
Elsewhere in the Daily Mail, Ian Ladyman has written an excellent article on Jose Mourinho’s summer transfer plans. It is 914 words of well-constructed debate as to how the season has gone for the Portuguese, and what he will look to do going forward.

Unfortunately for Ladyman, that isn’t eye-catching enough for Friday morning’s newspaper. In the desperation to make it a little more transfer sexy, the graphics department has knocked up a delightful composition of four players who are on Mourinho’s ‘£300m shopping list for the summer’.

On it are Michael Keane (£30m), Antoine Griezmann (£86.6m), Andrea Belotti (£86.6m) and Romelu Lukaku (£100m). That adds up to £303.2m, but who’s counting?

Except that isn’t the problem. No, the issue is that of those four players, Ladyman mentions only two. He refers to Mourinho’s interest in Keane and Griezmann, but the names of Belotti and Lukaku are absolutely nowhere at all in the copy. Funny, that.

The MailOnline version is even worse. Ladyman’s piece – again, it is very good – is there in its entirety, but a headline of ‘Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho wants four new stars as he targets Antoine Griezmann, Andrea Belotti, Romelu Lukaku and Michael Keane in a £300m summer spree’ makes it look anything but.

It is explicitly stated as one of the sub-headline bullet points that ‘Antoine Griezmann, Romelu Lukaku and Andrea Belotti are all attacking targets’, yet Ladyman only names one of those players in 914 words. He never mentions Belotti, Lukaku or a ‘£300m spending spree’. It really is impressive work.

Mediawatch won’t even get into how United are supposed to be signing three strikers this summer. We can’t wait to see that.

 

Jose Mourinh…no
Writes Neil Ashton in The Sun, on Jose Mourinho and Manchester United:

‘This is better than par, particularly after his strategy to abandon United’s top-four chances to focus on the Europa League.’

Was it really Mourinho’s ‘strategy’ to draw a Premier League joint-record 15 games, including against Stoke and Burnley in October, West Ham in November, Stoke in January, Hull in February, Bournemouth in March and West Brom and Swansea in April, all at a time when he really hadn’t ‘abandoned’ a chance to finish in the top four?

Mourinho and United had a great season in the end, but let’s not pretend that this was his plan all along.

Mediawatch promises it will stop banging this particular drum when everyone else does the same. That’s what real adults do.

 

Marching on the Saints
Martin Samuel seems to have something against Southampton. It could be to do with those damages. It could be. We aren’t here to speculate.

But what is for certain is that Samuel has taken something of a dislike to Saints. In October 2014, he wrote the following for the Daily Mail:

‘The problem is Koeman has made it look a breeze. This way the Championship lies. Not this season, maybe not next season, but ultimately. If the board thinks it can get away with it year on year, there is an inevitable conclusion. Keep selling and there will be a tipping point.’

Many foresaw Southampton struggling that season; they finished seventh.

Undeterred, Samuel was back by September 2015:

‘A year ago, the summer sales gave Ronald Koeman the chance to build his own team; this time he will have seen the departures as debilitating. Indeed that was the problem with last year: it made the process look easy. It never is.’

Some foresaw Southampton struggling that season; they finished sixth.

Earlier this month, Samuel returned once more:

‘Sooner or later, the constant sales were always going to catch up with Southampton, and, if they have, it is to Puel’s credit that the club has still held its own. A club with Southampton’s philosophy could easily have got sucked into a relegation fight.’

The sales most certainly ‘caught up’ with Southampton, who finished eighth and were losing finalists in the EFL Cup final this season. It has hardly been a stellar season, but it has been by no means a failure either.

But Samuel has some bad news. He is back yet again, predicting ‘struggles’ whether Claude Puel stays or leaves this summer.

‘Maybe not next season, maybe not the season after, but eventually unless the club policy changes. Sooner or later you will sell one too many.

‘Eventually a tipping point is reached. Maybe it will not result in relegation, maybe just a relegation fight, but I wouldn’t take eighth place for granted long-term.’

Perhaps they just know what they’re doing, Martin?

 

Into the Woods
David Woods has a wise idea in the Daily Star. He thinks the Premier League is lacking something. And that something is an end-of-season play-off.

Clearly excited by what was the prospect of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City facing a one-off game to qualify for the Champions League if they finished on equal points, goal difference and goals scored this season, Woods proposes that the teams from fourth to seventh face off one final time to decide that last qualification spot.

‘Fourth would play seventh and fifth face sixth,’ he writes, ‘with the side finishing higher getting home advantage, followed by a final at Wembley.’

After supporting his point by referencing how rugby union decides the destination of their title through a play-off in the final game, Woods adds that ‘fair or not, it would at least be exciting, unlike the desperately dull climax to this Premier League season.’

For some reason, Woods offers no solution as to when the games would be played in a schedule already stretched to its limits. And what the Premier League really needs is that prospect of Everton (seventh, with 61 points) qualifying for the Champions League at the expense of Liverpool (fourth, with 76 points), on the basis of two one-off games.

Under this new, rather ridiculous rule, Everton would have reached an end-of-season Champions League play-off in the 2010/11 season. They finished as close to Wolves in 17th as they did to Arsenal in fourth in terms of points that season.

 

Rash thinking
Mediawatch does not disagree that Marcus Rashford should perhaps have been selected in the England Under-21 squad for this summer’s European Championship. It does pose the risk of burnout, and Rashford is already established in Manchester United’s first team, but it would offer valuable international tournament experience.

However, Mediawatch cannot quite stretch to calling Gareth Southgate’s decision to name the striker in his senior England squad as ‘an incredible U-turn’.

As John Cross states in the Daily Mirror: ‘It means a climbdown on the part of Southgate, as he insisted during his reign as Under-21s boss that young players needed tournament experience as it was important for their development.’

And now, as manager of the England national team, he has simply changed his mind. It’s not as if Rashford has a full season of playing in the United first team under his belt since Southgate last made those comments, is it? And it’s not as if Southgate is keen to oversee a young player’s development himself, surely?

 

One day…
‘A few hours after dropping a big hint he will quit Manchester United after 13 illustrious years, Rooney faced up to what looks like the beginning of the end of his England career’ – Daily Express, May 2017.

‘Wayne Rooney no longer untouchable for England: It’s the beginning of the end’ – Daily Express, October 2016.

“It looks like the beginning of the end for Wayne Rooney” – Ian Wright, September 2016.

‘Does this stat predict the beginning of the end for Wayne Rooney?’ – The Sun, June 2016.

‘Is this the beginning of the end for Rooney?’ – BBC Sport, March 2016.

Is there a year-long echo in here?

 

No way, Jose

“In this club it makes me feel that I did nothing. Especially because you have two legends – many of them – but two are legends in terms of titles and trophies.”

Nice to see Jose Mourinho giving due deference to Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes, there.

 

‘The game’s gone’ news of the week
‘Albion are in for £25m Deeney…and are set to pay him £100k a week’ – Daily Mail.

 

Us poor Brits
This was unfortunately spotted too late. In all fairness, we probably couldn’t do it justice anyway.

Give Tim Sherwood foreign people’s jobs and wages, basically.

 

Recommended reading of the day
James Horncastle
on Francesco Totti’s farewell.

Matt Stanger interviews Ademola Lookman.

Nick Ames chats to Christian Pulisic.