New Alexander Isak transfer timeline hint dropped as Man Utd land ‘glamour’ cup tie
Premier League football will be back soon, and hopefully then we can all just stop making things up about transfers and cup draws. Joke, nobody will ever stop doing that.
Draw comfort
Of all the low-rent filler that exists in the ever-expanding energy-draining world that is online football content, there are few more egregious barrel-scrapers than the ‘simulated draw’ in which an entirely fictitious draw for a World Cup or Champions League is simulated, and then reported on with a solemn gravity that would be quite weird even if it were the actual draw rather than something that is not, in fact, any kind of news at all.
But here, surely, we have an unbeatable new low. The lowest-rent iteration possible of this low-rent fare, from The Sun.
Carabao Cup second round draw simulated as Man Utd land glamour fixture
We understand what’s happening here, of course.
This is the football equivalent of that pernicious trend that took over showbiz reporting a while ago, in which soulless journalists would publish unflattering pictures of a celebrity who had committed the crime of ageing or putting on weight or having a grey hair or cellulite or just in some other way not looking exactly the same at 50 as they did at 23, then say that they were ‘glowing’ or ‘looking fab’ and thus giving themselves a wafer-thin veneer of plausible deniability when the inevitable mocking comments duly rolled in.
This fake draw story exists purely to mock Man United for the undeniably quite funny fact they are forced into the Carabao Cup second-round draw – simulated or real – at all when nine of their Premier League rivals get to skip it because of European commitments.
The ‘glamour’ fixture – ‘glamour’ here doing the work of ‘looking fab at 50’ – is, of course, a trip to Wrexham.
Now, while Mediawatch would never suggest an organ of such upstanding repute and with such a hard-earned reputation for outstanding and rigorous journalism as The Sun might do anything so sacrilegious as to fiddle something as important and vital as a simulated Carabao Cup second-round draw, we will say that Wrexham away would probably be the SEO chief’s first choice, if one were inclined to play god with these things.
And talking of playing god, the rest of the story is full of the usual nonsense that fills such stories. Nonsense that always leaves Mediawatch feeling like we’ve taken crazy pills. Like we’re the only ones who can’t see how ridiculous it is to just write about something that isn’t real as if it absolutely is.
And as if the football gods are fans of a Hollywood script, the biggest team in the competition have been drawn against Ryan Reynolds’ and Rob McElhenney’s Wrexham at the Racecourse Ground.
Yes, it’s definitely the work of the ‘football gods’ here, taking time out of their busy schedule making sure Arsenal don’t win the league to interfere with a made-up draw for a newspaper.
It’s paragraphs like this where we genuinely lose it, though.
New Prem outfit Sunderland will host League One Rotherham, while Everton and Wolves will also host third tier rivals in the form of Wigan and Stockport respectively as Leeds host League Two Grimsby.
No they won’t! Or at least, they probably won’t! This isn’t real! None of this is real! You have literally made it up!
In the south, Brentford will face Brighton in an all-Premier League clash.
Please, stop saying ‘will’.
West Ham have drawn south-east London rivals Bromley, with the League Two side travelling to the Irons’ London Stadium in a glamour tie for the Ravens.
No they haven’t and no it isn’t.
Fellow Londoners Millwall host rival Championship club Oxford United in our simulated draw, while Bournemouth take on League One outfit Wycombe.
Is it just us? Are we actually the crazy ones? Does nobody else think this is insane?
There is also an all-League One match between Wimbledon and Plymouth, and a battle of the Cs between Cardiff and Cambridge.
Mediawatch is definitely thinking of something beginning with C.
Hinterland
Incredible stuff from the Daily Express’ Theo Squires and Fraser Watson under the following headline.
Liverpool drop major hint over when Alexander Isak transfer saga could be wrapped up
As always in these things, Liverpool have not dropped the hint in question. The hint is entirely the work of the Express themselves, and even then is really less of a hint than a guess.
It runs thusly: Liverpool waited until after they played Crystal Palace to make their move for Marc Guehi, so they might wait until after they play Newcastle on August 25 to make their move for Alexander Isak.
Yeah. We know. Us too. But, you never know, might be something in it. We’ve heard crazier ideas in our time.
But what rattled Mediawatch’s cage here is not really the doubtful specifics of ‘This thing might be a two and this other thing might be a two and it’s possible therefore that if we add them together it is within the realm of possibility that together they equal four’.
It’s the fact that our own whimsically long-winded version there is mercifully and blessedly succinct in comparison to the Express’, which takes an absurd 1159 words and 22 paragraphs – most separated by adverts, pictures, videos or some combination of the above, naturally – to arrive at this guess.
No wonder it took two of them to write it.
Sane and rational comparison of the day award
Goes to the Mirror golf and tennis correspondent Neil McLeman for their composed take on Gainluigi Donnarumma leaving PSG.
Last season’s all-action hero, popular with his fellow players and fans, will not play for the Qatari-owned club again. At least Marie Antoinette had a trial before she was guillotined in Paris.
To be fair, the swift strike of the guillotine’s blade probably is preferable to the grim, slow death of joining Manchester United.
