Dele Alli’s Premier League career is over – 2584 Express readers can’t be wrong

Mediawatch has been left in slack-jawed, gawping astonishment by the sheer brass balls on display at the Daily Express website. There’s a collection of words.
Express yourselves
Mediawatch has been knocking about at this game for a good couple of decades now. We’ve seen an awful lot of awful sh*t and there genuinely aren’t that many tabloid tricks that still make us go ‘OH, F*** OFF!’ out loud when we realise precisely how low they’ve sunk this time.
Today, the Daily Express made us go ‘OH, F*** OFF!’ out loud.
Obviously, when we saw this headline…
Dele Alli told Premier League career is over after Everton star’s injury nightmare
…we knew something untoward would be going on.
We know, for instance, that there’s absolutely zero chance that the person or persons unknown apparently ‘telling’ Dele are in any position to do so. If this message came from, say, Sean Dyche or the Everton medical team, or doctors who have treated him or anyone who has ever even met Dele Alli then it would be an actual news story and we wouldn’t have to find it on the website of the Daily Express, which remains forever true to its ‘Daily Mail without the SEO budget’ ethos.
So, we know it’s bullsh*t, obviously. We all know that. But when Mediawatch saw that headline the instinctive reaction was to start our latest little game of ‘Agbonlahor or O’Hara?’ where we try and guess which particular radio gobsh*te has had an opinion for money this time.
We would of course have been sickened and appalled, but we were braced for it. But then we read the story and started to worry.
Dele Alli has been told that his Premier League career could be over, following a nightmare spell at Everton.
No alarms here. Just a standard intro for these stories, no huge surprise that we still don’t know whether it was Gabby or Jamie or Simon Jordan or Jason Cundy or some other prick mouthing off at this stage. Rarely would that kind of story-killing info be given away in the intro.
The ex-Tottenham Hotspur man had been hoping to rebuild his career at Goodison Park, but a combination of injuries and poor form have plagued his spell under Sean Dyche at Everton.
It’s been a rough few months for Dele. The midfielder penned a two-and-a-half year deal at Everton during the 2022 January transfer window, as part of a deal that would rise to £40million if all clauses are met.
Now, though. Now we’re starting to worry. That’s a couple of lengthy and clunky paragraphs’ worth of filler with still nary a clue about who’s said Dele’s career might be over. We’re now starting to think it’s actually someone even more embarrassing than a talkSPORT noisemaker. But who?
Heading up to Merseyside full of optimism, the move hasn’t worked out as Everton or Dele would’ve hoped, and now there are suggestions his Premier League career could be over altogether.
But who is suggesting these suggestions? We need to know? Why haven’t you told us yet?
That’s according to the majority of Express Sport readers, who were asked whether Dele would be able to rekindle a career in England’s top flight. Over 3,800 people voted in the poll held on our website, with 68 per cent of voters believing the Englishman won’t return as a regular Premier League player.
And that’s why. The utter brass-balled nerve of it. Is this where we are now? Pretending an Express Sport poll is actual news? We could at this point get into the fact that ‘Is Dele Alli’s Premier League career over’ isn’t apparently even the question 68 per cent of voters are answering in the affirmative – because the word ‘regular’ is quite an important but buried detail – but frankly we can’t be bothered.
Well done. You got us. You’ve scraped the barrel so hard that even we didn’t see that particular bottom coming. Although fair play, we suppose, for admitting that 2584 people constitutes ‘the majority of Express Sport readers’.
Poll tax
Just so we’re all ready next time and won’t get caught out again, here’s a list of current active Express Sport polls and the possible headlines for the news stories they generate based on the latest results:
Who has the easier (sic) Premier League run-in?
…Liverpool handed major Premier League title boost as rivals Arsenal and Man City told to expect disappointment
How many players do Man Utd need to sign to become title contenders?
…Man United told they must sign at least SEVEN players to become title contenders
Was Kevin De Bruyne out of order with his reaction to being subbed against Liverpool?
…Kevin De Bruyne told reaction to Liverpool substitution was ‘out of order’
Is Mark Clattenburg right after claiming that VAR is letting Prem refs down?
…VAR is letting Prem refs down, officials told
Has Nicolas Jackson been a successful signing for Chelsea?
…Nicolas Jackson told he has FLOPPED at Chelsea
Would Xabi Alonso win more trophies than Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool?
…Xabi Alonso told he will never match Klopp’s Liverpool achievements
It’s like a bingo card, isn’t it? Let’s see how many we can tick off in the days and weeks ahead.
The Truth
We’re sure you’ve all seen the brouhaha over what Mikel Arteta may or may not have said to Sergio Conceicao after the Arsenal-Porto game last night.
Conceicao says Arteta insulted his family, Arsenal say he didn’t, and that’s about as much as we have to go on. One man’s word against another. We could note that Conceicao is a spiky, frequently offended kind of chap with form, and we might further suggest we have a decent inkling about whose version of events we’re more inclined to believe.
But we absolutely don’t know, and nor importantly do Football.London.
Both Conceicao’s initial allegation and Arsenal’s rebuttal are newsworthy lines, but neither side’s assertions justify this headline unless you’ve got something new, which they don’t.
The truth over Sergio Conceicao comments as Mikel Arteta celebrates Arsenal victory
‘The truth’ – always dangerous words to see in any headline.
On-brand
Arsenal’s penalty shoot-out victory over Porto also produced an unimprovable collection of on-brand headlines
RAYA LIGHT
The Sun get it absolutely right.
RAYA OF LIGHT
The Daily Mirror almost get it right, but then f*** it up.
Gunners survive nail-biting shootout to bury ghosts of past Champions League failures, with David Raya the hero after Leandro Trossard’s first-half leveller
The Daily Mail attempt to cram in the entire story.