Gary Neville facing Sky Sports sack after ”racist’ outburst’? Obviously bloody not

There are some silly Liverpool messages and agreements but the big problem is the MailOnline’s atrocious reporting of that Gary Neville ‘outburst’.

Neville’s advocate

Brace yourselves, for Mediawatch might have just uncovered the single most MailOnline headline ever conceived:

‘Now Sky Sports faces BOYCOTT calls over £1.1m-a-year star Gary Neville’s ‘racist’ outburst against ‘angry middle-aged white men’ who are ‘creating division’ – as the lefty pundit reveals he tore down a Union Jack he saw on a building site’

Good God, all that’s missing there is a ‘just hours’ before or after something completely unconnected happen/happens.

The headline alone is a piece of dreadful art.

Mentioning his wage is textbook stuff.

Calling it Gary Neville’s ‘racist’ outburst is certainly a choice, considering at no stage does he use any variation of the quoted word, nor is it contained at any other point within the article beyond the headline.

Saying ‘the lefty pundit reveals he tore down a Union Jack he saw on a building site’ is also one way of avoiding mentioning it was one of his building sites, not just a random one he ventured onto in a moment of anti-nationalist fury.

But having regrettably come this far, we might as well delve further into the weeds of this ‘BOYCOTT’ of the ‘lefty’ snowflake.

And Neville will be aghast to learn that his ‘rant could backfire with football fans threatening to cancel their Sky subscriptions unless the broadcaster boots him off the channel’.

That is soon downgraded to ‘one football fan threatening to cancel his Sky subscription unless Neville was sacked’. And in an unfortunate oversight, this single-fan ‘BOYCOTT’ is not backed by a quote of any kind whatsoever from the person actually apparently calling for Neville to be sacked.

But apparently ‘there were unfounded claims that the broadcaster had been ‘bombarded with demands’ to issue a response to Neville’s ‘outrageous claim”.

Of course, the only thing Mediawatch can find suggesting any such thing is this post from a user on Threads(!) with precisely zero followers:

‘Sky News has been BOMBARDED with demands to respond to Gary Neville’s outrageous claim that ‘middle aged white men’ were somehow responsible for the Manchester Synagogue Terror Attack.’

That is a) not what Neville said, and b) several levels of importance below ‘unfounded claims’. It’s just f**king nonsense and remarkably irresponsible to highlight or platform.

But rest assured that both Sky and Neville have been ‘contacted for comment’. Let’s hope the Mail do not wait up for that response.

And so to the most depressingly predictable headline of the day we go, inevitably courtesy of the Daily Telegraph:

‘Gary Neville should stick to football’

That’s quite enough of that.

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Jibe bunny

Another MailOnline headline – ‘Erling Haaland makes brutal jibe at Brentford’s tactics live on Sky Sports after Man City edge past Keith Andrews’ men’ – prompts a simple enough question:

When is a ‘brutal jibe’ just…an observation? Because here is the ‘brutal jibe’ from Haaland in its entirety.

“It was a tough game, and reminded me of Stoke City with Rory Delap 15 years ago! They are huge and do throw-ins from the middle so of course it is not easy but it is about preparing for what is going to come and analysing well and we did. The backroom staff did their job really well. All praise to them. A low block is not easy – five people around us at all times. It is why it is not easy and why it feels even better.”

Our thoughts are with Brentford at this difficult time. It can’t be easy being compared to one of the more unique and difficult to play teams in Premier League history.

Gentleman’s agreement

There is positive news from the Liverpool Echo because ‘Trent Alexander-Arnold agreement reached as Liverpool sent clear message’.

Is he coming back to sort this sorry “mini crisis” out? Would Arne Slot even pick him ahead of Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back now? What is this ‘agreement’?

It’s between Gary Lineker and Jamie Redknapp, who agree that Alexander-Arnold was quite important to how Liverpool played. Thanks for that.

Message in a bottle

Over at the Daily Mirror website, ‘Luis Diaz sends clear message to Liverpool after summer transfer decision’.

Zero gold stars for guessing that the ‘clear message’ Diaz sent was to score two goals for Bayern Munich against Eintracht Frankfurt. Are you listening, Arne Slot?

The ace-watch spin-offs

In the sad absence of a Premier League ‘ace’ we do have two remarkably egregious examples of similar terms here:

‘Ex-Premier League star, 38, starts new job after being declared bankrupt’ – The Sun website, clearly fans of Danny Guthrie.

‘Premier League icon ‘cheats death’ and destroys Lamborghini in nightmare crash’ – Daily Express website, who enjoyed Eljero Elia’s iconic two goals in 16 appearances for Southampton in 2014/15.