Jude Bellingham distracted by ‘bikini bodies’ as Jeff Powell goes full Jeff Powell

Frankly, we would have been more surprised if the Daily Mail had NOT wheeled out Jeff Powell to call for the sacking of Thomas Tuchel just four games (three wins, one friendly defeat) into his England reign, though we were slightly caught off guard by the reference to Britney Spears’ 55-hour marriage. It’s 21 years ago but that probably counts as ‘recent’ to Powell.

After his reaction to Tuchel’s appointment (‘merchants of woke’ was one particularly choice quote), Powell was clearly going to jerk his knee at the first defeat of the German’s reign. Let’s face it, the knee has been shaking since October.

It took the faithful somewhat longer to twig the folly of England’s previous costly experiments with over-hyped foreign mercenaries but they are sensing already that this German will go the same way as Sweden’s Sven-Goran Eriksson and Italy’s Fabio Capello. Namely nowhere when it comes to achieving England’s first triumph since 1966 and all that.

We could waste our time pointing out that no England manager has won anything since 1966 and all that – foreign or otherwise – and that Eriksson is nowhere close to being a ‘mercenary’, but we did all that back then and Powell has added very little to his Tuchel argument bar Britney.

But we sense a real dilemma in the heart of Powell because he obviously despises ‘Herr’ Tuchel (German) but also agrees with him about Jude Bellingham (black and a previous underpant-clad scapegoat). Hence the begrudging sentence: ‘It is impossible to disagree with his despair of Bellingham.’

So let’s join him there for this absolute monstrosity of a paragraph:

The boy who promised to grow into the standard-bearer for English football now appears on the brink of following Dele Alli – of whom there were similar hopes – down the dark hole of premature fame and rampant ego. Into the nightclubs of wasted manhood – as Real Madrid are fearing – and the blinding light of sunshine reflecting off bikini bodies in millionaire resorts which are as morally ghastly as they are glamorously fake.

F***ing hell, Jeff.

Let’s start with Dele and the idea that he went ‘down the dark hole of premature fame and rampant ego’. The ‘dark hole’ might be accurate but citing him as an example of a man who entered ‘the nightclubs of wasted manhood’ is despicable unless you mention the not-inconsiderable matter of him being a victim of child sexual abuse, which clearly contributed to his descent into spiralling mental health issues. Or does mentioning that make us merchants of woke?

As for ‘the blinding light of sunshine reflecting off bikini bodies in millionaire resorts which are as morally ghastly as they are glamorously fake’…genuinely, where does Powell expect 21-year-old footballers to go on holiday? The Dordogne? Is all of Ibiza ‘morally ghastly’ or just the parts with women? And talking of women, what are they supposed to wear on holiday so as not to distract our footballers? It’s a minefield.

According to the Mail themselves, ‘Jude Bellingham missed training on Monday due to a family funeral but will be available for England’s season-ending friendly against Senegal’. It doesn’t sound like Bellingham was distracted by ‘the blinding light of sunshine reflecting off bikini bodies’ this week, but maybe by a death in the family.

Powell then scoots past Bellingham to decry Kyle Walker and Declan Rice, which confused us until we remembered that he’s ‘Irish’.

Yet Harry Kane is one being called out even though he keeps scoring England’s odd goals. For that, we can forgive him for joining the others in clamorous objection to Bellingham’s goal being disallowed on Tuesday.

That was a shabby excuse made of desperation. VAR clearly showed Levi Colwell directing the ball with his upper arm.

It’s Colwill, Jeff. And also, Ian Wright said in the aftermath: “It’s pathetic. He’s not even looking. How can you give that? For them to disallow that goal is crazy.”

And former FIFA referee Keith Hackett said: “This was NOT a deliberate action by the player, there was no movement of hand to ball. Neither was the body shape made bigger.”

But yes, clearly a ‘shabby excuse made of desperation’.

There’s more, of course, including credit being given to Frank Lampard for Tuchel winning the Champions League with Chelsea; Mediawatch is now left wondering which Englishmen could be credited with his other six major titles, but we are forced to move on to tactics.

Apparently, Tuchel is outdated with all his ‘pressing’.

The global game is moving on from the philosophy of prolonged possession being nine-tenths of the law.

Spanish football is closing on world supremacy by following a winning of the ball by instant transition into high-speed attack and multiple attempts on goal.

Those words might have carried a little more weight had Spain not just lost the Nations League final despite having 62% of the possession.

But f*** that because SACK HIM. After all, can things get any worse than nine points from three matches and no goals conceded in World Cup qualifying.

MAILBOX: Jude Bellingham is ‘complete asshat’ as England urged to push Ange button