Michael Carrick ‘points the blame’ for crisis club Man Utd ‘Chuckle Brothers’ impersonation

It’s an inevitably Man Utd-heavy Mediawatch today, with Michael Carrick now approaching a state of pure beleaguerment and the Red Devils attaining full crisis-club status.

Cracked badges are surely on the way if things don’t change soon.

There’s even been further bad VAR news for the doom-laden club.

ChuckleVision
There’s nothing like a calm, dispassionate, disinterested, objective journalist’s opinion on a game of football, and Samuel Luckhurst’s reaction for The Sun to Man United’s latest clusterf*ck is nothing like a calm, dispassionate, disinterested, objective journalist’s opinion on a game of football.

While pausing briefly to pat ourselves on the back for a vanishingly rare correct use of the word disinterested there and award ourselves two ego puff points, let’s get into it.

We should start by saying we don’t necessarily think entirely neutral or objective football reporting is a particularly brilliant idea. Or even probably a possible one. Football isn’t the real world. It isn’t news. It’s escapism, and part of that escapism is to be found in the biases that exist in all of us, even the very level-headed Mediawatch.

Lord knows anyone who’s ever read pretty much any opinion piece on this site knows we’d be yeeting rocks all over our excessively glazed accommodation if we asked for all writers everywhere to be calm and sensible when writing about their own clubs.

You’d lose some of the best football writing around if you demanded it all be straight down the line reportage. Football is nothing without emotion, and it logically holds that the same is therefore true of football coverage in any form.

But sometimes you do still see a line that tips even an opinion-based column over the line from ‘informed journalistic criticism’ and directly into ‘fan ranting on a blog’. There’s absolutely place for the latter, but it probably shouldn’t be on the website of national newspapers.

There’s no denying that Luckhurst’s utter fury at Man United’s incompetence captures the general mood among United’s fanbase this morning. He’s hardly a lone voice out of step with the wider support.

But there’s also no escaping the fact this is a simply mental thing to say:

We really did witness one of the most abysmal defensive performances that you could ever possibly see from any side – never mind Manchester United – in living memory.

Did we? Did we really witness that? Think of that. Think of what he’s saying there. Not one of the worst Man Utd defensive displays. But one of the worst from any side. Any side in living memory.

That’s a bit much, isn’t it? Because they conceded three goals? Three goals, we might add, against a very good Brighton side that a) is comfortably the top-scoring side in the Premier League this season and b) scored five goals on Sunday.

It’s frankly disrespectful to Brighton to completely dismiss and minimise their excellence and attribute everything that went down at Old Trafford last night to Man Utd’s (undeniably real) incompetence.

But Mediawatch is nothing if not fair – see, it can be done – so we will say we enjoyed this…

MANCHESTER UNITED used to boast the Neville brothers in their backline – it was more like the Chuckle Brothers during a diabolical display against Brighton

…a great deal. We’re not sure TO ME, TO YORO quite worked, but – unlike United – it also gets a B+ for effort.

Point of order
Mediawatch has started to notice this happening more and more now, to the extent that we’ve added it to our already unhealthily long list of Official Bugbears.

What it is, is this: saying someone has pointed the blame for something, when the actual direction of said pointing is entirely at themselves. It’s not the worst tabloid trick in the world, but it is still a c***’s one.

It’s very deliberate, and very misleading, but it isn’t entirely wrong. That’s what makes it so naughty. The phrase ‘points the blame’ doesn’t explicitly exclude pointing said blame at yourself, but it comes with long-established connotations of aiming it elsewhere and doing so specifically to dodge and evade your own responsibility.

So, Daily Mirror, we see you when you put this headline…

Michael Carrick points the blame for ‘unacceptable’ Man Utd surrender vs Brighton

…above Michael Carrick saying:

“We can’t accept that as a group. I take responsibility for it. The performance towards the end of the second half, that’s on me.”

Let this be a friendly reminder that the words ‘accepts’ and ‘takes’ exist. Possible usages might include ‘Carrick takes the blame’ for instance. Or ‘Carrick accepts responsibility’. Or ‘This headline takes the p*ss’.

A step too VAR
There was a bit in yesterday’s Mediawatch about a crude Daily Express attempt to pretend Man United had been on the receiving end of previous VAR mistakes this season before Erling Haaland’s derby winner.

The best they were able to come up with, alongside two VAR decisions that went United’s way and probably shouldn’t have, was United not being given a penalty against Everton for the flimsy reason that James Tarkowski hadn’t committed a foul.

Now the Mirror bring us this headline, in which they know precisely what they’re doing.

Referee backed over Man Utd VAR decision as Premier League release official verdict

No surprise that ‘Erling Haaland’ and ‘Man City’ get a mention here before they get around to ‘Everton’ or ‘Matheus Cunha’ or ‘James Tarkowski’.

Although VAR briefly reviewed the incident, replays demonstrated that Tarkowski had won the ball cleanly before Branthwaite cleared the danger.

Right. It was not a penalty, it was never a penalty, it wasn’t given as a penalty, and VAR took one look at it before agreeing it was not a penalty.

The Premier League have since confirmed that their panel of refereeing experts unanimously upheld the decision to wave away the penalty appeals.

Sure. Because it was not a penalty, it was never a a penalty, it wasn’t given as a penalty, and VAR took one look at it before agreeing it was not a penalty.

Still. It’s another headline with ‘Man Utd VAR decision’ in it, and that’s the real quiz.