Liverpool fans ignore ‘absolute’ truth after x-rated two-word post made by world’s worst hacker

Editor F365
Jurgen Klopp knew all along that the media hates Liverpool

Liverpool fans rarely need too much ammunition to fire off claims of an agenda, but plenty was supplied by the hacking of a chief football writer’s Twitter.

 

Not a great deal stands out in BBC Sport‘s mid-season assessment of all 20 Premier League teams. It’s a faintly strange time to do it, between FA and League Cup programmes and well over a week since the most recent actual league game. And writing that Manchester United ‘are making a mockery of my pre-season verdict’ is wonderful as it implies that Phil McNulty thinks making him look silly is the most sackable of all Erik ten Hag’s myriad offences.

But beyond that, it’s a fairly ordinary revisiting of pre-season predictions – and they make a fool of everyone. That’s the game and there is no shame in that.

McNulty writes in positively glowing terms about Liverpool: ‘genuine title contenders’ who have ‘exceeded’ expectations with a ‘new, exciting’ team.

‘The second half of the season is shaping up as something special,’ he adds. Jurgen Klopp has indeed worked wonders when few foresaw Liverpool being quite this good after a tough 2022/23 and turbulent summer.

But credit to McNulty for even managing to file those many hundred words after his unexpectedly hectic Wednesday night.

He was not actually on duty at Anfield; that honour went to Gary Rose on the match report and Michael Emons on the live blog. They watched Liverpool being made to work for their victory over Fulham in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final. The tie remains finely poised at 2-1 after goals from Willian, Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo.

Gakpo Liverpool
Cody Gakpo celebrates goal for Liverpool agaisnt Fulham.

But while he was not working in an official capacity, the second of those goals – a deflected Jones equaliser – prompted quite the reaction from……….Phil McNulty’s account.

The phrase itself cannot be repeated in full on these hallowed pages because even Mediawatch must heed to the ad gods, but the first word was ‘absolute’ and the second was what a now-62-year-old Alan Pardew once called a 60-year-old Manuel Pellegrini when referring derogatorily to his age, or what Martin Samuel to this day defends John Terry for saying to Anton Ferdinand.

But again, this was only from McNulty’s Twitter account. It is very important to stress that point and make that abundantly clear. These were not McNulty’s own words. The post was quickly deleted and another was made to clarify the situation:

‘Can confidently say my account has been hacked there. Apologies and a swift change of password. Apologies to all.’

There is something comedically brilliant about that ‘confidently’ in particular. It’s better than the Joleon Lescott ‘pocket’ excuse for a start.

But there you go. McNulty’s account was hacked. It happens. Some hackers gain access to a social media account, make a single incendiary yet grammatically perfect post about a subject the owner of the account is synonymous with and do nothing else. That’s life. Sometimes the owners of those hacked accounts regain control, change their password and explain the situation, all within 10 efficient minutes. Deal with it. And some hackers target Phil McNulty on a Wednesday night. It’s why they do what they do.

If you doubt that sequence of events, dear reader, well that is entirely on you. Sceptics, cynics and disbelievers, the lot of you.

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Fair play to McNulty for trying to prevent more sensitive souls from having to read such bile by retweeting 19 different posts in the couple of hours after the apology, which was unfortunately buried on timelines as a result. But it was for the greater good.

It had sadly not quite all blown over by Thursday morning, when McNulty – or his account, at least – felt compelled to further state his obvious innocence:

‘You have to ask yourself why I would actually Tweet that and use those terms. Been on this platform more than 14 years and I suspect you would not find a single swear word used.’

Mediawatch can corroborate that after an in-depth search: McNulty’s account is perhaps the most PG around, with none of the traditional four-letter bombs dropped and one use each of ‘arse’ and ‘crap’ since June 2009, after which he presumably washed his hands. There is a fair bit of ‘hell’ but everyone needs to let their hair down once in a while.

McNulty has made a few more posts on Thursday morning, mainly pushing his BBC mid-season assessments. The password switch might have been ‘swift’ but it’s basically uncrackable now. He’s chucked a couple of special characters in. Maybe even a number or two. Good luck, hackers.

The sad thing is that this has inevitably given Liverpool supporters the proof they need to declare an ingrained media bias against the club – two days since Klopp’s ‘biggest cojones in football’ were massaged by another prominent journalist, mind – with Liverpool-born McNulty, a former Daily Post and Echo writer, a ‘self-confessed Everton fan’.

That is how the MailOnline describe him in their reporting of the story, which gleefully points out that McNulty ‘allegedly’ wrote the offending post in response to a MailSport tweet. Props to them then, with the Everton links, for getting ‘out-of-the-blue’ in their headline. And for being the only outlet brave enough to cover it; that’s journalistic integrity for you.

But the idea that McNulty has any sort of agenda against Liverpool seems curious. In that mid-season report he eulogises over ‘Mohamed Salah’s continued brilliance, the imperious defending of Virgil van Dijk and a world-class goalkeeper in Alisson’. A few days ago he said he was ‘convinced’ that Liverpool would win at least one trophy this season. Someone under his byline once asked ‘…are Klopp’s men now being guided towards their first title in 29 years by destiny?’, shortly before Klopp’s men were very much not guided towards their first title in 29 years by destiny or any other factor, imperceptible or otherwise.

No, McNulty’s account was clearly hacked; that is a far more likely scenario than him finally making a knowingly interesting point.