Mediawatch: Pochettino, Kevin Spacey, Shaqiri, Ronaldo

Matt Stead

We (don’t) need to talk about Kevin
When Mauricio Pochettino mentioned House of Cards on Monday, Mediawatch groaned a little. Why? Because journalists love little more than to write entire articles based around tenuously – and tediously – linking football and other things in popular culture. It makes their jobs so much easier.

That stands true for no-one more than Paul Jiggins, lord of banter and japes at The Sun.

‘MAURICIO POCHETTINO says life at Tottenham is like TV’s House Of Cards.

‘The North Londoners’ HQ – located next door to their new £850million stadium – is called Lilywhite House.

‘But they might want to change it to the White House after boss Poch compared the club to the hit US political drama, set in Washington DC.’

The fact that it was so obvious where he was trying to go with that makes it no less painful.

Jiggins, the comedy cockney that he is, goes on to details the ‘twists and turns’ of Tottenham’s season, the ‘heartache’ of not making a single singing, the ‘love interest’ from Real Madrid, and ‘the plot of their stadium shambles’. He says we ‘could see the final credits roll’ on their Champions League campaign if they don’t beat PSV.

They are all TV things. Do you get it? DO YOU GET THE JOKE? WHY AREN’T YOU LAUGHING?

He also tells us that Pochettino ‘showed all the skills of a congressman or senator as he was inevitably asked which character in the series he was most like’, as this metaphor becomes more laboured by the second.

But Jiggins is not done. Why isn’t he done?

‘It is probably just as well he did not answer that question as the lead role was played by Kevin Spacey…before he was fired over allegations of sexual abuse.’

Why wasn’t he done?

 

Play your cards right
Jiggins’ article is accompanied by a fact box in which The Sun promise to tell us ‘WHAT IS HOUSE OF CARDS?’. It seems that ‘a TV show’ is not a sufficient answer.

Apparently, House of Cards is ‘an American political thriller series available on Netflix set in the White House – not White Hart Lane’.

ZING.

‘It is full of power-hungry hotshots, not goal-hungry Hotspurs.’

DOUBLE-ZING.

‘But, like Harry Kane when he has been denied a goal, they will stop at nothing to get what they want.’

TRIPLE-ZING.

‘There is double-crossing and ruthless tricks – just like Erik Lamela going down the West Wing, sorry, left wing.’

WEST ZING.

‘It is now in its sixth season and has won many awards. Poch, on the other hand, is in his fifth and has won…’

Is it possible to erase an article from your memory?

 

Love Shaq
Xherdan Shaqiri did not travel with Liverpool to Belgrade to face Red Star on Tuesday. He was quite sensibly left behind to – as Jurgen Klopp put it – “concentrate on football”.

Klopp did stress that he was “absolutely not aware of any security issues” that Shaqiri’s presence in Serbia would have prompted. But, considering the player’s Kosovar-Albian heritage – which he proudly referenced after scoring against Serbia in the World Cup – it is hardly outlandish to suggest that he would have received more than a hostile reception.

Stan Collymore, presumably an expert on international relations, the Kosovo war, and rising tensions between Albania and Serbia, would rather Shaqiri had actually played.

‘I understand why Jurgen Klopp has left Xherdan Shaqiri behind for tonight’s trip to Red Star Belgrade,’ says Collymore, who goes on to prove that he does not understand why Jurgen Klopp has left Xherdan Shaqiri behind for tonight’s trip to Red Star Belgrade.

‘Liverpool have a big enough squad to cope without him and he has been in good enough form to know he’s not been dropped.

‘But I’d have loved to have seen him go there, score a couple of goals and have people say: “Fair play, he had the character to come here and do that.”

‘Sport can be brilliant at breaking down barriers in that way.’

You know who wouldn’t have been left thinking “fair play, he had the character to come here and do that” if he had scored twice in Belgrade? Pretty much everyone in Belgrade.

 

Oh when the Saints…
‘Is there any chance that some of these clubs such as Southampton can go up to the Etihad and not be beaten by Manchester City before they’ve even got off the bus? I accept City are a great team and that Raheem Sterling is on fire at the moment, but I don’t accept the gap should be five and six every week’ – Stan Collymore, Daily Mirror.

It’s almost as if there’s little that teams like Southampton can actually do, because Manchester City are really, really, really good. Even if they don’t win three out of the next four Champions Leagues.

 

Roon scape
Dave Kidd quite rightly raises an eyebrow at Wayne Rooney’s imminent 120th England cap in The Sun. He questions why Gareth Southgate would allow an international friendly to become a ‘cult-of-personality circus’, having successfully built a squad that was ‘far away from the empty excesses of the failed Golden Generation’.

But why does Kidd deem it necessary to have a pop at the idea of Rooney ‘passing on his experience to the squad’?

‘What?’ he scoffs. ‘Telling the heroes of Russia about the previous three World Cups?’

‘Where he was sent off for an act of petulance in the defeat by Portugal, swore into a camera at England fans after the pitiful 0-0 draw with Algeria and then played his part in the nation’s swiftest ever exit from a World Cup in Brazil?

‘Or captaining England to humiliation against Iceland with Roy Hodgson employing him in central midfield like a square peg in a black hole. Or the previous Euros, when he was suspended for the first two matches after kicking a Montenegro player?

‘Or maybe Rooney’s experiences of wider life, like last year’s drink-drive conviction during his previous misty-eyed PR-led reunion, at Everton?’

Or perhaps, having won as many trophies throughout his career as the last England squad combined (16), he could pass on some of that knowledge? And not have his ‘experience’ weirdly questioned.

 

Spot the dog
What is the biggest story in football, as of lunchtime on Tuesday? Well, if you ask the Daily Mirror website, it is the ‘5 things we spotted during Liverpool training’.

As ever, a more accurate headline would be ‘5 pictures we have from Liverpool training that we have asked the work-exer to write a few lines each about’.

We are told that 1) Naby Keita is back. There is a picture of him.

2) Dejan Lovren is back. There is a picture of Mo Salah, but Lovren is in the background. There was presumably no picture of just Lovren. Shame.

3) Adam Lallana ‘might be thinking that he could be the main beneficiary of Shaqiri being left at home by his manager’. Quite how this has been learned from a picture of him walking in between Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold is anyone’s guess.

4) Mo Salah smiles. There is a picture of Mo Salah smiling.

5) ‘Klopp’s perfectly timed photo’, which is of the German standing around with the word ‘Master’ in the background – the rest of the word ‘Mastercard’ having been cut off. It is accompanied by a single line: ‘Can he master this competition this season though?’

Not quite as much as you appear to have mastered online journalism in 2018.

 

Mirror, Mirror
‘Nemanja Matic emotionally explains why he won’t wear a poppy on Manchester United shirt’ – Daily Mirror, November 5, 2018.

‘James McClean refuses to wear Remembrance Day poppy AGAIN in West Brom vs Manchester City’ – Daily Mirror, November 2, 2016.

 

URL of the day
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/7668552/manchester-united-barcelona-benfica-ronaldo-camara-cristiano/

Manchester United have been linked with 15-year-old Benfica player Ronaldo Camara. Which gives The Sun a fine excuse to get ‘manchester united’, ‘barcelona’, ‘cristiano’ and ‘ronaldo’ in the same URL.

 

Recommended reading of the day
Sam Borden on Jose Mourinho.

David Squires on a European Super League.

 

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