Mediawatch: Wing’s, Love Island, Sanchez, Pellegrini/Pellegrino

Sarah Winterburn

On the Wing’s of love
The biggest story in sport (not just football) at 12pm on Thursday?

‘Manchester United signing Victor Lindelof visits Wing’s with girlfriend Maja Nilsson after sealing £30.7m transfer from Benfica.’

Never change, MailOnline, never change.

But did he indulge in ‘cylinders of joy’?

 

More big news
It could be worse; you could be the poor sap tasked with the daily ‘Footballers on holiday’ update. What do you do when you simply can’t work out where a footballer is on holiday?

‘Everton’s Romelu Lukaku looks out across a desert on holiday as Chelsea’s interest in the striker heats up.’

It is Romelu Lukaku and it is a desert. Job done.

Never change, MailOnline, never change.

 

My heart will go on
Headline on the Daily Mirror football site: ‘Arsenal fans beg Alexis Sanchez to stay as he posts cryptic message saying his “heart cries” amid intense speculation.’

And what is this ‘cryptic message’?

‘Mantén tu sonrisa siempre aunque tú corazón llore.’

And what does this ‘cryptic message’ mean?

‘Keep your smile always, even if your heart cries.’

So a) not his heart and b) not cryptic at all, just really sodding trite.

Oh and he posted exactly the same trite nonsense last month too. Only that time it wasn’t ‘amid intense speculation’.

 

Sharing the Love Island
Note to Sun website editors: If you are going to shamelessly try to grab Love Island traffic with your England Under-21 story, try and spell the name of its ‘star’ correctly in the URL and the captions on four pictures of her in a bikini.

The one thing worse than shameless SEO work is really sh*t and shameless SEO work.

 

Pole dancing
The England Under-21s are in Poland this week, and one veteran broadcaster is not impressed…

We take it Moose is not interested in the Palace of the Kraków Bishops, various cathedrals and churches, markets or Jewish history. We take it Moose is not interested in anything that does not involve shouting, West Ham and chips. This is the man who famously said: “Why should I pay £6.60 to get into Wales, eh? What has Wales got? Sheep. I can see sheep anywhere.”

He is really embracing the local culture…

 

Statistic of the day
Ian Abrahams (Moose) has tweeted 18 pictures of himself in 36 hours up to 12pm on Thursday. That equates to 0.5 an hour.

 

The 1975
Nothing quite confirms the notion that newspapers are now defunct than the utter ridiculousness of a PhotoShopped image on the back page. Gareth Southgate says he does not have a ‘magic wand’ so hey presto…you know who does have a magic wand, right…

The Sun then compound this utter nonsense with a ‘Potter XI’ including ‘Carl Muggleston’, ‘The Philosopher’s John Stones’ and ‘Dumble Ba’ (really).

But did nobody spot the problem with making No. 11 ‘The half blood Ince’? We use ‘mixed heritage’ in 2017, guys.

 

You say Pellegrino, I say Pellegrini
‘Sorry, we could not find the page you were looking for,’ are the words greeting you on the Sky Sports website should you try and read about Crystal Palace holding talks with Manuel Pellegrini about their vacant manager’s position, because at some point after this breaking news story appeared on Sky Sports News and featured on their website, at least one bright spark realised that a less bright spark had got the former Manchester City manager mixed up with actual candidate Mauricio Pellegrino.

The clues were there – the Chilean actually having a job, and at 63 being unlikely to meet Palace criteria for a long-term manager – but those clues had been ignored. Soon other websites were rehashing the reports and bookmakers (including SkyBet…) were adding Pellegrini to their runners and riders. Because that’s how this sh*t works these days.

When the peso dropped, Sky Sports News stopped talking about Pellegrini, the story was spiked and bets could be refunded…

There ‘may have been a case of mistaken identity’ by ‘some outlets’? Yes and that would be your outlet, Sky Bet.

 

Pell of a shout
The Daily Telegraph have included both Mauricio Pellegrino and Manuel Pellegrini in their gallery of possible new Southampton managers.

But even they seem unconvinced that they are two separate people, saying of Pellegrino: ‘He might sound like a figment of Harry Redknapp’s imagination…’

The British media really cannot cope with two foreign people having names that sound alike. Wouldn’t it be easier if they were all called David or Steve…

 

Recommended reading of the day
Ed Aarons picks ten players from the Under-21 Championship
Musa Okwonga on Manchester United’s defensive options
Kweku Amonoo-Quyst on Margaret Thatcher and football

Mediawatch