Premier League’s Ultimate Team revealed to be 78-point, 66-goal runners-up who won nothing

Editor F365
Newcastle players celebrate a David Batty goal in 1996
Newcastle players celebrate a David Batty goal in 1996

We’ve got another Boaty McBoatface on our hands after some cheeky online poll sabotage, but at least the Telegraph are respecting the very funny, very nonsensical outcome. Plus some inevitable Ashes guff and some unknown striker gems for Spurs…

 

Toony McToonface
Mediawatch almost admires the way the Daily Telegraph plodded relentlessly on to the inevitable conclusion of its series of Twitter polls to determine ‘The Ultimate Premier League Team’ long after it became clear that cheeky Newcastle fans had hijacked the whole thing and that their 95/96 bottle jobs were finally going to take home a big prize.

Sure enough, come the final between Newcastle’s Great Entertainers and their, er, 66 goals and the Manchester United team that won the Treble people actually cared about, the result was a landslide. A Newcastle side that won nothing and amassed 78 points was duly named the Ultimate Premier League Team with almost 80% of the vote.

Hats off to all the Newcastle fans who made this very, very funny result possible and also to Arsenal fans, actually. They were the first fanbase to develop a reputation for this kind of sabotage, but it’s good to see they had the self-awareness to see the bigger picture here and realise that catapulting the Invincibles to the title would not be remotely funny.

Indeed, such was Arsenal’s total commitment to the unfolding banter that the Gunners team that made it through to the semi-final wasn’t even The Invincibles, but the team from two years before. It’s almost – almost – like this stuff is all a load of total bollocks that doesn’t mean anything.

The fact the Telegraph ploughed on suggests that they were just happy enough to get any traction at all on their witless and transparent engagement-hunting tournament and weren’t worried about looking silly.

Our conspiracy theory, though, is that this is somehow all part of a wider Telegraph plot to fatally undermine and subvert faith in democracy ahead of the Tories’ impending General Election wipe-out next year. Next up: an Ultimate TV Sitcom tournament hacked by Mrs Brown’s Boys ultras. Be vigilant, people. Open your eyes.

 

Fifth element
‘Liverpool could qualify for Champions League despite finishing fifth and failing to win Europa League’ announces a Liverpool Echo headline that fails to mention this would also be true for literally any club finishing fifth this season. Where’s the ‘Everton could qualify for Champions League despite finishing fifth’ headline, guys?

Still, it’s less disingenuous than the version of this story that Sport Bible knocked up back in May before the season ended when the headline ‘Why fifth-place finish would see Liverpool qualify for Champions League after upcoming UEFA rule change’ was 100% designed to make you think it was talking about qualifying for this season’s Champions League.

 

Ashes to Ashes
You can’t have England and Australia meeting in any sport without some reference to the Ashes, especially this summer.

And you can’t have a major England sporting event without whoever the current prime minister happens to be desperately trying to piggyback it in wildly unconvincing fashion. The fact this is now just as true of women’s football as men’s is progress of sorts, we guess.

Anyway. Enter Rishi Sunak in The Sun.

“It’s been an amazing summer of sport for our country and having fought back from the brink to draw the Ashes, it’s time to ­finish the job. The nation’s hopes of beating the Aussies now rest on our Lionesses.

“They’re just one win away from creating history by reaching their first World Cup final. They’ll take the fight to them in their backyard and we’ll all be roaring them on back home.”

It’s delivered there with all Sunak’s customary easy, natural way with words and in no way sounds like he’s reading from a prepared script with those handy facts about the Lionesses definitely produced off the top of his head because he’s just such a keen student of the game.

Bit weird, though, isn’t it? What has England’s women’s football team got to do with England’s men’s cricket team? The Sun can explain.

Mr Sunak wants the football team — led by captain Millie Bright, to go one better than England’s male cricketers — who recently drew their Ashes series with Australia.

You know who else recently drew their Ashes series with Australia after fighting back from a significant deficit? England’s women cricketers. But that’s not important here.

 

Oh, F*** Off Headline of the Day
‘England 0-0 Australia LIVE: Piers Morgan demands revenge in Women’s World Cup semi-final’ – Daily Express

 

Kane and able
‘Tottenham told two Premier League strikers who could fill Harry Kane boots – EXCLUSIVE’

Sounds helpful, this, Daily Express. They could definitely do with someone. And luckily Teddy Sheringham is on hand with two names nobody else could have thought of: Ivan Toney (third top scorer in the Premier League last season, currently banned) and Evan Ferguson, who has been strongly linked with Manchester United but has just signed a long-term contract at Brighton, a club notorious for letting its good player go on the cheap.

Cheers, Teddy.

 

Mediawatch