Man Utd settle on Southgate as ‘overwhelming favourite’ with enormously convenient timing

How serendipitous it is that a tough-sell international break has apparently by sheer happenstance coincided with Manchester United deciding they want the England manager to be their manager.

A media almost deliriously grateful for this timely revelation has gone very, very giddy.

Overwhelmed
International week is a struggle for us all and we don’t begrudge anyone taking the chance – however spurious – to do a story that manages to link England and their upcoming friendlies which nobody cares about to Manchester United’s potential managerial vacancy which lots of people absolutely do care about.

But Mediawatch must again bang a familiar drum (and also its head against a brick f***ing wall) and insist that words have meanings and we must at least try and fight to ensure that remains the case despite the increasing futility of that fight. The Sun have, we’re sorry to report, disgraced themselves.

‘LION IN WAIT’ is a strong headline kicker, in fairness, from a newspaper/website that for all its myriad faults can still turn out a cracking pun.

It quickly goes wrong, though.

Gareth Southgate overtakes Graham Potter as overwhelming favourite for Man Utd job with England contract talks on hold

The intro backs down instantly…

Gareth Southgate has overtaken Graham Potter as the bookies’ new 2-1 favourite for the Manchester United job.

We’re already quite some way from ‘overwhelming’. A 2/1 favourite means even if we take the odds entirely at face value he’s still twice as likely not to be the next Manchester United manager as he is to be the next Manchester United manager. His position at the head of the current market thus merely whelms, if anything.

But even that’s not quite the full story. He is not the bookies’ (plural) 2/1 favourite. He is one bookie’s 2/1 favourite. He’s available at 3/1 elsewhere.

And the overwhelmed Potter? A distant, no-hoper 4/1 also-ran. It’s almost like there isn’t really an obvious clear favourite at all at this stage for a job that isn’t yet even technically available.

MAILBOX: Gareth Southgate at Man Utd would prompt ‘incandescent rage’ from Keane

Second mention
While we’re here, we simply cannot ignore a quite spectacular piece of elegant variation in that Sun effort.

We will never, ever understand the grating, stop-you-in-your-tracks lengths some journalists will go to, the linguistic crimes they will commit, in order to avoid the apparently shaming humiliation of writing ‘Southgate’ for a third time. Just look at this.

That is despite the FA’s desperate attempts to hold onto the Watford tactician.

It’s not just jarringly inelegant, is it? It’s actively wrong. In a football story, ‘Watford tactician’ is a way – admittedly a weird one – of saying Watford manager, isn’t it? At the very, very least you need ‘Watford-born’ here.

But it should clearly just say ‘Southgate’. Tabloidese is an endless, wonderful mystery.

In-ger-land
Sticking with the Watford tactician, the Daily Star have done the necessary with a ‘How Man United could line up under Gareth Southgate’ feature, in which he would simply pick all the England players currently at Manchester United while signing several others (Jordan Pickford, Jarrad Branthwaite, Harry Kane) because he, like all managers in the hypothetical worlds these features inhabit, would only ever move for players he has worked with in his previous job.

There really is just such a startling lack of imagination at the heart of this feature staple. Southgate managing a football team that doesn’t have Jordan Pickford in nets? Simply unthinkable. Although fair play to the Star for remembering Mason Mount exists, because Mediawatch had genuinely forgotten.

READ: The 10 England players who have played most under Southgate

Doubt fire
The Daily Express, meanwhile, opt for the downright bizarre in their handling of all this enormously convenient Southgate-to-United chatter.

Gareth Southgate to Man Utd plunges future of eight stars including Harry Kane into doubt

Bit dramatic. We’ll go through the eight one by one, if you’ll indulge us, because there is no other way.

First up is Jadon Sancho, whose future might reasonably be said to have long since been plunged into doubt.

Sancho has been exiled from the United team since falling out with Ten Hag. A new manager stepping in to replace the Dutchman – not to mention one who gave Sancho 23 caps for England – can only be a good thing from the winger’s perspective.

That sounds like less doubt, if anything. Pesky fact, though: Southgate may have given Sancho 23 caps for England, but none since October 2021.

Now Mason Greenwood, again a player whose future needed no plunging as the Express themselves acknowledge.

With a future still shrouded in uncertainty, Greenwood is spending this season at Getafe after a controversial off-the-pitch saga.

Incredible euphemism work as well, but carry on.

Sir Jim has said he will reconsider United’s reluctance to welcome the 22-year-old back into the first team, and Southgate’s introduction could help to move things along for the once-capped England international.

Southgate, who gave Greenwood 12 minutes of a Nations League game against Iceland almost four years ago, doesn’t strike us as an obvious Greenwood apologist.

Next up is Harry Kane, obviously.

Southgate’s appointment could be the sign he needs to jump ship as the German giants splutter to the end of a rare season without silverware.

He might decide he wants to leave Bayern. Seems unlikely, because he’s scoring an absolute f***ton of goals. Not sure we’re really plunging into doubt here so much as willing a transfer saga into existence.

Now Harry Maguire.

Southgate has remained fiercely loyal to the 31-year-old even when his form at club level has left plenty to be desired. A United exit remains a serious possibility this summer if Ten Hag stays, but the tables would surely turn with a change in management.

Southgate is a Maguire fan, no question about it. But he’s still made 24 appearances for United this season under Ten Hag, who has repeatedly praised the defender for forcing his way back into contention.

And again, even if we accept that Maguire is less likely to leave United if Southgate is manager, that’s the opposite of plunging his future into doubt. We are reducing the doubt.

On we go. Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

The right-back has more than 150 Premier League appearances on his CV, with the vast majority of those coming for Manchester United, but Southgate has not once called him up for England. That should tell Wan-Bissaka all he needs to know about his prospects of retaining a regular first-team place at Old Trafford.

That should indeed tell Wan-Bissaka all he needs to know, unless of course Southgate for some reason doesn’t instantly sign Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker, Reece James and Trent Alexander-Arnold upon taking over at Manchester United.

Next up, (we’re nearly done now, we promise) it’s Antony.

A Ten Hag signing through and through, Antony may have been moved on already if the manager he once worked with at Ajax was not in charge. Southgate’s prospective arrival could be the final straw for the misfiring Brazilian.

We’re pretty sure Antony’s Manchester United future is in pretty serious doubt whoever happens to be in the manager’s seat next season. There is, once again, no fresh plunging here.

Jarrad Branthwaite…

United are already believed to have started putting in the groundwork to sign the Everton man this summer, and Southgate recently made it clear what he thinks of Branthwaite by including him in his latest England squad for the first time.

Player already strongly linked with Man United might continue to be linked with Man United? PLUNGED.

And last and very much least, because the Express are now just openly guessing about the plunging, Lisandro Martinez.

Another Ten Hag acquisition from Ajax, Martinez has gone down a storm with supporters. But his compact frame at centre-back makes him an acquired taste, and whether Southgate is a fan remains to be seen.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep digging
We’ve read the following Mirror story about Jim Ratcliffe four times now because of the headline.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe laughs off Jurgen Klopp claim and aims subtle dig at Liverpool

We’ve hunted high and low for the ‘subtle dig’ and simply cannot find it.

There are only two very, very tenuous possibilities as we see it.

This quote:

One of the commentaries I read was that only three or four of the Liverpool players would get into the Manchester City team, but Klopp has this ability to drive his players to a frenzy hasn’t he?

Or this one, when Klopp’s impending Liverpool exit is mentioned:

That will be a big change for them.

Neither is really a dig, and the first one about City isn’t even being made by Ratcliffe himself. The second one, meanwhile, is as close to a statement of fact as an opinion can get.

Surely nobody inside or outside Liverpool thinks Klopp leaving after eight years won’t be a big change?

Do we need to add ‘subtle’ to our ever-lengthening list of footballspeak words that no longer mean a f***ing thing. And, presumably, ‘dig’. And ‘plunge’ while we’re at it.

Chuckle vision
The frankly bizarre fallout from the Klopp Huff was dealt with yesterday, but we will just be raking over that ground one final time thanks to the Mail.

What Man United midfielder Christian Eriksen did when he saw Jurgen Klopp’s viral post-match interview after Liverpool’s dramatic defeat in FA Cup clash

He ‘chuckled’. That’s it. That’s the story.

Mediawatch is mainly just disappointed in the Mail for their inexplicable failure to whack ‘speaks volumes’ on the end of that headline. It’s the Mail after all, so we know they’re not worried about brevity.