‘Staggering’ and ‘brutal’ Ballon d’Or snubs for Carabao Cup winners

How dare those Ballon d’Or idiots fail to realise that Mo Salah and Alisson won the Carabao Cup? Or not…

Louse of Elliott
We know it’s tricky keeping momentum in the international break but the Liverpool Echo are stooping low with this headline:

Liverpool face injury setback as major Giorgi Mamardashvili update emerges

It sounds an awful lot like new signing Giorgi Mamardashvili has suffered an injury setback.

What it doesn’t sound like is that Harvey Elliott (seven minutes of Premier League football this season) has withdrawn from international duty – that is quite the ‘injury setback’ – on the same day that Mamardashvili has been nominated for the Yashin Trophy.

Because no f***er would have clicked on that.

You know who wasn’t nominated for the Yashin Trophy because he won nothing – even missing the Carabao Cup final through injury?

Alisson award snub shows Liverpool transfer masterstroke as new Reds signing honoured

It really was quite the ‘snub’, Mirror football, to not include a goalkeeper who didn’t even play in the Champions League and missed a huge chunk of last season through injury.

There are outlets more than willing to embrace the ‘This Means More’ fans who have lost their minds over this ‘snub’ despite – and this seems important – there being no nomination for Manchester City title winner Ederson or Premier League Golden Glove winner David Raya either.

Fans brand Yashin Trophy ‘a joke’ as world-class player left out of nominees for top goalkeeper award

No, one fan branded it a ‘joke’ and SPORTBible are happy to construct a whole story around @BeeksMr, a Liverpool fan with literally 64 followers on X. Make it make sense.

Even worse are MailOnline, who vomit this headline:

Liverpool fans left fuming and claim Ballon d’Or is ‘rigged’ and say the award is a ‘disgrace’ after player snubbed

They describe this as Alisson being ‘brutally snubbed for the Yashin trophy’. Brutally!

Liverpool’s Alisson was a somewhat surprising omission from the selection after taking the Anfield side to League Cup glory in manager Jurgen Klopp’s final season with a string of dominant displays in goal.

Nope and nope.

Salah days
‘Liverpool has ideal Mohamed Salah transfer replacement after Ballon d’Or news’ – is the headline on Liverpool.com (The Echo’s US-facing sister site), but it’s the sub-headline that has most amused Mediawatch:

Mohamed Salah has (staggeringly) not been nominated for the 2024 Ballon d’Or. Could the Liverpool forward’s replacement be a former Premier League player who is on the shortlist?

That ‘staggeringly’ is fascinating as Andrew Beasley’s actual piece begins: ‘The 30-man shortlist for the 2024 Ballon d’Or has been announced and there are no Liverpool players on it. As the Reds only won the Carabao Cup last season, that seems fair enough.’

Almost like it’s not ‘staggering’ at all that a player who was injured for the Carabao Cup and withdrew from his only international tournament in 2024 through injury would not be nominated for a global award.

Not that those pesky facts stopped talkSPORT making this their actual top story on Thursday morning:

Liverpool star Mohamed Salah branded ‘one of the most disrespected footballers in history’ after snub

By a sodding Liverpool fan on X. Have a word.

Squad goals
There’s nothing quite like the naming of a Champions League squad to bring out the sh*thouses. And chief among them are the Mirror:

Liverpool explain why they haven’t named three first-team stars in Champions League squad

Is it by any chance because they are homegrown young players who can go in the unlimited B squad?

Yes. Yes, it is. Like every other year.

Present tense at Man Utd
Erik ten Hag is under pressure at Manchester United, so that gives certain outlets the green light to write some absolute bollocks. Chief amongst them is this from the Express…

Man Utd news LIVE: Ten Hag agrees emotional return to old club as Casemiro decision made

Pretty sure he ‘agreed’ to manage an FC Utrecht side in a testimonial long before this week, fellas.

But that really does pale in comparison to this effort:

Dan Ashworth has already explained why Man Utd won’t sack Erik ten Hag this week

Is it ‘because that would be mental’?

Que?
The Sun are dabbling in long-form tactical pieces and that’s nice to see but, well, maybe work on the headlines…

Manuel Ugarte is a midfield bruiser… but Man Utd star is NOT immune to making same mistakes as Casemiro vs Liverpool

You mean the 23-year-old midfielder sold by PSG who has agreed to join a Manchester United side outside the Champions League is NOT immune to making mistakes?

It turns out he’s STILL not Rodri.