Man Utd get their Beastie Boy while Liverpool star may never recover from latest ‘fierce dig’
The Sun have some fun with puns while a Liverpool midfielder is brutally cut down to size by his own national team manager to show that no team is ever immune from an early-season crisis.
You wake up late for school
Mediawatch has every sympathy with those tasked with producing an interesting or attention-grabbing back page on an interlull Wednesday. It must be a complete pain in the arse.
But there were routes available. You could, as both the Mirror and the Star do, go big on the Villa-Douglas Luiz stuff, and how close they came to being hit with a points penalty, or follow The Times’ lead and focus on Leicester’s own avoidance of such a penalty.
You can even, and bear with us here, choose to splash one of the other sports that isn’t football. It sounds crazy we know, but it’s an option that’s out there. The Mail and the Telegraph opt for cricket, The Guardian go with cricket and Paralympics, as does The i, while the Express opt for US Open tennis ahead of Jack Draper’s first Grand Slam quarter-final.
All fair enough choices in a land of slim pickings.
But what of The Sun, what route do they go down?
Some really quite humdrum quotes from Manchester United new boy Manuel Ugarte, that’s what.
Not for the first time, Mediawatch finds itself convinced that an awful lot of back-page (and, for that matter, front-page) splash choices at the Currant Bun are based less on newsworthiness and more on how pleased a senior sub-editor happens to be with the pun they’ve just come up with.
Which in this case is…
UGARTE FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY
With a double-down sub-header to follow:
Winner Manuel will be United’s battling beastie boy
It’s a classic piece of Sun wordplay for a couple of reasons. First, the wilful refusal to accept or acknowledge the actual pronunciation of the word at its heart, and second the finger-on-the-pulse topicality of the reference.
Mediawatch has in the past had a great deal of fun mocking these dusty, dated references of which The Sun is so fond, but it’s frankly all getting a bit too close to home now. The unpleasant realisation that the Beastie Boys released (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) – the brackets are key – 38 years ago has left us in need of a little sit-down and perhaps a nice cup of tea.
Anyway. We find it very hard to believe that anybody at The Sun actually truly believes Ugarte’s pretty standard new-signing words really represent the biggest story in football – especially as the quote in which he actually uses the word ‘fight’ is an old pre-Manchester United one anyway – but they got their headline and up-to-the-minute reference in.
The Sun haven’t finished taking liberties, though.
Just as important to a side that keep darting around like red arrows with no real target, he wants to carry another load – the kind legends Bryan Robson and Roy Keane always put on their backs.
No prizes for guessing how many times Ugarte himself mentions either of those players.
And those of you who read yesterday’s Mediawatch (and if not, why not?) might enjoy what is to our mind a record-breaking load being carried by the word ‘albeit’ here.
ERIK TEN HAG may have slept a little better on Sunday night than most would have suspected.
True enough, the hounding his side were subjected to by Liverpool earlier on would have disturbed him, although he did not admit as much.
But by the time he went to bed he knew chief executive Omar Berrada and sporting director Dan Ashworth had given him a resounding vote of confidence – albeit before that 3-0 thrashing by Arne Slot’s slick side.
Car pool
Talking of puns, The Sun also appear to be pretty happy that Lee Carsley is England’s interim manager having spotted the rich headline potential buried deep within the first three letters of that surname.
‘FLASH NEW CAR’ they parp gleefully.
‘CAR BLIMEY’ they add, less convincingly.
‘START THE CAR’ signals some kind of return to form.
‘CAR-RY ON ENGLAND’ shows once again that this game is not always as easy as they so often make it look.
Last but not least today from the kings of the pun comes ‘CAR GIANT’ which we have to admit we do rather like.
Mediawatch is a generous sort, and we hereby offer up the following additional possibilities to The Sun free of charge. We’re sure you can find some use for at least one or two of them at some point over the weeks and months ahead.
CAR PARK, CAR POOL, CAR PARTS, CAR BREAKS DOWN, CAR SALES, FAST CAR, CAR REPAIR, REASONABLY PRICED CAR, CAR DOOR, CAR ENGINE, CAR WHEELS, CAR FIRE and, well, you get the idea with that.
Dig for victory
While United pin their hopes on what Ugarte might be able to do to their midfield, things would all appear to be pretty rosy over at Liverpool. That thumping win at Old Trafford was their third in a row to start the Arne Slot era.
They’ve yet to concede a goal and are currently keeping pace with Man City at the top of the Premier League.
But wait. The Daily Mail bring news of a cloud on the horizon.
Ronald Koeman takes sharp dig at Liverpool star Ryan Gravenberch after journalist praises Dutch midfielder for his starring role in 3-0 drubbing of Man United
Oh no. Gravenberch has been playing so well, we naively thought. The last thing him or Liverpool need is for his national team manager to be taking sharp digs at him. Could really shatter his confidence, that.
Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman has taken a fierce dig at Liverpool star Ryan Gravenberch despite the midfielder’s starring role in his side’s 3-0 drubbing of Manchester United.
First of all, Mediawatch notes with now familiar amusement how MailOnline headlines and MailOnline intros are essentially indistinguishable. But that is a fleeting moment of comic relief. Our concern, already quite high when it was a sharp dig, is now at absolute fever pitch with the discovery that it was also fierce.
What on earth can Koeman possibly have said that is so utterly brutal.
‘I have always seen the potential in him. But I believed he lacked focus, this is something that he had to improve and now it seems that he finally realises what is asked of him.’
Oh. We just hope, in time, Gravenberch can get over a dig of such fierce sharpness.
