Xabi Alonso ‘overwhelmingly snubbed’ as Mainoo is the new Geoff Hurst!

Editor F365
Liverpool target Xabi Alonso during a press conference.
Xabi Alonso during a press conference.

There is some right nonsense about Xabi Alonso based on a poll, while somebody is getting carried away about Kobbie Mainoo.

 

So, so Xabi
When you read a headline like ‘Xabi Alonso overwhelmingly snubbed as Liverpool eye Jurgen Klopp successor’ on the Express website, you are already primed for it being a crock of shit.

You know this is no story about Liverpool snubbing Xabi Alonso but you suspect a Jamie O’Hara or a Jason Cundy at play here.

How naive. We should have known better after this from last week. We will wait while you go and read that particular Mediawatch.

By now you know that the news about Xabi Alonso and Liverpool – and it absolutely is presented as news – has been entirely generated by a poll on the Express website.

We actually pin-pointed this Liverpool-themed poll and guessed at the headline it might generate.

We saw ‘Would Xabi Alonso win more trophies than Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool?’ and speculated that the headline generated would be ‘Xabi Alonso told he will never match Klopp’s Liverpool achievements’.

We’re now not sure whether we over-estimated or under-estimated them, because the actual headline is so very much worse:

Xabi Alonso overwhelmingly snubbed as Liverpool eye Jurgen Klopp successor

He was ‘overwhelmingly snubbed’ by Express readers who voted in a poll which asked a completely different question.

It’s rotten. It’s wilfully misleading. It’s close to a new low in an industry that reaches a different nadir every day. And yet it’s not the worst thing about this content. Feast on this:

It’s been a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of farewell for Liverpool chief Klopp, who is now only a matter of weeks away from waving goodbye to the Anfield faithful for the final time.

Oh yes. We’ve barely noticed it. We actually forgot Klopp was leaving…

 

Forget the Premier League table…
Chelsea are 11th in the Premier League and that really should be reason enough to kick them for being a batsh*t club who have spent a billion quid to go backwards. There’s really no reason to invent new ways to judge them that make no sense. Over to The Sun…

Chelsea set to have just FOUR players at Euro 2024 – fewer than Bournemouth and Fulham – despite spending £1BILLION

If only Chelsea had known that they would be judged on this very shonky criteria, they might not have built their team around two very expensive, non-European midfielders.

CHELSEA’S less than stellar season may end up being summarised best by the lack of stars who go to the Euro 2024 this summer.

Nope, that would be the Premier League table.

But how silly of Chelsea to carelessly allow international footballers Wesley Fofana, Reece James, Romeo Lavia and Christopher Nkunku to suffer injuries. Mauricio Pochettino out?

Just wait until they spot that Liverpool are only slightly better than Bournemouth and Fulham on this metric…

 

Spotter’s badge
Also in The Sun…

England fans think Premier League legend will replace Southgate as manager after spotting him watching training

What a ‘spot’. We wonder what gave them the clue…

 

They think it’s all over…
‘Kobbie Mainoo could be England’s hero at Euro 2024. History tells us that international rookies can make all the difference… Geoff Hurst’s first competitive cap was at the 1966 World Cup!’

It’s a compelling headline from the MailOnline. But try telling anybody in 1966 that the Home International Championship win over Scotland (England won 4-3 and Hurst scored) was not ‘competitive’.

By modern standards, England had not played a ‘competitive’ match before the 1966 World Cup since 1963, when they lost to France in a one-off European qualifier that was deemed rather less important than the Home International Championship.

On March 21, 1966, how many caps did Geoff Hurst have? One. His first competitive appearance was a World Cup quarter-final against Argentina four months later. A week later he was scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup final.

The Mail’s Craig Hope is not remotely comparing like with like here. England were playing no competitive games by modern standards and tactical substitutions were not yet allowed; Hurst began the World Cup with five full 90-minute games under his belt. He was also 24. Kobbie Mainoo is 18.

Hope then trundles through Gareth Southgate (‘the defender had four caps going into the finals, all of them in friendlies’, presumably because England were only playing friendlies in the run-up to Euro 1996) and Jordan Pickford (fair) before the big names…

But arguably three of the greatest tournament performances from England players post-1966 have come from a trio who had a combined 29 appearances before the finals.

Paul Gascoigne went into Italia ’90 with 11 caps, but not a single competitive start.

Michael Owen was the boy wonder at France 98 but, at this March juncture back then, he had one cap and had played no part in qualifying. His first competitive start was the last-16 win over Colombia, four days before his solo strike versus Argentina.

He, like Mainoo, was just 18. There is an element of the unknown that appeals to international managers – Sven-Goran Eriksson tried it with 17-year-old Theo Walcott in 2006, only to leave him on the bench throughout the World Cup in Germany.

Wayne Rooney, meanwhile, was the breakout star of Euro 2004. His 13 pre-tournament caps were more than Gascoigne and Owen, but there was still a feeling of the striker, 18, being a wildcard addition to the Golden Generation.

Hmmm. We will hold fire until somebody comes up with an example of an 18-year-old central midfielder who has played 23 senior games, thanks.

 

READ NEXT: Ben White saga has exposed Southgate and England staff failures after pathetic six-word insult

Mediawatch Xabi Alonso

Related Articles