Said this before, but it obviously needs repeating. Despite stiff competition, I think Jamie Jackson is probably the worst of the lot in modern football journalism, at least among those who are or have been employed by national newspapers.
Not only does he have nothing of any worth to say, but his prose style is embarrassingly deficient for someone who makes a living writing for a supposed quality newspaper. I'm aware of the Guardian's lineage of truly great sportswriters going back to the days of Cardus, C.L.R. James, Donny Davies and others. I remember myself reading the likes of David Lacey, Frank Keating, John Arlott and Richard Williams in the paper. The fact they now employ this shit-eating gimp shows just how far the once-august sports pages of the publication have fallen.
Remember that this is a man who was accorded the privilege of covering Pep Guardiola at close quarters over several years yet chose to publish a book about the managerial genius of Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. That really tells you all you need to know about him and his work; in other words, he's a pathetic rag fanboy who shouldn't be taken seriously. By extension, nor should his paper's coverage of Manchester football when it accords him the role of correspondent for that topic.
And did anyone else come across any of the novel he published under the name Jamie Paradise? I saw a couple of extracts and it was so bad that I genuinely wondered whether it was some kind of elaborate joke. It was a garbled, try-hard mess from a lame-brained clown who mistakes rambling incoherence for literary style. Read it only if you want to know how a gonzo-style novel might read if authored by someone who seems to be suffering from brain-damage.
