If it is a joke then I'm definitely not laughing, because there is is something more than a little sinister going on with the media in this country. It's akin to hero-worship, especially at the BBC, and as you say, rag lackeys like Simon Stone are being paid a good wage packet to travel with that club and write ridiculously biased drivel about them.
Do they seriously believe that all football fans in the UK are morons? Gormless cretins who cannot form a valid viewpoint of their own unless 'guided' by serial masturbators like the aforementioned Mr Stone? We all have enough nous about us to see through the propaganda, surely? We can all see the liberal coating of 'Mr Sheen' being applied to the excretia that is the rags today? We can all see that the club the British media ardently follow with such overly-zealous fervour are on the wane - and have been for some considerable time?
Nobody can deny that the verminous bastards have been the beneficiaries of some extremely dubious refereeing decisions since the formation of the Premier League: Riley, Clattenburg, Howard Webb and others have ensured the club has been successful and thus accrued incredible wealth, but are we now seeing the BBC and Sky etc casting aside any pretence of neutrality in order to ensure the rags continue to dine at the top table?
Something seriously wrong here. Seriously wrong.