Media Thread - 2021/22

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It was a brilliant game and their game at Tottenham was as well. They are superb up front but wide-open at the back. This is why they only got 2 points from the games.
Imagine if our centre halves jogged back like VVD did for Chelsea’s second goal, you would never have heard the last of it and don’t get me started with Terrence Trent Arnold, great going forward but a liability when defending.
 
No centre forward(s) and no natural left back apparently constitutes “a squad with no weaknesses”, according to The Guardian. Still unable or unwilling to accept the CAS verdict too. Great stuff.
FIIkdZrXIAMwLf2.jpg
A squad with no weaknesses and yet how many pundits and writers picked either Liverpool or Chelsea (or dare I say United once they announced the homecoming of twatty) for the title?

Stop laughing at the back.............
 
Piece from Jonny Nicholson Irish Examminer think it's called?

When winning becomes boring

Manchester City moving 11 points head after their win (10 after the Chelsea v Liverpool draw) was bad for the Premier League and bad for everyone who isn’t a City fan. To have the season sewn up in the first days of the new year is, to say the least, disappointing. Football is about competition.

When it is a cakewalk for any team, it makes it all feel a bit pointless. When it is the same team that has won in three out of the last four seasons, even more so. As fantastic as their football often objectively is, it leaves people cold. It has the soulless ice of technical drawing and lacks the warmth created in struggle. The City sportswashing project has been 100% successful, their wealth so entrenched now, and so unquestioned, that I feel we should ignore them as much as possible and try to pretend they don’t exist. Everything will be far more enjoyable that way.
He must have been so unhappy during the '90's having to report on the usual 1 horse race. I'm sure we all near enough drowned in the amount of articles he wrote highlighting how pointless Uniteds success was.

What do you mean no..........!?!
 
Politically I like the Guardian, and they have some excellent writers such as John Harris.
For sports, forget it, I would never go near them. For me it’s easy to divorce the 2 aspects bear no relation for me.
Another example: best sports journalist bar none, and not just on City but on all sports, writes for the Daily Mail (Martin Samuel), yet apart from their sports, I would never touch the rest of their paper, esp the politics. I could also use the BBC as an example, although for them, it’s just their football rather than the whole sports output that I would single out.
My other gripe re the bbc Is when their online football produces something out of order re City and someone on here decided to link it to Jimmy Saville from 30/40 years ago ffs (‘what do you expect from the bbc?’, ‘defund the bbc’ etc etc).

edit. Sorry, rant over ;-)
Groomed and radicalised by decades of commercially driven Murdoch and Rothermere propaganda into believing the BBC is a nest of hardcore communists, when in fact its senior management and majority of political correspondents etc have suspiciously close ties to the government and the conservative party
 
Politically I like the Guardian, and they have some excellent writers such as John Harris.
For sports, forget it, I would never go near them. For me it’s easy to divorce the 2 aspects bear no relation for me.
Another example: best sports journalist bar none, and not just on City but on all sports, writes for the Daily Mail (Martin Samuel), yet apart from their sports, I would never touch the rest of their paper, esp the politics. I could also use the BBC as an example, although for them, it’s just their football rather than the whole sports output that I would single out.
My other gripe re the bbc Is when their online football produces something out of order re City and someone on here decided to link it to Jimmy Saville from 30/40 years ago ffs (‘what do you expect from the bbc?’, ‘defund the bbc’ etc etc).

edit. Sorry, rant over ;-)

Excellent post - and the point you make around the reality of most mainstream media being more nuanced than a simple, binary, reductive all good/all bad picture is an important one.

Although personally there are publications I would categorically draw the line at - such as the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph - as I simply cannot countenance supporting them in any way given the damage their agenda causes both nationally and internationally. That’s not to invalidate all their writers and the perspectives they cover, but their overall editorial direction is just way too poisonous for me to conscionably give them the clicks.

I read the Guardian on politics and culture, although as their audience is now so heavily weighted towards the US, I do find their editorial is inevitably following the money and is losing what balance it did once have - which is disappointing. But their sports reporting is beyond the pale - a mix of terrible writing, shameless, myopic agenda-driven propaganda, and outright lies make it impossible to take seriously.

There is so little quality sports journalism in the mainstream media these days it’s no wonder people are turning to independent sources for a far more interesting take on the stories of the day - where the relative lack of pressure on purely chasing clicks allows for some actual substance to the writing.

As an example, most mainstream football journalists are completely incapable of actually grasping and relaying tactical developments in the game, so resort to simplified characterisations of managers and Clubs to reduce football to the most basic ‘good guys/bad guys’ storylines that a five year old can relate to from playing cops and robbers with their mates. It allows them to apply simple storytelling forms to a subject they are completely incapable of adding any insight to - which any reader can easily pick up and understand.

And in the current storyline, Liverpool/United/Arsenal are the good guys - representing the soul of the game, while City/Newcastle/PSG are the pantomime villain bad guys trying to break in and steal their crown. A simple, reductive storyline straight out of little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. Add in an appealing undercurrent of racism which always plays well in the UK, and it’s a winning formula which requires no knowledge of the game to carry off!

We’re lucky enough to have some of the most innovative managers in modern football working in the Premier League at the moment, yet our media wastes the opportunity to try and engage them in tactical discussions they’re completely incapable of supporting, and instead reduces them to basic caricatures to fit the mindlessly simplified narrative they’re far more comfortable pedalling.
 
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Excellent post - and the point you make around the reality of most mainstream media being more nuanced than a simple, binary, reductive all good/all bad picture is an important one.

Although personally there are publications I would categorically draw the line at - such as the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph - as I simply cannot countenance supporting them in any way given the damage their agenda causes both nationally and internationally. That’s not to invalidate all their writers and the perspectives they cover, but their overall editorial direction is just way too poisonous for me to conscionably give them the clicks.

I read the Guardian on politics and culture, although as their audience is now so heavily weighted towards the US, I do find their editorial is inevitably following the money and is losing what balance it did once have - which is disappointing. But their sports reporting is beyond the pale - a mix of terrible writing, shameless, myopic agenda-driven propaganda, and outright lies make it impossible to take seriously.

There is so little quality sports journalism in the mainstream media these days it’s no wonder people are turning to independent sources for a far more interesting take on the stories of the day - where the relative lack of pressure on purely chasing clicks allows for some actual substance to the writing.

As an example, most mainstream football journalists are completely incapable of actually grasping and relaying tactical developments in the game, so resort to simplified characterisations of managers and Clubs to reduce football to the most basic ‘good guys/bad guys’ storylines that a five year old can relate to from playing cops and robbers with their mates. It allows them to apply simple storytelling forms to a subject they are completely incapable of adding any insight to - which any reader can easily pick up and understand.

And in the current storyline, Liverpool/United/Arsenal are the good guys - representing the soul of the game, while City/Newcastle/PSG are the bad guys trying to break in and steal their crown. A simple, reductive storyline straight out of little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. Add in an appealing undercurrent of racism which always plays well in the UK, and it’s a winning formula which requires no knowledge of the game to carry off!

We’re lucky enough to have some of the most innovative managers in modern football working in the Premier League at the moment, yet our media wastes the opportunity to try and engage them in tactical discussions they’re completely incapable of supporting, and instead reduces them to basic caricatures to fit the mindlessly simplified narrative they’re far more comfortable pedalling.
Great post, well said
The depressing focus on contrived ‘controversies’, the minutiae of refereeing decisions and twisting the meaning and context of pre/post-match press conference quotes, rather than enjoying and analysing the game itself on its own merits, reduces football to the same status as Love Island.
 
This narrative of being bad for football is a spin on being bad for the media. The old top 4 cartel was bad for football but good for the media, smashing it up (which we did and for a brief period Spurs part took in) was good for football.
 
Imagine if our centre halves jogged back like VVD did for Chelsea’s second goal, you would never have heard the last of it and don’t get me started with Terrence Trent Arnold, great going forward but a liability when defending.
that's what happens when you start believing all the hype. See it in Laporte whereas Dias so far has remained focused and driven.
 
that's what happens when you start believing all the hype. See it in Laporte whereas Dias so far has remained focused and driven.
I have said for a while that I would like to see Stones given another run at the back with Ruben Dias, in my opinion our best combination as they have struck up a really good rapport. John seems to have a better relationship with Dias than Laporte has. It counts for a lot.
 
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