Football journalism

The increasing influence of analysts, young men who have no experience of scouting or recruiting players, has meant the end of the road for good football men such as Mel Johnson. He was the scout who recommended Liverpool sign talented young winger Jordon Ibe from Wycombe but was sacked, shamefully, in November 2014. Former academy director Frank McParland has also left.

Instead a new breed sits in air-conditioned offices, cutting up videos from matches all over the world and burying their heads in the stats.

*By Neil Ashton for the Daily Mail

society is in the editing suite

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/managers/jurgen-klopp/12076010/Soft-German-Jurgen-Klopp-v-Old-School-Brit-Sam-Allardyce-maintains-a-proud-Liverpool-tradition.html

maybe enough for pands to recognise a new leaf being turned in the bascombe oeuvre

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWIEmOvXAAAqHDB.jpg

ugh, who?

Jamie Jackson?

bingo

fairly sure we clowned an excerpt from that book that appeared on the guardian a few months ago concerning man united's tour to australia(?) under moyes but I can't find the thread

ah, found it

thread of terrible football journalism

rob smyth headlines/bylines most depressing thing on internet

simon barnes is just appalling

https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/692605119368667136

http://i.imgur.com/RKEbMrn.png

Innocence. Meaning. Belief. Trust. Faith.

Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis.

Dave Dee. Dozy. Beaky. Mick. Tich.

Henry Winter ‏@henrywinter 2h2 hours ago
Captain, Leader, Legend, Leaving.

Henry Winter is the John Terry of football journalism.

Like he literally commentates live on games saying "shot, Ramires, wide" as if the dead in the water "live updates" of his peers simply can't be trusted, like he's sending news by post from another continent in 1931.

bascombe at it again with another spiteful little club pr job masquerading as an 'article' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/12138423/Daniel-Sturridge-is-exhausting-Liverpools-patience-and-his-absence-is-killing-the-team.html

especially enjoyed how he brings up the idea that sturridge decides whether to play or not depending on what God tells him, then dismisses this as far fetched, then suggests it's probably true anyway

Again, there is no suggestion Sturridge believes he has a direct line to the Almighty determining whether he should put his body on the line, but it must be tough to change a player’s mind on his fitness 24 hours before a game if he thinks his creator is sending him a message his destiny is to watch from the executive box.

also thinks the player should feel guilty for being injured and costing rodgers his job.

the latest example of Jurgen Klopp heading into a gunfight against one of the quickest draws in the west armed with only a pocket knife.

Liverpool’s attackers play like they’re being guided by a faulty sat-nav

It’s rather like waiting for Superman to come to the rescue, only to realise he is incapable of getting out of the phone box.

discussing the prolonged absenteeism of the England striker often feels like ballet dancing on eggshells.

as if a room of Harvard professors have convened to ensure each full-stop is in the right place for fear of misinterpretation or litigation.

ikr?

just risible

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03189/chris-bascombe_3189184j.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbVcAsdUEAA5KnM.jpg

Now we're talking. Back when an opening para was an opening para.

an attempt at trolling so transparent and moronic that they couldn't even find a journalist to put their name to it http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/players/zlatan-ibrahimovic/12162472/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic-would-flop-at-Man-Utd-heres-why.html

Distance covered per game - Premier League 2015/16

Interesting table. Seems to demonstrate that running around a lot makes no difference to your league position.

Hugh Mcilvanney retires. His writing on football and boxing is among the greatest sports journalism I've ever read (he also wrote on horse racing but I think it's vile and stupid so I haven't read much of it).

Can't fucking wait till "Gary Neville's Valencia" becomes "Valencia" again.

there's a crowdfunder for a Scottish equivalent of the blizzard that has just about reached it's 10,000 pound target : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1406994286/nutmeg-the-scottish-football-periodical
some decent names on there. but also bill leckie.
and the sample articles are not that promising.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3519872/Marcos-Rojo-pays-visit-Post-Office-defender-deliver-Manchester-United-Argentina-smoking-storm.html

really liked sid lowe's interview with Monchi https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/17/sevilla-monchi-liverpool-europa-league-final

"Negotiations come next, where you have to know the market, have an alternative, and be realistic. “The guy selling a Seat Leon will claim it’s a better model,” Monchi says. “Kanouté wasn’t the first option; we were going after Fred, the Brazilian. We wanted [Kevin-Prince] Boateng before Keita. And if a player says: ‘Chelsea want me,’ I say: ‘What are you talking to me for, then?’ But if Swansea or Spurs want you, let’s talk. I sell the city, the club: a serious club that pays as promised, which sounds trivial but isn’t.”"

lol

:)

https://twitter.com/SkySportsNewsHQ/status/732665863497650176

What Ancelotti lacks in fire, he more than covers with deep, deep sanity.

https://next.ft.com/content/720cae92-1c32-11e6-a7bc-ee846770ec15?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Flife-arts_lunch-with-the-ft%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3628180/Roy-Hodgson-football-man-course-England-thankful-manager-that.html

He has been to the opera but would rather listen to Sixties pop and soul

Translating the piece, the 22-year-old said: “Today is the birthday of my princess.

My love I wish you a happy birthday, good health, peace and that God always blesses and protects you.

Thanks for everything you do for me, thank you for making me so happy. I feel so loved.

It is good at the heart of the people when you have someone to share a great love.

Like the breeze of the morning, so you arrived.

A perfect optical love, a bridge on a river of pain, in my life a beautiful dream came true.

A gift sent by my Lord.

Congratulations my great love.”

Coutinho and Aine have been married since 2012 and the pair seem very happy.

Kevin McCarra gone missing in Avignon. Worrying.

https://www.facebook.com/hugh.stewart.146/posts/10154316375224337

Confirmed he's been found safe and well.

"A three-times world player of the year, the headline act for Portugal is entering the zone marked high-end functional footballer as with each outing the dazzling performer who wrests contests his way recedes in the distance.

At 31 this is understandable. Unlike England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, a sonnet by Shakespeare or a burgundy grand cru, elite athletes do not age well."

-_-

henry winter's book about the england national team really is quite smthg. he goes to great lengths to shoehorn in terrible jokes. eg when describing the 1990 WC s-final he mentions gazza being told to stick close to matthaus except gazza doesn't know who matthaus is. this lack of awe about opponents is summed up by winter as "no fear and lothar"

or when england secure a 0-0 draw in rome to top their group in WC '98 qualififying and thus avoid a playoff in moscow in november which would have meant going "to russia in gloves". the whole book is like this, kinda amazing.

goes out to interview steven gerrard in l.a where it's hot and humid -"california steamin'".

http://tvnewsroom.site/images/news-staff/henry-winter/henry-winter-Image-0001.jpg

he is like three drawings on from nult in an "evolution of football man" graph.

in his chapter on the supremacy of the premier league over the england national team he goes to a pub/bar in L.A where they show epl games on a saturday morning, or as winter would have it - california streamin'.

also gets in a chapter on 'washbag culture' (which should be the new prem thread title really) where waddle, barnes, mark wright bemoan the youth of today seemingly forgetting that the england teams they played in never won fuck all either and in some cases failed to even qualify for tournaments.

Mark Wright - When I was an apprentice I had to clean boots, make tea. You can't get them to even make tea nowadays - Health and Safety.