thread of terrible football journalism

The latter's subtle, seamless, seemingly timeless - even if they did go mising for a while at Chelsea - skills were behind most of Dynamo's best, principally counter-attacking. moves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/mar/10/dynamo-kiev-manchester-city-match-report

not necessarily nult level awfulness, just the sort of awkward periphrastic construction u get in match reports

is this bad writing or bad theorising?

That you are looking for in the thread, i mean.

thinking the former mainly but ymmv!

some of the guardian guys are fucking unreadable in terms of sentence structure.

Kevin McCarra is the worst

DTguardian: More good news for #MCFC: Dynamo Kiev's top striker Artem Milevskiy fractured his arm today and is out of the EL return leg.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/12/manchester-united-arsenal-fa-cup

that's some headline.

almost certain that's a deliberate use of "Rooney Sucks"

sucks arse, at that.

Personally dislike the use of "cup exit" when one of the defeats refers to a final. You're not "out of the Cup", are you? You were in the Cup right up to the moment the competition ended, you just happened to lose the final.

true

yeah agree...annoying the way people using that just to hype up arsenal's recent "CRISIS" more.

"cup exit" isn't a patch on "adventure" for shit teams who make it past the 1st round of a knockout competition

Few of the new signings have had any real, lasting impact; fewer of the old players remain. Ivica Dragutinovic has virtually disappeared, Antonio Puerta of course died, even Andrés Palop is playing less, while Luís Fabiano, like Enzo Maresca, Alves, Christian Poulsen and Javier Navarro, has gone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/14/barcelona-la-liga-title-race/print

i like sid lowe's enthusiasm but sometimes he 'lacks perhaps a little composure', too much mascherano and not enough iniesta etc

Kenny Dalglish expects Braga defender Kaka to be disciplined for his elbow on Andy Carroll. "Regarding Andy Carroll and impact, the biggest impact was what I was asked about after the game about him getting caught with the elbow from Kaka," said Dalglish, with admirable contempt for the basics of syntax.

Kenny is not a journalist but I laughed heartily at this and the rote Fiverpith following it

McNulty all sitting there at home nodding in agreement with Kenny, imagining the entire phrase inexplicably forming into a hyperlink to the BBC's match report of the game

some of the guardian guys are fucking unreadable in terms of sentence structure.

Is this like an "editing" thing? Are there actually just loads of broadsheet sport journalists who are bad at writing sentences that don't make you stop reading them halfway through?

Invited to choose between two ticket-buying opportunities, most neutrals would probably pay to watch Messi ahead of Ronaldo – just – because La Pulga Atómica (the Atomic Flea) achieves more in the way of physical marvels, working the ball like a conjurer, but Ronaldo has one higher claim. His brilliance has been expressed in two countries: the pinball game of the Premier League, and now in Spain, where the struggle for supremacy between two institutions finds radiant form in a battle between two men.

haytard with probably the most periphrastic expression of YEAH BUT COULD HE DO IT ON A COLD NIGHT IN STOKE yet seen

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/apr/27/lionel-messi-cristiano-ronaldo/print

don't want to read this but it has my favourite headline ever

http://thefaithfulmufc.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/the-shattered-dreams-of-bebe-are-mufc-on-jorge-mendes-carousel/

It was getting on for 1am when they started to board flight BD1858 at Munich airport. Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott played Scrabble on an iPad. For Gareth Barry and James Milner, the game of choice was Yahtzee. Most of the players, though, sat in silence, contemplating what had just happened and what it meant.

Tuesday began for City with a delegation from the club, led by the life-president, Bernard Halford, the assistant manager, Brian Kidd, and the former captain and manager Tony Book, laying a wreath in the Manchesterplatz to commemorate the Munich air disaster. The following day began with Tevez grinning when he saw the police escort waiting for him at Manchester airport. As one colleague put it (expletives removed): "He doesn't care less."

The best reason to connect Tevez and Scholes is not to categorise them both as Bolsheviks but to highlight the one-club devotion of the more modest of the pair.

haytard and his incessant sycophantic blather

kinda imagine scholes wouldn't be so devoted if his one club was in buenos aires

Against Betis they had played so badly that the Basque newspaper Deia called it "an anthology of senselessness"

i often wonder when this stuff gets reported secondhand whether it's an exaggeratedly florid translation (like how the 'said & done' column stitches everyone up) or if the football press abroad just really do bring the swag like that

Chris McLaughlin of the BBC:

After astonishing myself first off by successfully boiling my own eggs at breakfast, it was off to the Scotland media conference to hear the latest ahead of Saturday.

There was no need to bring my eggshells to walk on though.

god

Manchester City are determined to sign Neymar before the end of the season.

City sporting director Txiki Begiristain flew to Sao Paulo last week to discuss prising the 20-year old from his club, Santos, despite pressures on him to remain in Brazil until after the 2014 World Cup.

Santos chiefs are relenting, however, and Begiristain believed travelling to South America would help to reinforce City’s desire for Neymar, who is valued at around £32 million.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2252436/Neymar-latest-Manchester-City-chief-flies-Sao-Paulo-discuss-transfer.html

or 0.91 carrolls to use the local currency

David James' musings about twitter

Swansea may put Michael Laudrup in frame for Sir Alex Ferguson's job

The Danish manager has taken on the good work of Brendan Rogers and presented a fair case for consideration as next manager of Manchester United

Richard Williams at the Liberty Stadium

He might not even touch the sleekest work of Chelsea's Oscar, who quite beautifully put his Chelsea team-mate Ashley Cole under the most desperate pressure on the unsurprisingly truncated occasion of his 100th England cap.

But what Wilshere has, and displayed with quite relentless enthusiasm against the Brazilian team Luiz Felipe Scolari is hoping, no doubt with much initial anxiety, to galvanise all the way to another World Cup final, is something you measure not so much in artistic impression but practical effect.

The challenge represented by Brazil, at least in theory rather than the underwhelming reality, might have built in more vulnerable young minds – and especially when Scolari's audition moved on to a passable level of commitment with a piece of thrilling scoring skill by a man who at that moment seemed poorly served by his stage name Fred.

james lawton is maybe the worst of all these cunts, not the most obnoxious but conceivably the least intelligent

Jesus

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2272984/Martin-Samuel-Queens-Park-Rangers-right-spend.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2274908/MARTIN-SAMUEL--DEBATE--Brainwashed-fans-slam-QPR-gambling--games-chasing-glory-beautiful-balance-sheet.html

well, it's nice to catch one person's imagination at least

http://i.mol.im/i/pix/2013/02/07/article-2274925-1767E9C2000005DC-787_636x480.jpg

^^^^^^^amazing

new board descrip imo

But like Ned's Atomic Dustbin's appearance on Top of the Pops in 1991, this Champions League run may be the moment when the hipsters feel the tug of the mainstream, shudder and strike out for less tumultuous waters. Besides, everyone knows who Mario Gotze is now. It's no fun anymore. As we speak, hipsters around the world are seeking out new objects of affection. Word to the wise: Nuremburg's Hiroshi Kiyotake is where it's at.

Remembering Bobby: West Ham players wear special T-shirts ahead of celebration of former England captain Moore's death

A deal with Arsenal is still a long way off, and signing someone with Suarez’s track record could be seen as high-risk. He has run into big trouble on several occasions. He needs to learn from his behaviour because you can’t use racist language or bite people. It’s not on.

http://i.imgur.com/KYEbKg0.jpg

It arguably proved the catalyst which broke an impasse which threatened to leave the club with little option but to sell the 28-year-old, quite possibly to one of his various admirers in Russia.

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/static/images/branchimages/schools/scd/staff/branchlouise.jpg

It is tempting to proclaim Mark Hughes the Premier League's Axl Rose. When gigging in modest clubs and forced to work within tight-as-leather constraints he excels; when surrounded by riches that give him the freedom to indulge his grander plans, he releases jumbled and overblown bilge. But that analogy does not quite stand up because Hughes the manager has never reached the height Rose did (although the disciplinary record of his Blackburn Rovers did hint at an appetite for destruction). Still, Hughes rocked at Blackburn and Fulham – relative to his discordant stints at Manchester City and Queens Park Rangers – and now his early sessions at Stoke City suggest he may have regained his mojo.

the guardian's '10 things' columns are almost always execrable

^ cf this Jamie Jackson sentence in today's 'talking points':

Then, in the second half, when Aleksandar Kolarov had to depart due to a facial injury, Pellegrini, to use the parlance, "lay into" both the left-back's proposed replacement, Gaël Clichy, and Brian Kidd, his assistant, after the Frenchman had sat back down after warming up.

Jamie Jackson

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/fa-cup/10549651/Joey-Bartons-support-for-the-FA-Cup-sadly-ignores-the-realities-of-a-competition-that-lives-on-only-in-folk-memory.html

Like a lump of lard hung on a washing line, the romance of the Cup has been slowly pecked away.

No one disputes that the teenage Rooney was some player. Most 18-year-old Brits on their first summer trip to Europe are cocky enough to believe they will score. The difference is at Euro 2004 Rooney did. Four times. Yet when judged on Premier League goals and assists at Everton, Rooney was not quite the buzzcock we often imagine.

Webb reminded everyone why English officials are trusted. There is an integrity to English referees that if one makes a mistake it is acknowledged as an honest one.

Henry Winter believed it was necessary to write an entire article slurping Howard Webb's performance in the RM-Bayern game last night. Particularly like the implication that when foreign refs make a mistake there are likely nefarious reasons for it.

It really is an execrable piece.

he is fucking awful

webb as well as winter, just seems to be an officious faux hard cunt (he is an ex-cop right?) who is very easily intimidated by big name players and whose 'laissez-faire' style works against itself by encouraging players do get gradually more aggressive and webb invariably bottles it because he doesn't want to have to send off four players

winter was still calling for more time for moyes at the weekend then said he wasn't good enough once he was fired, death of the great white hope of 00s british football managers brings on an overcomepnsatory jingoist love letter to a fucking referee

interestingly winter's brother is a prominent (converted) islamic scholar

Wanted giggs to get given the job full-time a couple of days ago. Seemed awed by him.

And both teams will be hearted that Asteras Tripolis and Besiktas drew 1-1, leaving all four Group C sides with a point each after the opening round.

hearted

fucking hearted

end the bbc

I am crazy and I like to heart

<3

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByIP6r-CAAAOfSs.jpg:large

checkmate, nulty

couple of creative sentence constructions today:

"But Tottenham generally kept their in-form visitors at arm’s length with Kaboul, the error apart, was in imposing mood."

"Their problem lies in Redknapp’s recruitment and how he sets up the team. Either he needs a re-think. Or QPR do."

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/oct/06/premier-league-10-talking-points-weekend

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32909649

hey u post more

just had to doublecheck that Matt Slater gets paid for that

Matt started in journalism at Match of the Day Magazine, where he made the tea, answered the phone and did lots of photocopying. But by hanging around long enough they started to let him write stories: he is still going.

think this signals a shift in priorities, after years of second-mention synonyms and coddling explanations, BBC Sport articles no longer care if you understand what the fuck they're on about

would be a potential GCSE English textual recasting exam question to modify this dangerously unfocused piece of writing to the point where it will have been nultified

Just as the New World likes to think, with some justification, that it baled the Old World out of a couple of big problems in the last century, there is a strong feeling that the US cavalry has come galloping to the rescue again.

Forget Arsenal, Roy Hodgson's England are the new Invincibles... and they're far more entertaining than Arsene Wenger's lot

Apparently Ibrahimovic would not look out of place in the premier league. Bold statement that.

Benítez demonstrated his faith in Bale by playing him as a central striker against Tottenham Hotspur in the Audi Cup and the Welshman responded with a goal against his former club.

With Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema both ruled out with injuries

Yes real show of faith there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3191624/Kevin-Bruyne-46million-makes-Raheem-Sterling-look-like-good-value.html

something special for u pands

Ha! Saw the URL and knew it had to be Samuel! Talking out of his backside again. Strangely feels the need to praise kdb by saying he was excellent during the world cup (he wasn't) whilst kinda handwaving away the fact that de bruyne just had one of the single best individual seasons ever.A season about ten times more impressive than any sterling's managed so far but Mourinho didn't rate him in the 2 games he played for Chelsea so case closed.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/aug/10/manchester-united-post-sir-alex-ferguson-david-moyes

from jamie jackson's book about moyes at man u, which is all written in some adopted "i am writing a book now" tone.

The atmosphere might not be great but that’s football journalism. The same people have to be dealt with most weeks of the year. The relationship, the world, is an odd one. There are genuine moments of warmth and there are squabbles and disputes. There are forced situations where the manager or press officer or whoever has just been argued with has to be spoken to again on some other matter, sometimes instantly and, of course, courteously.

This is a fine illustration.

nice of him to stop halfway through to praise his own description of the scene.

The bigger picture here – the only picture, really – is that whatever the rights and wrongs of this, He said, We said dispute, here is another Bienvenue à Manchester for Moyes. And the new man in the hottest hot seat is struggling to compute this.

this just makes my blood boil for some reason.

http://i61.tinypic.com/nbcdg7.jpg

looks like the past few seasons have been rougher on him than they were on Moyes

The Cut Bar & Grill in downtown Sydney is a high-end restaurant for the movers and shakers who pass through the city. And for the wannabe movers and shakers who pass through the city. What the difference is, who knows … It is a quasi-kind of place. No one really has fun in here. They only think they do. All the fun is happening elsewhere. The place has soft lights and soft sounds and seems always to have been at this point now, approaching 8pm, the evening about to move from quietude to a rising murmur in anticipation of something that never arrives. It’s what this – all these – places are about.

astonishing this is a person who gets paid to write and not somebody on an introduction to journalism evening class

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/aug/12/manchester-united-asia-paul-wilson

Manchester United can improve: just an opinion, not an attempt to conquer Asia

paul wilson writes an article about his last article

daniel taylor's time machine. read this and try and get any sense of how this evening's game played out. seriously, it's about 8-3 by the fourth paragraph.

Every year, there are certain matches the team that goes on to win the Premier League can look back upon and identify as key moments in the title race, when everything fell into place and they showed all the qualities that champions need. For Arsenal, it had been shaping up to be one of those occasions until that moment, in the 90th minute, when the ball dropped to Joe Allen, Liverpool’s substitute, and he scored the final goal of a wild and enthralling night.

The disappointment for Arsène Wenger’s team was considerable given they had twice fought their way back from going behind during that blitz of four goals in a 15-minute period of the first half. Roberto Firmino scored both of them for Liverpool and Arsenal had needed to show all their competitive courage before Olivier Giroud’s second goal of the night gave them the lead for the first time.

Aaron Ramsey had fired in the first equaliser and Giroud ran the line with great expertise on a night that fell in line with the recent history of these fixtures. The two sides have now accumulated 41 goals between them in their last 10 encounters but, for Arsenal, the last of them was a grievous setback.

Liverpool played as though they were affronted by the pre-match statistic they had never scored fewer goals, 22, after 20 games of any season in their 124-year history. Klopp’s men were quick to the ball, moving the ball with speed and confidence and took the lead after 10 minutes when Theo Walcott made the mistake of trying to play the ball out of his own penalty area rather than attempting to clear his lines.

Walcott was suddenly surrounded by players in red, lost the ball and Arsenal were immediately vulnerable. Emre Can had the first shot and, though Petr Cech parried it away, Arsenal’s goalkeeper was unable to divert the ball into a safe position. Firmino seized on the rebound, turned the ball on to his left foot and scored with a low shot that went through Laurent Koscielny’s legs to wrong foot Cech.

Giroud needed his scalp to be stapled after taking a bang in the build-up to Ramsey’s strike but he was holding his head for entirely different reasons later in the half when he failed to get a clean connection to Walcott’s cross with the goal at his mercy. Mamadou Sakho denied Ramsey a second goal with a header off the goal-line and Giroud’s improvisational flick to make it 2-2, from the resultant corner, was another ordeal for the Liverpool defence. The ball was driven to the near post and Giroud’s deft touch beat Simon Mignolet without any of the home players anticipating the danger.

It was breathless stuff, with both sides playing with a great sense of adventure, and Firmino showing the kind of threat that had been witnessed only sporadically before. Firmino had scored only once in his first 24 appearances since signing from Hoffenheim last summer for £29m but this felt like the night when he introduced himself properly to the Anfield crowd. After 19 minutes, James Milner found the striker in a central position. Firmino was 25 yards out but went for a curler and delivered his shot with just the right amount of bend and pace to put the ball into the top corner of Cech’s net.

The disappointment for Liverpool at half-time was the way they had been pegged back so quickly after both goals. Campbell’s beautifully weighted pass set up Ramsey for Arsenal’s first, four minutes after they had gone behind, and they produced another quick response when Firmino re-established Liverpool’s lead. Wenger cannot have been happy with the number of chances Liverpool created in that period but the night did also tell us something about Arsenal’s competitive courage.

After his early mistake, Walcott seemed determined to leave a favourable impression on the game. Mesut Özil was prominently involved and Giroud can be excused the occasional howler when he scores goals of this refinement.

Ten minutes into the second half, Héctor Bellerín raced on to a risky crossfield pass from Mathieu Flamini and beat James Milner in a sprint for the ball. Bellerín kept advancing on the right before cutting the ball inside for Campbell. Giroud had his back to goal but latched on to Campbell’s pass, spun expertly despite the close proximity of a couple of defenders and, on the turn, swept a left-foot shot into the far corner.

Bellerín might not attract the same publicity as some of his opponents but he has played with great distinction and, on the opposite side, the left-back Nacho Monreal had another fine game, both in his overlapping runs and the defensive nous that made him an awkward opponent for Jordon Ibe, Liverpool’s right-sided attacker.

Arsenal were defending with great togetherness but Liverpool roused themselves again in the final exchanges and pushed hard for the equaliser in the last 10 minutes before Allen’s volley was taken with great control.