Glasner future thrown 'into doubt' amid Man Utd links as Postecoglou sack talk causes despair

We cannot yet, unfortunately, move on from the Gary Neville moral panic because the Daily Mail are still being entirely ridiculous about it.

Happily, though, the rest of Mediawatch is on less febrile ground with the more typical collection of the media being less end-times-are-upon-us ridiculous about managers and goalkeepers and pundits.

Fingers crossed for a Neville-free day tomorrow, although that might be asking a bit too much of the build-up to a friendly between England and Wales.

Nevillegate: Day Three

We’re long past the head-shaking despair stage with the ongoing attempts by this country’s rabid right-wing media’s attempt to fill a quiet international break (it wouldn’t do to think too hard about why a video from last week has become such big news this week) with a good old-fashioned monstering as they continue their quest to get Gary Neville sacked for doing free speech wrong.

We’ve covered the whole sorry and entirely self-concocted media storm in exhaustive detail already here and here, and had hoped to move on altogether today. But we are going to keep pointing it out every time the Daily Mail put ‘racist’ in quote marks in headlines when absolutely nobody is using the word anywhere else, because it feels particularly despicable.

Fans turn on ‘traitor’ Gary Neville: £1.1m-a-year pundit is targeted by protest outside his flagship hotel and at football club he owns after his ‘racist’ Union Jack rant

It’s almost like they’re actually egging him on to take legal action here, so they can turn hypocritical tail and play the victim at Red Nev’s attempts to silence them. Never, ever underestimate wealthy conservative white men’s yearning desire to be oppressed; it’s the one thing they can never have.

At least the ‘traitor’ in that headline is a direct quote. It comes from a banner being held up outside Neville’s hotel in Manchester yesterday, and later seen at Salford’s game, which, thoughtfully and legitimate-concerns-edly, reads ‘GARY NEVILLE TRAITOR SCUM’.

Remember, this whole sorry load of old bollocks all stems from Gary Neville saying that division in this country is being stoked by ‘angry white middle-aged men who know exactly what they’re doing’. You’ll never guess who was holding the banner.

Ange fall

There’s a lot of quite reasonable points made in Matt Barlow’s Daily Mail lament about the speed with which managers find themselves under pressure and facing the sack these days in the ‘global soap opera of knee-jerk reactions’ that the Premier League has become.

Ange Postecoglou’s already fragile future at Nottingham Forest is the hook upon which the narrative hangs and, while we can allow the slight glossing over of the fact it has been a very, very bad seven games for a manager with a very, very bad Premier League record over a really quite extended period of time now, we can’t help but wonder whether a bit more introspection might be called for beyond a brief nod to ‘press box egos’ amid the contributing voices to this modern collective rush to swift judgement.

We might, for instance, consider headlines such as this one…

The signs Ange Postecoglou’s time at Nottingham Forest is already up

…or this one…

Nottingham Forest line up rival Premier League boss as long term target as they weigh up whether to sack Ange Postecoglou after just SEVEN games

…or…

Ange Postecoglou’s future at Nottingham Forest hangs in the balance ahead of Newcastle trip – as fans chant for under-fire boss to be ‘sacked’ after just 24 days at the helm

…or…

Ange Postecoglou admits he HASN’T spoken to Evangelos Marinakis since his side’s embarrassing defeat to FC Midtjylland where fans chanted ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning!’

…or…

Why Angeball isn’t working at Nottingham Forest: From possession and positioning to set-pieces and shots, this is exactly where it’s gone so wrong so quickly

And… well, you get the idea with that. Obviously, all those headlines are from… the Daily Mail. None of them are even unreasonable, many of them making similar points to those made upon these very pages, but they do also make it rather harder to get that ‘it all just happens so fast these days’ lament to stick.

Whar declared

Manchester United remain a primary source of interlull clicks, and the Mirror aren’t about to let a Crystal Palace player talking about Crystal Palace stop them.

Oliver Glasner’s Crystal Palace future thrown into doubt amid Man Utd speculation – ‘We will see’

Obviously you’re supposed to think Oliver Glasner, rather than Adam Wharton (for it is he), has given that quote.

And, equally obviously, you’re supposed to think that it means literally anything at all beyond being the standard boilerplate ‘rule nothing out’ clause required in any and all answers about any and all transfer speculation – and doubly so when a player is also talking about anyone other than himself.

What’s Wharton supposed to say here, out of interest, to avoid throwing his manager’s future ‘into doubt’? That Glasner will never leave Crystal Palace and is getting a tattoo of an eagle on his left buttock?

Court out

It was certainly quite discombobulating to watch a competent display of goalkeeping from a Manchester United keeper at the weekend, but luckily nobody is going to get too carried away by one good performance against Sunderland at home.

Oh, no, sorry, The Sun are going to say this.

Ruben Amorim convinced Senne Lammens is Man Utd’s answer to Thibaut Courtois after huge first impression

Goes without saying that any quotes where Amorim says he’s convinced Senne Lammens is ‘Man Utd’s answer to Thibaut Courtois’ sadly didn’t make it into the final copy.

Headline omission of the day

We’re big fans of this kind of headline, ones where what’s omitted is always, always, always more important than what’s included.

Man Utd news: ‘Ruben Amorim successor named’ as flops told ‘sorry, you’ve got to step up’

Not one but two important omissions here that by sheer unfortunate coincidence make some pundit blather look like actual United decisions and/or statements. The Daily Star were, alas, quite unable to find headline space to include either ‘by Paul Scholes’ for the first bit (Eddie Howe, if you’re wondering) or ‘by Gary Neville’ for the second.

Although, to be fair, Mediawatch would be much happier had Gary Neville’s name not been in any headlines at all today, or indeed this week.

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