Michael Carrick sack inevitable after ‘brutal verdict’ Man Utd ‘cannot ignore’
There’s simply no way back for Michael Carrick at Manchester United after a brutal and unignorable verdict was handed down.
Meanwhile there are a couple of huge developments in the Man City Saga, and crisis-deepening breaking news emerging from Spurs.
Taking the Michael Michael Carrick was already the Sack Race frontrunner, but Mediawatch now has the sad duty to inform you that he is totally and utterly cooked.
There is simply no way back for him now. Not because of results or performances or anything minor like that, but because of this from the Daily Express:
Harry Redknapp’s brutal Michael Carrick verdict Man Utd cannot ignore
Uh-oh. We all know there is no ignoring Harry Redknapp. Seems odd that he’d tear into Michael Carrick, though. One of his favourites, you’d have thought. This must be really bad. So what’s he said?
Harry Redknapp has branded Manchester United manager Michael Carrick as “too laid back” and admitted he never envisaged him entering management.
Absolutely brutal, we’re sure you’ll agree. Not sure how anyone could ever recover from having their entire character so publicly and brutally annihilated.
Now you might be forgiven for thinking ‘too laid-back’ is actually not that brutal and in fact closer to one of those humblebrag answers people give when asked what their own flaws are. “End of the day, I’m just guilty of, if anything, for me, Clive, being too much of a chilled-out entertainer.”
But, and this is genuinely astonishing, the Express have actually sexed up Redknapp’s still-not-remotely-brutal verdict just to make it as harsh as ‘too laid-back’. Redknapp did indeed use those words in that order, but when you consider the full quote from his column in The Sun, there’s a subtle difference to that brutal attack delivered near the end of a long paragraph about what a great guy Michael Carrick is.
“I’ve known Michael since he was 12 years old at West Ham. I can’t say I always saw a manager in him. Michael’s always been a lovely guy from a lovely family, a really intelligent footballer who knew the game, read it, controlled matches. But he’s always been a quiet lad, too, laid-back. It’s what he is.”
Commas are important, guys. “Too laid-back” was already absurd as an unignorable and apparently brutal assessment, and it wasn’t even what Redknapp said.
He did issue another brutal verdict, though. Can Man United ignore this one?
“Results haven’t been great but I hope he turns it around and keeps the job because I love him.”
Mediawatch would love, just once, for anyone, anywhere to say anything as nice as this brutal verdict about us.
Cat out of the bag
It is grimly fascinating to watch how the media collectively are going about covering The Manchester City Story. It’s a tricky combination for content-churning factories in many ways: a truly vast story that squats atop and overshadows absolutely everything else, yet one that makes a big lurching move every three weeks but the rest of the time moves at the pace of molasses.
But that trickiness also offers a creative opportunity. For this is a huge story that justifies daily live blogs and multiple updates a day. But there aren’t any updates and thus it necessitates absolutely vast amounts of filler. Imaginative, irrelevant filler. Stuff that can tickle the curiosity-gap sensors in readers’ brains without actually containing any relevant or viable information whatsoever.
Whatever your views on headline housery – and we secretly adore it, obviously – there’s no denying we’re in a golden era with this long-running story.
Like this one from the Mirror.
Man City kit ‘set for subtle change’ after Premier League charges guilty verdict
What we love here is that it’s a full-scale piece of technically correct yet utterly disingenuous sleight of hand for such low stakes. For such utter tish and entire fipsy.
It invites endless below-the-line comment section banter about Sky Bet logos and Championship namesets, doesn’t it?
But the actual story?
The Rudolf Dassler-founded company…
What second-mentioning that is, by the way
…has announced that they are scrapping sleeve branding as of 2027/28, instead, opting to just have their logo on the front of kits.
That’s it. That’s the story. From next season, Puma’s kits won’t have a cat (sorry, won’t have ‘the iconic cat emblem’) on the sleeve of their kits. And, to be entirely clear, this change is not just about Manchester City’s kits and has two-fifths of f*ck all to do with any verdicts about anything.
The move isn’t just limited to City, however, with a number of other clubs who have their home, away and third kits manufactured by the brand affected.
Affected! Thoughts and prayers to other clubs with Puma kit deals at this time. Remember: tough times don’t last, tough people do. You will one day emerge on the other side of the great Puma Cat Sleeve Logo Crisis, very possibly stronger for the experience.
Unanimous agreement
Sticking with City as every day we currently must at least for a little while, the Mirror again continue to push the boundaries of what words mean and how they can be used, as the lack of actual new information leads to the media increasingly just eating itself.
Mediawatch has already cited some slightly mischievous uses of the word ‘agreement’ among other Premier League clubs over what should happen to City when it turns out said agreement exists among only a handful of them. But it still feels like that falls within the pesky old ‘technically correct’ school of misinformation.
But the Content Gods require constant updates and escalations even where none exist – especially where none exist – and that inevitably leads to further pushing of luck and taking that technically correct agreement beyond its elastic limit.
Man City charges LIVE: Unanimous punishment verdict as Premier League clubs ‘fuming’
The issue here is that it’s a cut-and-shut of two stories. But more than that it’s a cut-and-shut of two stories where one is already cannibalising the other, but which the Mirror’s live blog has carried as if they are two distinct updates. They have, weirdly, accidentally managed to use ‘as’ correctly instead of the usual way, but somehow ended up more misleading than ever.
It starts with a Telegraph report that ‘Man City’s Premier League rivals’ (unanimity is never once mentioned here) fear City and their legal team will drag this out beyond the end of the current season.
The Sun rehash that story as the views of ‘several Premier League clubs’ and then add a little tabloid flourish by saying they are ‘fuming’.
The Mirror then put both pieces through the Big Reach Headline Generator and insert a ‘unanimous’ that nobody had mentioned before.
So each new version of the story adds its own extra detail. The Telegraph report Premier League clubs have concerns. The Sun decide they are ‘fuming’. The Mirror decide they are ‘unanimous’.
Now we just have to wait for The Sun to re-cannibalise the story with the unanimous fume themselves and just hope that by the time that happens the Telegraph have been distracted by some small boats or something to break the cycle.
Otherwise by tomorrow lunchtime we’re inevitably going to see headlines that insist ‘Fuming Premier League clubs in unanimous agreement over Man City punishment verdict purple monkey dishwasher’.
Spur of the moment
It really is an uncanny thing how often very old bits of news come up as innocent nostalgia pieces at the precise time they could unwittingly be interpreted as being about current topical situations or events. What serendipity it is.
This morning, the Daily Star bring us this urgent update that they would surely be mortified to discover looks like it could easily be mistaken for current events.
‘I left Tottenham because the manager was arrogant – he fell out with loads of players’
The crisis deepens at poor old beleaguered Spurs. Hard to see how they can possibly prepare for tonight’s massive relegation six-pointer against Coventry in light of these shocking revelations made by Tim Sherwood about Glenn Hoddle in 2003.
