Chelsea eye ‘five managers’ to replace Rosenior; Spurs star to replace ‘Man Utd flop’ | OneFootball

Liam Rosenior is understandably in the crosshairs after Chelsea’s defeat at Brighton on Tuesday night.

But there’s also manager updates from Liverpool, a transfer story about Manchester United that is not in fact about Manchester United, and a refreshingly laid-back Pep Guardiola despite a Man City injury crisis.

Oh, and a pun so bad it’s actually made us ill.

Panic on the streets of London

Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea are all now firmly in crisis mode as the run-in intensifies, with ongoing potential for West Ham to reacquire that status. What a time to be alive. As the saying so very nearly goes, when a man is tired of London football clubs in crisis, he is tired of life.

Chelsea and LinkedIn Liam very much today’s focus, of course, after last night’s genuinely horrific defeat at Brighton.

The Daily Express, always a steady, rational voice of calm and reason in even the most troubled times, have the solution.

To be honest, we really think and would strongly recommend that they should just pick one. Even by Chelsea standards, five managers in a week is just clearly far too many. They are fools to have even considered it.

Missing words round

Another cracking edition of everyone’s* favourite almost daily quiz, courtesy of the Daily Mirror.

The all-important words for which there was, alas, no space to be found at all are this time ‘by Fernando Llorente’.

But there’s bonus content today, you lucky people. This one’s for the really seasoned headline watchers among you. What else do you notice that’s slightly odd about the phrasing of that headline?

That’s right – ‘new boss’. Doesn’t say next boss, does it? Heavily implies next boss, especially with its ‘How Liverpool could line up’ hook, but doesn’t actually say it.

Which is despicably clever because, and you’ll be way ahead of us by now, Llorente didn’t say next boss. He said:

He is not at all saying Torres will or even should replace Arne Slot.

Yet here the Mirror are using that ‘definitely’ to show us how the current squad for next season could line up under Torres.

The answer to which is: much like they could under any other manager, with the only significant changes being Dominik Szoboszlai moving to Mo Salah’s old perch on the right and confirmed new arrival Jeremy Jacquet taking Virgil van Dijk’s starting place. Which we’re a bit less sure about, but doesn’t in any case seem like it would be a specifically Torres move.

Three is the magic number

Manchester City are all set to go top of the Premier League tonight when they face almost-relegated Burnley, but don’t give up just yet, Arsenal fans, for there is a twist afoot.

About time someone else got the injury crisis, eh? But let’s look into these three setbacks.

The first two are Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol, both of whom were already injured and neither of whom anyone had expected to return against Burnley.

The third is Rodri and, listen, fair play, this is at least a new injury and to another player who qualifies for ‘star’ status

But what did Guardiola actually say about him?

So two already ruled-out stars still ruled out, and one new one not actually entirely but probably ruled out. For a game that is, it must be stressed, against a Burnley side that has now managed to drop below even Spurs in the form table. Maybe don’t restart the parade planning just yet, Gunners.

Guardiola mused

Guardiola himself doesn’t seem too worried about that mounting injury crisis.

Regular readers will know Mediawatch does enjoy a pithy, succinct Daily Mail headline but we might have a new favourite.

Did Jack Gaughan write this, or was it actually Pep Guardiola? Put… ‘Guardiola is refreshingly laid-back for a man with such responsibility’.

And that headline is absolutely not writing cheques the copy can’t cash.

Guardiola mused and then replied…

And it goes on like this. Here’s just one gigantic adoring paragraph among so, so many.

Pep quipped… and, well, you get the idea with that. And that.

We will never tire of journalists placing so much emphasis and importance on what managers do and say in press conferences or indeed how they do and say it. Guardiola is obviously doing pretty well right now in the more humdrum arena of actual football as well, sure, but that’s far from mandatory.

As long as your presser performances remain up to scratch, you can get away with almost anything on the pitch. Look at how much water the media carried – and continue to carry – for Thomas Frank this season.

The Flop

Clever stuff here from the Daily Express. Obviously there are going to be a host of stories about Spurs players leaving the club this summer, but how to make a rumour linking one of them with a move to Turkey really stand out from the crowd?

Like this, of course.

Fred, who left Old Trafford in 2023, is the ‘Man Utd flop’ in question and thus Fenerbahce the team doing the reported lining up and/or contacting in a story that has absolutely nothing to do with Manchester United whatsoever but does manage to get their name into both the headline and URL. Fancy that.

Leicer of two evils

We have absolutely nothing constructive to say about or add to this Sun pun on Leicester’s downfall.

Other than to note that we’ve been looking at it for about 37 minutes and can now feel a migraine coming on.