Florian Wirtz ‘brutally’ told that actually, his shot was sliced and going wide… | OneFootball

We are told Florian Wirtz was ‘brutally’ and ‘cruelly’ denied a first goal, even though his sliced shot was going wide.

We’re not having that. And there was no ‘awkward’ interview afterwards…

The Wirtz of cruel decisions

‘Liverpool 1 Sunderland 1: Florian Wirtz comes to rescue but is cruelly robbed of first Reds goal’ – The Sun.

‘Florian Wirtz finds out he was cruelly denied first Premier League goal against Sunderland in post-match interview – as £116m signing opens up on difficult start at Liverpool’ – Daily Mail.

The Mirror say he was ‘brutally denied his first goal’ while Goal (Own Goal?) also went for ‘brutally denied’ in their headline.

But as formerly good website Football365 noted: ‘For a moment it appeared he finally had his first Premier League goal as Liverpool drew level. That wasn’t to be, replays revealing he’d actually sliced his shot quite tremendously. Without Nordi Mukiele’s inadvertent contribution it would have sailed mortifyingly wide.’

It’s not brutal. It’s not cruel. It’s the rules. It was a sh*t shot.

The fact that Wirtz was told in his post-match interview has been a rich course of ‘content’ since.

‘Watch awkward moment Florian Wirtz reacts to being denied first Liverpool goal’ is a typical headline from talkSPORT that is rather ruined by their really quite early admission that ‘Florian Wirtz shrugged off the disappointing news’ and ‘didn’t seem too fazed’. Awkward.

‘Watch brutal moment Sky Sports reporter tells gutted Florian Wirtz his first Premier League goal was taken away from him’ is The Sun‘s version.

We have indeed watched and Wirtz is not even in shot when the Sky Sports reporter says it’s an own goal and then Wirtz literally says “it doesn’t matter today”. Almost like it didn’t matter.

The Guardian were obviously late to the news that Wirtz’s ‘goal’ was actually an own goal, or perhaps they thought their ‘Florian Wirtz delivers but lacklustre Liverpool are held by Sunderland’ headline was justified because ‘Wirtz forced Nordi Mukiele to unwittingly concede an 81st‑minute own goal’. And we all know that’s what counts.

The Daily Mail were also late, leaving us with this opening paragraph: ‘So, who was happy at the end? Florian Wirtz didn’t seem to be. His torturous wait for a decisive moment had ended but he looked like he’d lost a pound and found a penny as he trouped off, politely clapping the Main Stand but giving no real enthusiasm.’

Maybe he knew a) he had not scored and b) Liverpool had just drawn 1-1 at home v Sunderland.

Going for a Song

Bizarrely, the top story on the Daily Mail is not connected to the actual Premier League football matches on Wednesday night. No, this is the supposed biggest story in football:

Does Alex Song (because it was he) say that he would force Declan Rice or Martin Zubimendi out of the Arsenal team and start instead?

Or does Alex Song (we don’t want to do him a disservice but he does look slightly inebriated) confidently say “yes” to Alex Song getting in every European giant’s midfielder before proclaiming that he would never play for Tottenham?

Biggest story in football, guys.

The Wright stuff: An update

Hmmm. Not a pundit. But mostly Mediawatch is amused by the notion that Wright was steadfastly holding his counsel in the face of immense pressure until…he appeared on a podcast and was asked about it. What took you so long, Wrighty?