Liverpool ‘worst fears realised’ as fallout from Man City FFP verdict leads to Haaland ‘U-turn’ | OneFootball

Even with the Manchester City Situation rumbling on – and there’s plenty on that in here as well – there’s also time for a more traditional international break staple: the curse of players picking up injuries on international duty.

Liverpool are the latest to be struck by their ‘worst fears’.

There’s also hot news of two team-mates having a conversation, and someone getting confused by Harry Kane’s missed penalty the other night.

The sum of all fears Mediawatch has a long-standing problem with the use of ‘worst’ in football. Almost always it simply betrays a failure of imagination. Whatever has just happened, it is almost certainly not actually ‘the worst possible start’.

Conceded an early goal? Yeah, well at least it wasn’t two early goals. Conceded two early goals? Yeah, well at least it wasn’t two early goals and a man sent off. Conceded two early goals and had a man sent off? Commiserations, you are probably Tottenham Hotspur and should seek professional help.

But at least in these imagination-lacking uses of ‘worst’ there’s no real harm done is there? It’s just a well-worn bit of football commentary lingo. It might not actually mean the worst possible start, but it definitely does mean a bad one. It’s harmless. We shouldn’t let it bother us. We will continue to let it bother us.

There’s also, though, now this from the Daily Express where they’re using ‘worst’ in a far more deliberate and provocatively misleading way to hoover up clicks from panicky Liverpool supporters, and it won’t do.

Just no. This is not the standard failure of imagination. We all know what Liverpool’s ‘worst fears’ over an Alexander Isak injury might look like or involve.

Liverpool’s ‘worst fears’ over an Isak injury could not reasonably be said, for instance, to include the word ‘minor’. Kind of by definition, a ‘minor injury’ cannot be the ‘worst fear’. Because the word ‘major’ exists, doesn’t it? This is basic.

Where the Express believe they have located the wriggle room for this exercise in housery lies in the fact that there was some initial confusion about why specifically he’d pulled out of Sweden duty. There were reports of a thigh injury, but also footage showing a bloodied toe that, while unpleasant, could obviously be expected to heal pretty rapidly.

But to accept the Express’ usage here is to accept that ‘worst’ and ‘worse’ are synonyms. Mediawatch’s ongoing if futile Words Have Meanings campaign just opened a new front.

Converse All Stars Funny thing with the Manchester City story now, three days on and still deep in the weeds of the interlull, is that it a) is obviously absolutely massive and clearly the biggest story around right now but also b) not currently actually really going anywhere until and unless some new development occurs via official confirmation and the start of the inevitable appeals process.

It’s quite a tricky puzzle, really. It’s hard to meaningfully move the story on right now, but it’s also very obviously impossible to ignore.

There’s only so much space that can be filled with various different people giving various degrees of uninformed opinion on what punishment City should get, or pretending that Liam Gallagher is the go-to authority for such news.

Which leads directly to this sort of absolute non-content from the Daily Mail.

Two club team-mates? Having a conversation after playing against each other for their countries? Clearly, this has never happened before. But we guess there could be half a story here if we know what they actually talking about.

Double trouble The Daily Star have attempted to explain precisely what happened with Harry Kane’s missed penalty against Spain but somewhere along the way in their explainer appear to have confused themselves.

They rightly note that Kane’s double-touch as his standing left foot slid and made contact with the ball before his right foot resulted in Spain being awarded an indirect free-kick. But we cannot for the life of us understand what they’re getting at with this…

Because as the Star themselves go on to correctly state:

So, because he missed, he conceded a free-kick and – this is important – didn’t score a goal. Had he scored, he would have had another chance to in fact score a goal.

So why, then, would he be ‘somewhat relieved that he missed’?

Yes, he really has dodged a bullet there. Had he not missed a penalty he might instead have suffered the far more embarrassing fate of missing a penalty.

Nothing Compares 2 U We’re sure the Daily Mirror couldn’t believe their luck here, because there are two things the football media love more than anything else. One, massively disingenuous but technically-not-complete-bullsh*t headlines and two, talking about themselves as if they are at least as important as the game itself. More important, if anything.

Having ourselves just successfully yeeted all manner of rocks around our glazed dwelling, let’s have a look at this turbo-bollocks headline then.

We don’t need to get into what that looks like it’s going to be about but obviously isn’t, because it’s all so very obvious indeed.

What was it actually about? Erling Haaland was due to be the Norway player put up for press ahead of the game against Portugal, but after the City news broke Norway wisely decided not to put up a player who would inevitably face zero questions about Norway.