England handed ‘great omen’ ahead of Norway clash as plan to stop Haaland ‘revealed’ | OneFootball

The World Cup attention turns now to the quarter-finals with England desperately trying to find a way to stop Erling Haaland (and some other, irrelevant, people from Norway).

But there is good news for the Three Lions on the ever-vital omen front.

The Express, meanwhile, have got the big Lionel Messi story from last night.

Haaland of hope and glory

With the World Cup last 16 now in the books, attention turns in full to the quarter-finals where England will play Norway.

Or more accurately based on media coverage, where England will play Erling Haaland.

We’re being slightly facetious, of course. It is understandable and correct that the terrifying Goalbot 3000 dominates attention given the way he has barrelled along in this tournament with seven goals in four games to lead Norway’s charge.

Never fear, though. England are ready. John Cross has the details in the Mirror.

If you’re worried that Marc Guehi (for it is he) has given the whole game away, then fear not.

Guehi’s plan to stop Haaland as revealed in full is as follows:

We really hope there is more to the plan. If anything, he’s almost revealed too little.

Guehi does go on to reveal England’s secret sauce, however:

That’s all well and good, but not sure it amounts to a plan to starve Haaland of service or try to force him into deeper positions where his threat is less potent.

It is therefore left to Cross himself to outline what England’s plan to stop Haaland might be.

Ah.

Great Expectations: Part I

Turns out Crossy, Guehi and the rest don’t really need to worry about making plans for Haaland, anyway.

It’s definitely coming home, and The Sun have scooped the world to tell us why.

Yes, that is timely. One might almost be tempted so suggest very conveniently timely, if one were so inclined.

We’re not, to be absolutely clear, saying this is a right load of old bumwater. Definitely not saying that.

But if we were a real historian who had painstakingly tracked the remains of Alfred the Great to somewhere in a car park in Hampshire, we would probably look to publish our findings in some kind of respectable peer-reviewed journal.

And if we were a crank, we would confirm our discovery with very little actual detail, in the week England happened to be playing Norway in the World Cup, via a Sun EXCLUSIVE.

That’s all we’re saying. That’s what we’d do. We’re not casting any aspersions on Graham Phillips, 72, from Birmingham. Although we must note that is all the information The Sun give us about Graham.

The man’s own website – which is well worth a look – states:

Mediawatch is a cynical old cove, but we suspect there may be some self-dubbing at play here. But it doesn’t sound like the biography of a definitely legit academic or painstaking researcher. One of his other claims is to have found the Holy Grail, for instance. Again, from his own website:

But back to the definite presence of Alfred the Great’s remains in that car park.

Hang on, though. What have they snuck in there? May? We may have finally found Alfred’s remains? That was very much not the tone at the start of this piece.

Look at the subtle shifting of the goalposts here. From ‘100 per cent confident’ to merely ‘confident’ and then a couple of quotes later to ‘may’.

Forgive Mediawatch for being unconvinced, but let us leave this tale of adventure and real-life Indiana Jonesery with this magnificent deployment of the ‘just days’ trope.

All good fun, isn’t it?

Great Expectations: Part II

We don’t want to expend too much time and energy on Troy Deeney’s latest misery-soaked ‘column’ in The Sun because, well, it’s Troy Deeney’s misery-soaked ‘column’ in The Sun.

But we cannot ignore this sentence…

…in a piece that spends the rest of its many hundred words p*ssing, moaning and whining that England will probably only make it as far as the semi-finals before probably losing to defending champions Argentina.

Something that would, given the conditions in North America, make this England’s second best men’s World Cup ever.

A fine Mess

The Daily Express bravely bring us the big Lionel Messi story from last night.

Yep. That’s definitely it. Definitely not this.

This is also one of those genuinely infuriating bits of tabloid tittle-tattle where they have their cake and stuff their greedy faces with it with titillating nudge-nudge hints at the idea of Messi having an affair and then copy that keeps saying things like…

Elsewhere the phrase ‘falsely accused of having an affair’ also pops up. The affair rumours are complete b*llocks, we get it. Which begs the question: why is this a story at all?

Except it doesn’t even do that, really, does it? We all know why this complete bag of b*llocks is a story.

Broken news

From the Daily Star:

That’s not how you spell ‘arm’.

Weirdly, the Star go on to insist ‘Jordan Henderson has spoken out on his freak injury’ when every other outlet has led on the fact his silence-breaking social media update made no mention of his injury at all.

The Sun, never one to engage in wild hyperbole, went so far as to note ‘Henderson sensationally failed to even mention his horror injury’.