Jurgen Klopp stance on Man Utd job is definitely new information as ‘advantage’ handed over | OneFootball

A massive night of crucial Premier League action dominates the headlines on Thursday morning, thanks in large part to Fabian Hurzeler’s huff, but it’s the guff and nonsense we’re interested in.

Which means more spurious attempts to link Jurgen Klopp to the Man United job, and outrageous revelations from Brennan Johnson’s Tottenham career.

Klopp of the pops

Mediawatch does understand why the British media are collectively so desperate to get Jurgen Klopp back into Our League.

His teams were more fun and watchable than most of what we get now, and Klopp himself was relentlessly good value in a post-match scenario – win, lose or draw.

But we do need them to understand that it almost certainly won’t happen. And that if it does happen there is only one route that isn’t entirely impossible.

Today, that gentle message of ‘We understand but you must move on with your life’ goes to the Daily Express. Not usually an outlet one would associate with a rose-tinted view of the past and a desperate, yearning desire to go back to a ‘better’ time even though it is impossible.

We think we can guess this decision.

We think we can guess this clear view.

No way. Why?

It might be ‘according to Sky Sports Switzerland’ but also and more importantly it’s according to, well, Jurgen Klopp. For the umpteenth time we must go back to his own entirely clear and unequivocal words when he first announced he would be leaving Liverpool, words he has never given even the slightest hint or suggestion he might go back on.

Still, good to have that second-sourced by Sky Sports Switzerland.

City flickers

Unusual for us, this, but we’re going to indulge in a small amount of pedantry here. It’s been slightly bothering us over the last couple of weeks when City have been within five points of Arsenal with a game in hand.

‘It’s in City’s hands now’ has been the phrase but while we accept it’s always obvious and implied by the fact they are top of the table, it has also never been out of Arsenal’s hands either.

Slowly but surely over the last couple of weeks, the bald fact that if City won all their remaining games they would be champions has undergone a metamorphosis from that simple factual statement into an actual advantage over Arsenal, for whom the same thing was true but more so; they could drop points and it still be the case that winning all their other games would definitely be enough.

And now that City have dropped points, we get this from the Daily Mirror.

There never was a title advantage. What was true of City was always more true of Arsenal, who even before Wednesday night were massive odds-on favourites with the bookies and given around an 86 per cent chance of winning the title by Opta’s projections.

Handed over? Arsenal have held the initiative for the title race since Liverpool’s collapse in the autumn. City have lost for now the largely hypothetical notion of ‘win every game and…’ but that always still required them to beat Arsenal. The Gunners have never been helpless bystanders. Only two teams have ever held the initiative in this title race and neither of them has been Man City.

Aussie rules

It’s pretty much open season on Tottenham right now, and you know what? That’s absolutely fair enough. They deserve pretty much all of it.

But not completely all of it. We can totally understand the desire to uncover some Brennan Johnson angle given that tonight his Crystal Palace team head to Tottenham for an uncomfortably significant game with a great many weary Spurs fans having long since resigned themselves to the inevitability of Johnson’s first (only?) goal for Palace sending them ever closer to relegation.

We’re not really sure this from the Daily Express quite lands, though, despite the promises made by the headline.

You have our attention.

Sounds like they had simply no choice but to sell him. But what was his crime, precisely? It all happened in Australia, you see.

Okay, the presence of Australia and Ange Postecoglou in this tale is starting to suggest that ‘before Tottenham exit’ appears to exist in the realm of technically true, but not relevantly so. But carry on.

He’s lucky he was only sold and didn’t serve jail time frankly.

Oh, and in case you were wondering. May 2024. That’s when this breach of ‘one of Australian sport’s most significant unwritten rules’ took place. So yes, it was ‘before Tottenham exit’. Over 18 months before.

We’re pretty sure that it is now, sadly, the only thing anyone will ever remember of his Tottenham career.

Trent bridge

Another episode of the ever-popular Missing Words Round here, courtesy of the Mirror.