The Daily Mail falls for Ian Wright amid Marcus Rashford ‘true colours’ | OneFootball

Ian Wright gets lauded for doing what parents of toddlers and friends of p***heads do every day as the Daily Mail curry favour.

We also have Marcus Rashford being hella controversial, Man City ‘closing the gap’ and a peculiar nickname.

The Wright reaction

Mediawatch loves Ian Wright. We bow to nobody in our love of the great man, which was multiplied several times over by his measured but angry reaction to the racist undertones of media criticism of Jude Bellingham.

Wright is quite possibly the only man in Britain who could have pulled off that speech without a backlash from anybody but absolute loons.

The Daily Mail were one outlet who ignored those Wright quotes, largely because it was very obvious who he was talking about when he cited one journalist’s obsession.

We’re not saying that the Mail are now trying to curry favour but, well, watch this and decide whether ‘WRIGHT’S WONDER-SAVE’ is an apt headline on a story which is deemed the very, very biggest in football this Wednesday morning.

‘WONDER-SAVE’? He literally put his hands out and stopped her going to the floor. Whoever deemed this a WONDER-SAVE has never had a) a child or b) a p***ed friend. We often say that it’s not news if the literal opposite is more interesting and never has this trope been more true: Imagine if he had just let her crash to the ground.

‘Ian Wright has been praised for his rapid reactions after stopping presenter Laura Woods from falling to the ground after she collapsed mid-broadcast,’ it says here. Has there ever been a lower bar than ‘stopping somebody from falling to the ground’?

But maybe we are being facetious (unusual, obviously), maybe it was indeed a brilliant save. After all…

Wow. Still holding his microphone? And they say men cannot multi-task.

Only happy when it rains

As always, there is an ongoing obsession with Marcus Rashford, which is not entirely unrelated to the subject that opens this Mediawatch column.

And as always, there is a theme: Teasing bad behaviour.

‘Marcus Rashford shows true Barcelona colours as final Man United transfer decision looms,’ says the Manchester Evening News.

First, we would question whether something is truly ‘looming’ when it is set to happen next summer; it certainly doesn’t feel like our 2026 summer holiday is ‘looming’.

As for ‘true colours’, we have long since given up on the phrase being used in the true sense of somebody showing their true, largely negative character, but at least have it show something, FFS.

This is Rashford’s social media post (described as a ‘clear message’ here and as a ‘six-word Barcelona update’ elsewhere): ‘Important win and great team performance.’

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the potentially controversial Rashford ‘showing his true colours’. Presumably, his ‘true colours’ are that – and this will really blow your mind – he is happy when his team wins.

Mind the gap

A pet peeve of Mediawatch’s is this kind of nonsense…

‘Pep Guardiola sends fresh Premier League title warning to Arsenal after Man City cut gap’ – Evening Standard.

‘Next six Man City fixtures compared to Arsenal after beating Fulham as gap closes’ – Manchester Evening News.

Did they close the gap or did they just play first?

But we cannot leave this without checking just what ‘fresh Premier League title warning’ (described as ‘ominous’) has been sent by Pep Guardiola…

He really didn’t hold back, did he?

But that’s not all. He also said that “if we push, we will be better and push ourselves and control the situations better, the emotions and we will see what happens”.

We will ‘see what happens’, guys. Arsenal will be quaking…

The Predictable Steve

Literally one name immediately sprang to mind when we saw this headline on the Daily Mail:

Has to be ‘Steve’, doesn’t it? There is absolutely no way it’s not Steve…

Surprising? Maybe it’s not ‘Steve’ as that is achingly predictable…

Peculiar? It can’t be ‘Steve’ then…