England ‘sh*tshow’ removes Manchester United question after Tuchel ‘cop-out’ | OneFootball

Someone wants to know ‘what has changed since his short-term appointment?’ after Thomas Tuchel extended his England contract. The managerial situations at Manchester United and elsewhere, for a start…

Virgil van Dijk may also ‘never play’ for Liverpool again.

But first, some piping hot Arsenal nonsense.

Arsenal drew with Brentford on Thursday night in the latest update to the most tedious running joke in history.

The title race is again on for the 50th time this season, having been declared over with Arsenal crowned champions roughly as often. Same again when Manchester City lose to Newcastle in midweek after the Gunners thrash Wolves, yeah?

But the big story from the Gtech had nothing to do with the situation at the Premier League summit, nor even how phenomenal a campaign Brentford are having. The talk of the town was that Arsenal wore slightly different coloured shorts. It’s the only thing anyone is on about.

It’s certainly a topic of the utmost importance in the eyes of The Sun website, who say Arsenal were ‘forced into major kit change at Brentford as unimpressed fans say ‘should be docked 12 points’.

This is vital journalism, proper Fourth Estate stuff.

We are told that Arsenal ‘lined up in their blue away kit paired with silvery/pale grey shorts and socks’ instead of the usual ‘black shorts and socks’.

Mediawatch apologises, dear reader, for not advising you sit down before that bombshell was dropped.

‘SunSport understands the reason for the change is down to a simple kit clash between the two teams’ strips, with the change decided by Premier League chiefs,’ it is added. It turns out Arsenal didn’t just do it for a laugh. They were ‘forced into major kit change’ of wearing lighter shorts by The Rules.

But to the ‘unimpressed fans’ who reckon Arsenal ”should be docked 12 points” we really must go. And that takes us to the offending/offended tweeter in question, @Cormsbadger, whose post with zero interactions to 990 followers is deemed headline-worthy by a presumably reputable outlet.

Does it matter that @Cormsbadger is actually an ‘unimpressed fan’ of Aston Villa? Or that Arsenal wore the same colour shorts earlier this season against Athletic Club? Well no. None of this sh*t matters. But still.

Soft Tuch

The news of England extending the contract of Thomas Tuchel through to Euro 2028 has caused some predictable head-loss in a media more than happy to write about past Three Lions failures.

Fabio Capello had the break clause in his deal removed before the disastrous 2010 World Cup, so a different FA signing a different manager of different players to a longer deal than he joined on 16 years later is obviously An Error.

The entirely risk-averse Phil McNulty of BBC Sport refers to the Capello situation as ‘a cautionary tale’ here, while Jason Burt of the Daily Telegraph calls it a ‘cop-out’ from the FA.

A reminder that the dictionary definition of ‘cop-out’ is ‘an instance of avoiding a commitment or responsibility’. Which sounds like the perfect description of a two-year contract extension.

The Capello thing is not completely irrelevant but it is also one specific example of a slightly different thing backfiring massively, one time, more than a decade and a half ago.

Charlie Wyett of The Sun is especially critical, asking ‘what was the hurry?’ and warning that ‘the World Cup could turn into a s***show’ for Tuchel and England, before dredging up the Jude Bellingham “repulsive” angle – which Tuchel has long since apologised for and clarified – and ‘some would prefer an Englishman as boss’ narratives.

To his credit/detriment, he does entirely undermine his own arguments about the need for the deal and how it potentially exposes England by pointing out that a) ‘there will surely be some sort of clause after the World Cup if they want to get rid of Tuchel’, and b) ‘by sorting the contract now, it ends any uncertainty over his future and cuts out endless questions during the World Cup’.

Mediawatch is far easier when the subjects do the work for us.

The Dunn thing

Andy Dunn then goes off on one in the Daily Mirror, slamming the FA for setting too low a bar in terms of objectives (‘reaching the last eight is sufficient’, apparently), bringing up the false Capello equivalence and just generally wondering why England and Tuchel have extended their arrangement now.

‘What has changed since his short-term appointment?’ Dunn asks.

The long-term managerial situations at Manchester United, Real Madrid and Spurs. And very possibly Manchester City past this summer. That all feels quite important when discussing a world-class manager who has been mentioned in regards to those roles, and whose current employers might wish for him not to join the pool of best available coaches.

He also might have really enjoyed his time in charge thus far, with England sensing he is the best current candidate for the job and it is worth cutting predictable speculation off at the source before it becomes distracting? Dunno, just spitballing.

Dunn then indulges in the same ‘What if England are sh*t at the World Cup?’ alternative timeline doom-mongering.

As the Daily Mail‘s Jack Gaughan and most other sensible journalists have pointed out, ‘these contracts almost always come with break clauses now’. So there’s that sorted.

Not one month ago, Dunn wrote that Manchester United ‘should act now’ if they wanted Tuchel, to sign him up to start immediately after the World Cup.

‘You can rest assured the FA would not be happy if United approached Tuchel in the build-up to the finals. That, though, should not be United’s concern,’ he said.

Yet it might well have been the FA’s, hence the new contract.

‘As it stands right now,’ Dunn wrote in January, ‘Tuchel is available towards the end of July – no compensation payment required. But Ruben Amorim’s departure and United’s current situation will be the subject of a lot of discussion in the corridors of Football Association power.’

Yet now they’re being criticised by the same writer in February for ensuring that isn’t a factor worth considering ahead of a major international tournament.

The literal opening paragraph to that piece from Dunn last month was: ‘Without giving away trade secrets, there is a strong possibility the next question a member of the media puts to Thomas Tuchel will not be exclusively about England. It will also be about Manchester United.’

Is he just annoyed at having to think of something different and less predictable to ask?

Bogey nights

England were drawn against Spain, Croatia and Czechia in the upcoming Nations League, a group described by The Sun website as both ‘brutal’ and a ‘nightmare’.

It’s League A. All the potential opponents are quite good there. That’s literally the entire point.

But not for one second are we having the description of Croatia as England’s ‘bogey team’. It’s not 2007, although it isn’t surprising that The Sun might wish to go back to a time when they were far more relevant.

England also relatively famously beat them in the opener of Euro 2021, and admittedly less famously but still completely pertinently beat them – in the Nations League – after that World Cup semi-final defeat.

England have lost one of their last six meetings with Croatia. The ‘bogey team’ has been picked.

Never say never

What a shame for the Daily Mirror website that their headline frames Virgil van Dijk as the Liverpool star who ‘may never play for club again’.

How frustrated they must have been when they realised their mistake, with that pesky ‘as’ linking the otherwise entirely unrelated stories of 1) Van Dijk wanting Liverpool to keep Ibrahima Konate, and 2) Wataru Endo picking up an injury which might end his season, and the Japan international potentially being sold this summer.

They’ll surely correct it when they realise.