Manchester United receive questionable ‘transfer boost’ over Tonali – and Spurs are ‘too good for’ De Zerbi | OneFootball

Manchester United are definitely signing Sandro Tonali this summer after Newcastle announced a truly revolutionary transfer ‘shake-up’.

Also, there is a challenge to the apparently real “narrative” that Spurs are “too good for” Roberto De Zerbi and not the other way around.

And we have some England nonsense too, like Thomas Tuchel digging out Arsenal for their injury withdrawals.

Zerb your enthusiasm

There are a great many reasons to enjoy this, the MailOnline‘s lead story on Tuesday morning:

1) The random shouting to feign surprise that some people are SPLIT over whether the appointment of a contentious but brilliant manager to an absurd football club in a hilarious relegation battle is actually a good idea with seven games of the season remaining.

2) The denomination of Danny Murphy, Tim Sherwood, Jamie O’Hara and Darren Bent as ‘ex-Spurs stars’.

3) The idea that those four disagreeing constitutes the biggest story in world football.

4) O’Hara entirely fabricating something – “I don’t get the narrative that we think we are too good for Roberto De Zerbi. It’s crazy” – while ignoring the Mason Greenwood-shaped elephant in the room.

Perhaps the same definitely real people who think Spurs “are too good for Roberto De Zerbi” also believe starting 28 games for a club in six years makes you one of their former ‘stars’.

Insult to injuries

In terms of actual narratives that exist, the Arsenal international injury withdrawal one is perfect to drag us through this barren fortnight.

Despite it having been common practice for at least a couple of decades, the worldwide memory-wiping that takes place before every international break has proven mightily effective and means that Arsenal officially are the first team ever to have a few players pull out of duty for their countries.

The current number of 11 withdrawals is comically high but also all of the ‘affected’ nations are only playing in friendlies otherwise widely derided as meaningless and unnecessary, especially in the middle of a congested club season in which Arsenal happen to have played more games than basically anyone.

And sod arguments about player welfare when Gabby Agbonlahor can be reeled out to vaguely legitimise the tiresome argument that all those international injury withdrawals must be blocked from playing in Arsenal’s next game.

Those weeds are not worth getting into, so instead we will take a look at The Sun website claiming that ‘England manager Thomas Tuchel questions ‘suspicious’ mass drop-out of Arsenal stars from international camps’.

It is fairly obviously a thing that hasn’t happened. Tuchel made a mistake and apologised for it when referencing how his mother found some of Jude Bellingham’s behaviour “a bit repulsive”, and the manager has been awfully careful when speaking in his second language since.

But he’s decided to sack that wariness off to indulge in some Arsenal-baiting conspiracy theory nonsense? Of course he has.

Let’s see how he ‘questions ‘suspicious’ mass drop-out of Arsenal stars from international camps’ for ourselves, shall we?

It sounds like Tuchel understands The Optics of the situation, but also completely trusts the players he works with, probably because they are Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, hardly renowned for their nefariousness or deception.

He quite specifically did not ‘question ‘suspicious’ mass drop-out of Arsenal stars from international camps’; he “can only talk for our players” and then have those words twisted.

Ton deaf

The Sun website also brings us this:

It is upgraded to ‘a major Sandro Tonali transfer boost’ in the first paragraph, and unfortunately only explained as late as the eighth by these non-Tonali-specific quotes from CEO David Hopkinson for…reasons:

Feels like more a statement of the transfer obvious than a ‘major transfer boost’. Also doesn’t mention Tonali whatsoever, which feels sub-optimal for a story sold entirely on him and Manchester United (who are referred to twice in the copy).

As for this Newcastle ‘shake-up’, their “strategy going forward” is “to buy well and sell well”. It’ll never catch on.

What the Ell

Back to the MailOnline we go for this big reveal:

Finally, an answer to the mystery as to how England beat Scotland in the pursuit of an obviously very good player’s international allegiance.

Did they promise him a lifetime’s supply of Greggs and Newcastle Brown Ale? Or promise he could room with Harry Maguire forever?

Alas, not quite.

England really did pull out all the stops. It’s a wonder Anderson resisted for so long.

Mail it in

Writes Oliver Holt in the Daily Mail:

Indeed. Once we find whoever was responsible for giving such an ‘absurd’ notion the time of day, they ought to be suitably reprimanded.

Awful imagery