Tottenham ‘dream’ scenario emerges as Arsenal curse strikes and ‘England star’ appointed | OneFootball

Obviously Mediawatch can’t entirely ignore Oliver Brown and Richard Keys, much as we’d like to, but there’s most important things to do than chuckle at a couple of dinosaurs.

There’s big Tottenham-based manager news, for instance, and poor old Mikel Arteta being hit by an injury curse.

We’ve even been blessed with another ‘unrecognisable’ star who is in fact very recognisable as well as a dream scenario so drably uninspiring that we actually spent a good 20 minutes just sat staring blankly and emptily into the middle distance after reading about it.

Brown nose

Yes, we’ve all read Oliver Brown’s astonishing interview with Richard Keys in the Telegraph. Yes, it’s obviously the most Partridge thing ever, up to and including every actual Partridge vehicle on radio, TV and audiobook over the last three decades.

Yes, we’ve all agreed upon the main headline quote.

Sensational, it really is. At times like these we find ourselves getting genuinely angry that Keys is real and not in fact a genius comic creation.

Sure, you could get every person who’s ever written a single line for Partridge together in a room to write a “Best Christmas Day” bit and, sure, they could probably come up with an even funnier list of films for that particular joke bucket. Keysey’s selections are, if anything, for me, Clive, almost too Partridge.

But we really don’t think they could come up with anything funnier than ‘can of tuna’ to accompany it.

It is a perfect bit of business and just beyond infuriating to think that it was an accident.

None of that is really Mediawatch’s main concern, of course. We’re more interested in the fact the primary purpose of the interview is for Brown to allow Keys ample space to attempt to launder his love-rat reputation.

Of course, he fumbles that chance entirely. When your best defence against allegations that you ran off with your daughter’s best mate amounts to ‘Well, they weren’t really best mates’ you’re not on the firmest ground.

But it’s nevertheless an interest-piquer for Mediawatch that Brown’s staunch and strident interest in tirelessly working to protect women in sports is suddenly neither quite so staunch nor quite so strident when there’s a chance to spend 1000 words attempting to rehabilitate the image of a ludicrous old misogynist rather than a chance to be enormously transphobic.

Dream weaver

We’ve had our fun with ‘Dream XIs’ over the years, usually chortling it up at the idea of pretending playing Fantasy Football with a list of summer transfer targets constitutes meaningful analysis or useful content.

‘How Manchester United could line-up next season if they sign eight £75m players’ is all very exciting, sure, but it’s not particularly meaningful.

But it’s also never actually left us feeling miserable and depressed before. It’s sometimes possible to gently chide the lack of imagination that goes into a ‘Dream XI’ – if it’s a dream then why not just pretend to sign all the best players in the world instead of just three or four! You can do what you want! It’s a dream!

Yet now, thanks to football.london, we might just have stumbled on the most dispiriting deployment of the ‘Dream XI’ we’ve ever seen. Not least because it was actually published yesterday morning as Igor Tudor’s Dream XI.

Sure, he was still technically in charge at that point, but his departure was not in any way a shock and in any case there was also even before the announcement no plausible ‘dream’ Spurs scenario that involved him remaining in charge.

Sorry, we maybe should have said before that it’s a Spurs XI. But we figured that would go without saying, you know, with the dispiriting, miserable and depressed elements.

For what this dream XI contains is not a handful of new signings ranging from the possible to the absurdly optimistic, but the return of a handful of players from injury. Ranging from the possible to the absurdly optimistic.

Surely at no other club could the idea of ‘dream’ and ‘relegation battle’ be in such close proximity.

Only for Spurs – once a club where even failure once famously carried an ‘echo of glory’ could their loftiest dreams now rest on the return to fitness of Rodrigo Bentancur and the hope that Richarlison might stay fit enough to be able to lead the line for the next seven games.

There’s a star man

The big Tottenham-based managerial news of the day is, of course, Jermain Defoe’s appointment at Woking. The Sun bring us the hottest and latest news.

Paul Bracewell. Three caps in 1985. A damn fine player and coach over an extensive career spanning many decades, roles and clubs. But ‘England star’ is surely pushing it.

But that’s subjective and, dare we say it, even a bit mean-spirited. Sure, The Sun are calling him an England star for sh*thouse reasons. But still. Even one cap is hard-earned and rightly treasured. If you want to call Paul Bracewell an England star, you go for it.

But you still can’t say this.

Young Jermain had just turned three when ‘former England team-mate’ Bracewell won his final cap.

Hazard level

It’s not quite Chicharito levels, but it is yet another entry into Mediawatch’s bulging file of ‘unrecognisable’ pictures of very recognisable football players looking extremely recognisable, from The Sun this time.

If you picture Eden Hazard, for it is he, sat on a bike chugging a beer in lycra after completing an epic bike ride, we cannot stress enough that you are picturing exactly the right image. You might have missed off the sunglasses, but other than that you’re spot on.

Only ‘almost’ unrecognisable now, is he, you cowards? Still no. We will grudgingly accept that the man who’d just cycled 225km does indeed look ‘visibly tired’.

The Curse of Arteta

Breathless panic from John Cross in the Mirror as he reports:

Now Cross has never particularly struck Mediawatch as a sweet summer child before, so we assume this is all performative on his part.

But at the very, very least, Mediawatch would advise Cross and anyone else declaring that the sky is falling might wait until the line-up announcement for Arsenal’s Champions League trip to Sporting next week before proclaiming with any great confidence who’s been hit by a curse and who is in fact wielding the wand.