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Arsenal and the rest of the Premier League are boring one journalist while another wants Liverpool to let go of their captain.
As usual, there’s a whole heap of nonsense but we start with some particularly outrageous nonsense…
Crosswords
Mediawatch understands this concept as the owner of many websites (including the Mirror, Star, Express and a plethora of ‘local’ newspaper sites) so it makes sense to replicate much of the content. It’s just good business sense.
But when The Daily Star Chief Sports Writer Jeremy Cross (Leeds Fan, Manchester United ‘Expert’, Disturbing Collection) writes that Liverpool should drop Virgil van Dijk in a column as riddled with typos as spelling mistakes, perhaps not mentally published ‘on publication’. Liverpool Echo‘Button?
Even if we ignore the many spelling errors – Dango Outra plays for Branford, apparently – there remains a truly ludicrous argument that Liverpool should let their captain go.
And at no point does Cross suggest who Liverpool could play instead of the man who was ‘looking a pale likeness of his robust self’. Perhaps Joe Gomez, who hasn’t started a Premier League game in 2025.
Oh and there’s a spare thought for new signing Milos Kerkes, who resembles a rabbit in the headlights when it comes to dealing with the fast pace of English football.
Yes, it must be quite a culture shock. Its speed was so slow on the south coast.
Media Watch: The Remix
As we wrote in Junefor the first time The Daily Telegraph Jaime White rolled on to lament that ‘Boxing Day is a goner now’:
We look forward to June 2026, when White will likely write hundreds of words about the triumphant return of a great ‘tradition’ when every single Premier League game is scheduled for Boxing Day.
Not because some old timers spit out their dummies, but because it’s Saturday.
Is the Premier League really boring now?
Speaking of old timers, The Daily Telegraph‘s Jason Burt is here with a hot take on what we imagine is ‘The Premier League is sh*t, isn’t it?’
It’s just a shame no one has competed ‘but this weekend was great, Jason; There were 32 goals, including two 3-2s and a 4-2, maybe save it ‘but here we are.
He claims that ‘this season has been a disturbing celebration of more direct football – as if that’s a good thing – and a happy declaration that this is how the game should be played. And even that is more interesting. We are expected to praise players and rail at those who corner opponents.
Is there a ‘sniff’, Jason? We haven’t seen any ‘swooning’. What we have read – and perhaps written – is that football can be played in many different ways and that the best teams have more than one strength. We think you’ve made yourself a straw man before popping to the shop for matches.
Britt bemoaned the fact that Arsenal had scored so many set-piece goals – apparently it ‘didn’t feel right’ – after a weekend when Aberchie’s goal was technically a set-piece but actually involved Gabriel smacking his header and the England man smacking home a superb half-volley. Hardly Nicolas Jour Special.
Oh and referring to Matty Cash’s routine scoring of a well-worked Aston Villa corner against Manchester City on Sunday is ‘a generous description of a corner for someone else whose cash prevents a poor first touch before swinging off his ‘wrong’ foot. Well done, my ass.
Burt says: ‘No wonder Telegraph Sport columnist Jamie Carragher has just named Arsenal scrum-half Gabriel Magalhaes “the most influential player in the league”. Why? Because he is the most effective of the set pieces. ‘
And also because he’s ‘at the back’, ‘he’s the leader for this team’ and ‘he’s the best defender on the team with the best defensive numbers’. We actually read the Carragher column and not just the headline.
Britt is right that the average number of goals this season is low but it’s only been nine games and a notable factor is that the three newly promoted teams here aren’t exactly hemorrhaging goals. Is the Premier League boring now that Southampton aren’t losing every week?
Worryingly, the ball is actually in play—an important factor for governing bodies thinking about money and entertainment value to fans—is the lowest average of 12 seconds per game in just 55 minutes from 2022-23.
The lowest since three years ago? Tactics call the police.
‘There’s a balance to be struck,’ says Burt, after claiming that it ‘can’t really be, obviously, that it’s not that entertaining’. What is Burt suggesting? A necessary change of tactics.
He then ends with a solution… an example for all to follow.
The team leading the way are the European champions: Paris Saint-Germain. They are sometimes quick, direct, and, tellingly, take the ball when their wingers run at defenders. They work hard, extend the game and – still – play through the midfield. Many teams do not have their vast resources but should play modern football.
yes That’s it. Teams should copy the teeThat original European champion. Ballon d’Or winner and with the greatest players in the world, under one of the best coaches in the world, backed by whole billions of pounds, playing in a league they will probably win by at least a dozen points.
Come to arms. And Villa and Brentford. More PSG.
Read: Top 10 things to do as the Premier League enters a period of chaos
A thinking man’s supercomputer
Mediawatch can’t resist a supercomputer, although it seems like a supercomputer might be wasted on predicting that Arsenal will win the Premier League. This is why the devil is in the details.
Supercomputer predicts final Premier League table as Arsenal run away with title and Man Utd with fate to learn
Sorry Manchester United fans, but any cautious hopes of currently finishing sixth should be dismissed as United ‘learned luck’. Or ‘predetermined future’, as the dictionary suggests.
Never mind these three victories because ‘the supercomputer thinks it might be a flash in the pan’. We’re not sure we trust a supercomputer that ‘thinks’, especially when it ‘thinks’ that Sunderland will finish at the bottom of Nottingham Forest.
