da bet esporte： When supporters sit down and analyze the popular perceived failings and prevailing dark forces that degrade English football, it would appear that the list of usual suspects all seem to stem from one universal source.
da esport bet： Be it the biased pundits that negate your team in front of the masses, the evils of subscription television that have turned our league into some plastic marketing object or even the desperate newspapers that stir up a pot of pressure inducing lies. Whatever medium you decide to pick, the British media has a warm place reserved for it on the top of fans’ most wanted lists.
Of course, the pointing of fingers towards the way all aspects of the mainstream press operate within our national game, is more than justified, but if they command number one spot on the culprits list, then supporters themselves can’t be far off in second.
Because the great irony is of that while no one will deny that gross media exaggeration and general printed guff continuously produces unsavory results for our football clubs, no one seems able to accept that those who consume it are just as responsible as those who produce it. The digital age has offered fans a forum to set the record straight like never before. But whether popular opinion can ever be altered remains quite a different story.
For most Premier League fans, Saturday morning’s headlines didn’t offer anything that would appear out of the realms of the ordinary. Oodles of column inches dedicated to John Terry’s forthcoming appearance at the Emirates, more than one piece offering some staunch opinion on Luis Suarez’s theatrics and rumours of dressing room discontent with Andre Villas-Boas at White Hart Lane. There’s nothing that stands out as beyond the realms of believability.
In fact, Villas-Boas’ dressing room woes were given even more credibility, with it being run as an exclusive, in The Sun on Saturday morning. Some may already be finding the tagline of credibility hard to digest, but bear with us. In Paul Jiggins’ ground breaking exclusive, we learnt that “unhappy Tottenham stars had held showdown talks with the manager over his training and tactics.” Spurs’ players had apparently “hit out at the manager’s negative style of play,” and that AVB had been left “reeling” in the wake of the apparent mutiny. To add insult to injury, he’d also had a bust-up with technical coordinator, Tim Sherwood.
What’s not to believe about that then? Andre Villas-Boas has come across as something of an awkward personality since he first arrived in England with Chelsea. His freezing out of senior players there was combined by a seemingly inability to commandeer the respect of the dressing room. You could argue that the weight of believability and general public opinion would fall on the right side of Jiggins’ story. Just a shame it was a load of proverbial cobblers then, wasn’t it?
Indeed, you can read here for yourself, the distinctly low number of attributable quotes for a leading exclusive. The number is in fact, zero- no quotes, no evidence and not even the age old trick of using the mysterious ‘club source’ to add gravitas.
The piece seems even stranger, given what some of the Spurs staff have actually said themselves in recent days. Indeed, Gareth Bale told The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor only last week that his impressions of Villas-Boas were positive, claiming:
“He’s very approachable. If there is a problem, or something we feel is not right, his door is open. He wants us to work that way: together, the players and staff, and if there is a problem we can always share our ideas with him and he will take it on board.”
Furthermore, Kyle Walker’s Tweet on Saturday night offered an interesting perspective upon The Sun’s ‘exclusive’. Quote:
“Just landed back in London still buzzing from the win thought the gaffers tactics were stop [sic] on and all that in the paper is false.”
Not quite what you would call ‘mutinous’ behavior from two of Tottenham’s most prominent figures.
Some may be reading this and wondering what all the fuss is about. Tabloid papers printing mindless garbage is hardly a headline worth shouting about. Football is the national game and it represents something of a cornerstone of British culture. The level of press interest and speculation will always cultivate a certain amount of guff and hype. But however much we like to think we ignore it, we simply don’t. And it has ramifications for all involved.
The Villas-Boas example is of course a minute one but every club during every season will experience something similar. A story like this will get printed and other publications will pick up on it, giving it a greater exposure. The wealth of panel shows and their army of pundits will give it credence as something topical, a starting point for debate. The seeds of doubt are subsequently sown. If Tottenham had lost yesterday, would Jiggins’ story necessarily have been framed in the same light? Despite its obvious lack of quotes and substance, would that have stopped people from speculating?
Ultimately, it is fans’ consumption of stories such as this, that end up putting as much pressure on managers, players and clubs, as the institutions that print it. Newspapers will print ‘exclusives’ like the Villas-Boas one, because they sell newspapers: not because they carry the weight of truth. A large number of fans have come to vilify this story in particular, but they still make up the minority in some respects. Football is a fickle sport, but did those who booed Villas-Boas off after his first two home games not perhaps already have their minds made up through sinister public opinion? Or just disappointing play? It’s difficult to tell.
It’s up to fans to stop accepting some of the rubbish that some outlets are pedaling, because it’s not ever likely to relent. Football is subjective and when critique is fair and due, it is always going to be put up in the public domain for fans to pick apart. But we must read between the lines and offer balance, when our teams and managers’ backs are up against the wall. Times of upheaval and gloom offer great opportunities for newspapers to make money. They’ll never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Supporters should never let a good story get in the way of the truth.
Are football fans as much to blame as the media for the hype and guff that surrounds the national game? Fed up with the endless amounts of rubbish that fans are fed? Let me know what you think on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and get the debate started.