Football social media worldwide is still alight with news of that result in that big game, and yes, I too was delighted to see Sheffield United win away at Reading last night. Get in there!
Before that big game though, everyone was talking about Sunday evening’s Liverpool vs Manchester United match at Anfield.
I realise that I am a little behind the curve on this one.
Look, we all know that the match finished 7-0, and while I have no particular love for either of the teams involved, clearly the right team won on the night. When you win a game 7-0, it’s not by chance.
One of the talking points of the evening, aside from the scoreline, was the behaviour/attitude/general shithousery of Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes. [see here] And The Athletic, to which I subscribe, wrote a huge long article on it, which is behind a paywall, but which also appears to have somehow magically tumbled into a PDF available here.
You lucky fishes.
It’s well worth a read. Suffice to say, Nick Miller does not hold back in his criticism, or his language. Lines like:
Fernandes reacted to yesterday’s events in the way that an especially immature six-year-old child might deal with huge disappointment.
or:
Cue the first of many arm-flaps, the Fernandes limbs flailed like the wings of a particularly petulant owl. We would see it again, many more times.
or:
Anyone who’s spent time with a toddler will tell you they don’t like it when they don’t get their way.
and:
In truth, this was a fairly routine bit of play-acting, the sort of thing which is deeply tiresome but that you see a few times in every game. But in the context of everything else, on top of the arm flapping and the complaining and the diving, this was an especially fetid cherry atop a decomposing cake.
Quite literally delicious. Or… er… not.
I know that the TA, who unknowingly came up with the filename for the link above, will love every moment of Miller’s synopsis. And, despite the result and the depression and the embarrassment and the often unkind (but amusing) piss-taking and rivalry, I suspect that many Man U fans will agree with a lot of it too.
I’m not a sports journalist, and I recognise that The Athletic isn’t the biggest name when it comes to EPL coverage, but given how much the red half of Manchester must be smarting already, I wonder if they will now refuse to give interviews to Miller and The Athletic going forward. Have bridges been burned?
Surely not, though. You’d have to be really childish and petulant to do that.
Oh.