Blunt Carsley ghosts Arsenal star as Gunners injury crisis deepens further ahead of NLD

As the football media tries desperately to decide whether Lee Carsley is the Messiah or a subversive Irish asset, it emerges that he has also pied off Ben White (he hasn’t) while Arsenal’s injury crisis is even worse than feared.

Don’t speak
Desperately difficult to plot a path through the Lee Carsley Discourse right now.

It’s barely an exaggeration to state that everything written about him in a week where his England team have recorded a pair of perfectly adequate 2-0 wins over desperately weak opposition is declaring him either the saviour of Proper Football or marking him out as a subversive Irish asset determined to bring this great nation to its knees one mute national anthem at a time.

Most everything being written about Carsley currently is whiplash, knee-jerk, reactionary b*llocks, is what we’re saying here, and we can’t really be arsed with any of it.

But that doesn’t mean there can’t be other more specific Carsley bits that grind Mediawatch’s gears, with one such emerging from The Sun this morning.

England manager Lee Carsley bluntly reveals he is ‘not speaking’ to Arsenal star

No prizes for guessing the Arsenal star is, of course, Ben White. That’s fine. But that apart it is a nakedly button-pushing headline. Bluntly and ‘not speaking’ are clearly designed to indicate some aggro between the pair, and that at least some of said aggro sits on Carsley’s side of the ledger.

Mediawatch is close to conceding absolute defeat in a battle long since lost that words in quote marks should be, you know, actual quotes of something someone has written or said. But this feels like a particularly pointed, particularly bad-faith misuse. If your quote marks come directly after the words ‘bluntly reveals’ then they really do need to be a thing that has actually been bluntly revealed with those quoted words.

Here’s what Carsley actually said.

‘I’ve not planned to [speak to White], no. We spoke about this in the squad selection. Every player that is eligible to play for England is in with a chance.

‘As far as I’m aware he asked to not be contacted. If that changes, that will change.’

Not particularly blunt, is it? Calmly and reasonably explaining the situation and White’s current wishes as he understands them, isn’t it? And absolutely does not use the phrase ‘not speaking’ – bluntly or otherwise. They’ve had to use explanatory parentheses just to get the word ‘speak’ in there.

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All change
And then there’s the Mirror , taking the exact same quotes and giving them this headline.

‘NEEDS A CHANGE!’ England boss Carsley sends clear message to White after Southgate issue meant Arsenal star stepped away from international duty

Nope. Didn’t say that, either.

Ode to joy
Quick handy guide to how the news cycle works here from the Daily Mirror .

You start with Norway boss Stale Solbakken conceding on Monday night that Martin Odegaard’s ankle injury could theoretically keep him out until the next international break in October. Because what else can he say? Of course it could, nobody knows yet and they certainly didn’t straight after the match.

You then write a story based on that and shout:

Martin Odegaard could face a MONTH on sidelines as Arsenal face anxious wait

And then, for the final flourish, you take that piece of complete speculation and the next day do yet another story about it, only now it becomes:

Arsenal news: Martin Odegaard injury nightmare revealed amid Declan Rice suspension claim

And hey presto, you’ve moved the news cycle on from throwaway quote, to speculative timeframe, to a nightmare revealed and all without having to wait for a single piece of new information.

Going to be very funny when he starts at Tottenham on Sunday afternoon, isn’t it?

Hateful eight
But of course it’s not just Odegaard and his ankle Arsenal have to worry about. We already know they’re without Declan Rice through suspension while new signings Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori have also picked up injuries.

With Takehiro Tomiyasu out and Gabriel Jesus still doubtful, Arsenal are certainly significantly depleted for the North London Derby. No question about it, and it is an entirely valid news story worth plenty of coverage.

But no bad news is ever quite bad enough in Tabloid Land, so the Mirror have had no choice but to gild the lily.

Arsenal could be without EIGHT players for North London derby as Mikel Arteta faces injury crisis

Maths fans will join us in having already worked out that Rice, Odegaard, Merino, Calafiori, Tomiyasu and Jesus is six players – sorry, SIX players.

So how do we get that to an even more terrible-sounding eight?

Jurrien Timber, who suffered a problem against Brighton – though Arteta insisted the issue was just ‘cramping’.

Cramp is an absolute bastard, sure, but it would be quite something if it kept a player out for a fortnight. And it hasn’t, because Timber came off the bench without incident in both the Netherlands’ Nations League games this week.

And the eighth?

Kieran Tierney – who is not in the manager’s plans anyway.

So six players, then. Arsenal will be without six players. SIX players. That’s still definitely quite a lot, you really don’t need to make it sound any worse than it is.

No, money down!
This one’s almost entirely for Mediawatch’s own amusement but we simply could not look at this Mirror headline…

How Arsenal could line up against Tottenham without Odegaard and Rice

…without mentally Lionel Hutz-ing it into

How Arsenal could line up against Tottenham? Without Odegaard and Rice

Sorry.

Still, the good news for Arsenal fans is that both Timber and Jesus make this particular XI, one which so bravely and unflinchingly reveals the full unthinkable horror of a scenario in which the Gunners are forced to play an entire game of association football with a midfield containing only three vastly experienced senior internationals in Thomas Partey, Jorginho and Kai Havertz.

Over and out
Wild stuff at the Daily Express website this morning.

While Arsenal are fighting their injury crisis there’s no doubt whatsoever that it’s Man United who remain the Premier League’s officially designated cracked badge crisis club at this time, and the gleeful coverage across all the major newspaper websites of another tough night in Dutch orange for Matthijs De Ligt confirms this.

But only at the Express is it covered in nakedly disingenuous fashion.

Everyone else satisfies themselves with the already quite juicy facts; pointing out he made an error, that Ronald Koeman subbed him and said he was protecting him by doing so, and that Virgil van Dijk spoke about how such errors are punished at the highest level. All true and fair information, albeit true and fair information that is now several million times more newsworthy than it would have been before De Ligt moved to Old Trafford. But we know that’s how this all works, and that’s fine.

The Express, however, opt for this.

Man Utd news LIVE: Star player’s career now ‘over’ as Rasmus Hojlund return plan revealed

De Ligt is that star player, as you may have already deduced. The career that is now ‘over’ is his international career. And that career is now over only in the opinion of former Netherlands player turned outspoken pundit Rafael van der Vaart.

When the player’s international manager and captain have both had really quite damning things to say about it, there really is something quite revealing about still turning to the ludicrously overwrought personal opinions of a TV gobsh*te.

And all that’s before we even touch upon the Express’ dismally transparent attempts to dress up some ropey old sh*te about Liverpool trying to sign Kylian Mbappe as Man United news.

Read this and you can almost hear the sound of crowbars.

Manchester United were potentially saved from even more Liverpool embarrassment after it’s reported Paris Saint-Germain rejected a bid from their rivals for Kylian Mbappe.

L’Equipe report the Merseyside outfit tabled an offer in excess of £160million for Mbappe in 2022, with the World Cup winner even said to have agreed terms with the club.

Of course, it didn’t materialise, with United spared from having to watch Mbappe join the likes of Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota scoring goals against them.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the ‘Rasmus Hojlund return plan’ that’s been ‘revealed’ is that United will wait until he has recovered from injury before getting him to play football again. A bold strategy for sure.