The media that we have in football are toxic. They hunt down those they perceive to be vulnerable in their jobs and pull together in unison to get a kill. Disgusting people. We saw it in the run up to the Chelsea cup tie in our local press (plagiarising geniuses like Prentice putting the boot in and contacting their former Echo stablemates now in the national press like the repugnant McNulty and Chris Bascombe) and then it's a stampede culminating in the insulting BBC match coverage on Saturday night that had the 'experts' questioning RMs position on about 10 different occasions before being piped right down with the result and the manner of it.
They've moved onto Wenger now...then after him some other poor bugger will be in their cross hairs. And the feeble minded in a club's support pick it up and run with it making it a self fulfilling prophecy.
I always remember with the Harry Redknapp for England manager thing people questions whether it was the presses choice or the fans choice. In fairness I don't think it was as black and white as that, as I imagine most fans would have had Redknap over Hodgson but I do get the point.
The media far from reflecting the public direct them. I am seeing it subtly with Stones currently. There's some hack in the Sun today having a go at Everton for holding out too high a price for him and then not playing him. Sort of a "if you value him at 50 million then he has to start" type of argument. You know that will start to cotton on with knuckle dragging Chelsea and City fans as they try to price him away for a lower fee and they will start parroting it.
It's nonsense like that that gets passed around as Gospel too. The "Everton wanted 45 million" in the summer will be a fact soon because some hack lied about it. If a 45 million bid is rejected it will then be reported as "Everton go back on what they said originally and have let Stones and England down". You can see how the pressure will start.
As I said it has no resemblance to reality. The reality is Everton very clearly said Stones was simply not for sale. We refused to name a number we'd sell him for. It was the media who did that (several times) and were wrong on each occasion. But there's no humility and they are back raking up mud again. The reality is of course, we had a young defender, who we have bought for 2 million and have no need to sell for financial reasons, so we elected to keep him. We didn't put a price on him, we just said we wanted him in our squad. We currently don't deem him good enough to start. A 2 million 20 year old right back not good enough to start is the factual position. There's no need for it to be overblown as it's starting to be.
It's the same with managers. Once they get their claws in they are gone. It's one of the few things I've always admired about Kenwright, that he has an understanding of football that is a cut above your average hack and doesn't play their games re managers. He will give them time and won't bow to pressure of a bad 6 or 7 results.
The media's role in football has been reduced to that of ringleader of the tormenters.
