Manchester United should be celebrating reaching a Europa League final, but Ruben Amorim was ‘forced’ to wear a plaster ‘just months’ after getting angry.
The £100m drop
While Mediawatch quite likes the quaint idea of describing a major European final with the same terms typically preserved for the Championship play-offs, a line has to be drawn somewhere and calling Spurs v Manchester United a ‘winner-takes-all £100MILLION showdown’ feels as good a place as any.
That is how The Sun describe the upcoming Europa League final, the winners of which ‘are guaranteed a Champions League spot – and the £100million bounty that comes with it’.
Except, well, literally only the two finalists of this season’s competition have earned £100m in prize money from it. Arsenal and Barcelona both came close and a few earned £80m or so, but crucially it is contingent on actually doing well.
It seems likely that Spurs and Manchester United are competing for the honour of taking about half as much home after being battered in the league phase.
Full English
It is also unequivocally not ‘a tasty first all-English Euro final for six years’. It’ll be Mason Mount’s second in four years for a start.
Too close for comfort
Over to Martin Blackburn in his match report for The Sun:
‘In between Casemiro – again – and even Rasmus Hojlund got on the scoresheet as United won comfortably in the end.
‘They never do it the easy way here though…’
Can you simultaneously win ‘comfortably’ but ‘never do it the easy way’? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.
Knuckle down
Of course none of it really matters when speculative stories can be written based on tweets about Ruben Amorim… having a plaster on his knuckles.
The Sun website suggests ‘Amorim may have broken a promise he made’, pertaining to how he damaged a TV in dressing room after a January defeat to Brighton and later pledged he “wouldn’t do it again” as it was a “mistake”.
Do they have any intel whatsoever on a) why Amorim had a plaster on his knuckles, and b) why we should care even slightly? Of course not. But they do have @garbs80 with a tweet to his 271 followers which has no engagement but can still form the basis of a news story from a major and supposedly reputable media outlet.
Plaster bored
But as always, where one leads other must follow in the search of clicks. And few follow quite as well as the MailOnline:
‘Man United manager Ruben Amorim is forced into covering latest cuts on his knuckle with a plaster just months after he ‘smashed dressing room TV during angry outburst”
It is absolutely impeccable tabloid nonsense. Being ‘forced’ into using a plaster is a phenomenal concept, describing them as the ‘latest cuts on his knuckle’ makes Amorim sound slightly psychopathic, the quote marks not actually quoting anything or anyone are perfect and as for the ‘just months’? No notes.
This paragraph is clearly the best of the lot, mind:
‘However, while fans were naturally in jubilant mood after the game celebrating reaching a European final, there were some left concerned.’
Yep, you couldn’t move at Old Trafford for conflicted fans panicking about why a 40-year-old had a plaster on his knuckles. It put a massive dampener on what should have been a joyous evening.
You with the sad eyes
Of course, it is impossible to go too long without covering the most important and interesting Manchester United angle of all. So thanks to the Daily Star website…
‘Marcus Rashford shows true colours after watching Man Utd reach Europa League final’
…and the Manchester Evening News for filling in:
‘Marcus Rashford shows his true colours as Man United Europa League final confirmed’
It turns out that Rashford still quite likes presumed friend Alejandro Garnacho, whose social media post caused the former to ‘slap a like on’ and ‘dish out props’, according to the Star.
Not entirely sure what that means but we can all agree it reveals Rashford’s true colours.
Word Salah
”Why I voted for Mo Salah to win historic FWA Footballer of the Year award” feels like perhaps the most redundant headline to an opinion piece in the history of online football journalism.
It really is a mystery why one might vote for the title-winning Golden Boot favourite with more assists than any other player as the best in the Premier League this season.
But then John Cross himself makes a right old fudge of it in his opening paragraph for the Daily Mirror and so it turns out we do actually need a few hundred words of an explainer:
‘Mo Salah will go down in history as one of English football’s all-time greats. That is why the Liverpool striker deserves to be crowned the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year.’
That’s not a reason to vote for someone to win an annual award, fella.
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