Rival watch

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For me, I can't help look at the way Sky Sports are banging on about the Leicester Fairytale™ has less to do with what Leicester are doing, and more to do with giving Sky Sports an excuse so they don't have to admit the three clubs that so much of Sky Sports' programming is based around, namely Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool, are having anything like the sort of season that they want them to have - and you can go a little further by adding Arsenal and City to the conversation.

They can handle one of those clubs not finishing top four because five doesn't go into four, and they can just about handle the idea of one club gatecrashing the cartel that Sky have placed at the top of English football for the last decade because the other three spots will be divvied up by their anointed clubs and normal service will no doubt resume next season - but asking them to accept that Chelsea and Liverpool cannot finish higher than fifth, while Man Utd, Arsenal and City are all trying to find ways to finish no higher than fourth, that's alien to them so they need a hook to hang their programming on while still pumping out a disproportionate percentage of Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea games considering their place in the table.

This will become obvious over the summer, where Sky Sports and Sky Sports news ignore the table for 2015-16 and just revert to type, and present the Premier League as Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and seventeen other teams whose job it is to make Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea look good.
 
Sometimes I think most people on here are more concerned with how the media portray us than
how we perform on the pitch.
 
Only 23 teams have won the title - 12 of those have not won it in the past 50 years and only 4 teams have won it in the past 20 years, two entirely due to massive injections of cash way beyond their earnings. Leicester are none of those teams.

In the modern game, for a team almost relegated last season to win the league is remarkable. The bookies didn't have them at 5000/1 to be spiteful. I think the media are only reporting what most neutrals are feeling. Whether you dislike their style of play, think they are lucky or resent their success for any other reason, Leicester winning the league is still mindboggling.
 
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O.Spurcat said:
Sometimes I think most people on here are more concerned with how the media portray us than
how we perform on the pitch.
Click to expand...

Apart from 3-6 specific games out of 50 odd in all competitions, IMHO there is not much to be concerned
about regarding on-pitch performance this season.

What you may deem "concern" I deem annoyance.
This season wasn't Leicester all alone overcoming a cabal of usual suspects.
There was another team involved, and one that will probably have all the traits of a title
winner while not taking the prize (first time since Man Utd in 1998) .
 
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O.Spurcat said:
Sometimes I think most people on here are more concerned with how the media portray us than
how we perform on the pitch.
Click to expand...
Given the media like to portray us as a club that are waiting for Man Utd or Chelsea to click their fingers so they can help themselves to our key players (or, more recently, manager) that's a valid concern.
 
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humanbeingincroydon said:
Given the media like to portray us as a club that are waiting for Man Utd or Chelsea to click their fingers so they can help themselves to our key players (or, more recently, manager) that's a valid concern.
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It took Arry junior less than 4 days after the WBA result to put his oar in the water about
Spurs wage regime and the risk of losing key players.
 
O.Spurcat said:
So Jamie is saying money talks in football. He's right isn't he ?
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Then I look forward to the exodus of Spurs players this summer to all those clubs who offer
higher wages than Spurs, irrespective of whether they are in the CL or stand a better chance
of winning the PL etc. Especially if that club is the Goons.
 
Citizen Kane said:
Jamie is a wum who has been bitter about Spurs since we let his old man drift off into footballing obscurity. Him and Danny Murphy are two ex-players with surprisingly few positive things to say about us. We get more praise from Angry Claude <laugh>
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I repeat, why so much aggravation about what is being said by the media ? I don't get it.

I haven't watched MOTD for at least 5 years, because 45 seconds of a game and then 5 minutes of bias analysis is not for me. I prefer to make my own opinion from Sky match choice where you get 45 minutes replay and minimum analysis.
 
Some of us don't have Sky and therefore MOTD provides our only decent highlights package. The media have had a predominantly anti Spurs attitude for as long as I can remember, with too many goons,and mousers for them to be taken too seriously.
 
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O.Spurcat said:
I repeat, why so much aggravation about what is being said by the media ? I don't get it.

I haven't watched MOTD for at least 5 years, because 45 seconds of a game and then 5 minutes of bias analysis is not for me. I prefer to make my own opinion from Sky match choice where you get 45 minutes replay and minimum analysis.
Click to expand...
That's the point, it's not what the media thinks it's what they tell people to think - in your case it's caused you to give up on MOTD due to how biased the pundits are, in the case of others on here it causes them to switch off when we play Liverpool as their all-Mouser panel go on about everything they do in the match and give us zero credit even though we're outplaying or even beating them at the time, for others it's muttering dark oaths whenever we get portrayed as a feeder club for the status quo.
 
O.Spurcat said:
I repeat, why so much aggravation about what is being said by the media ? I don't get it.

I haven't watched MOTD for at least 5 years, because 45 seconds of a game and then 5 minutes of bias analysis is not for me. I prefer to make my own opinion from Sky match choice where you get 45 minutes replay and minimum analysis.
Click to expand...

It's not really aggro OS, it's more plain insulting. It's easier for you to maintain a focus solely on what goes on on the pitch because you are privileged to watch the lads day in day out working on their game on the training pitch. We cannot do that, and so will fill more of our time in between games by perusing the various newspapers and TV channels out there for our football fix.

I would add that until this season, I haven't been too bothered about the media slant. But for the first time in a while, we're doing a heck of a lot of things right; we're playing great football, bringing through more home-grown youngsters than any other PL side, maintain an excellent financial record, and have a new stadium on the horizon that will rejuvenate a chunk of one of London's less glamorous areas. I can't see what else we can do to expect the media to be a bit more...proud, I guess.

Back in 2011, we were the toast of the town. I think this season we truly have been somewhat bizarrely cast as the pantomime villain to the fairytale, and that this has affected our image in the media.
 
There is always biased opinion throughout the football media, for example we have had the misery of former Arsenal and Leicester City player Alan Smith slavering his biased nonsense as co commentator on just about every Spurs and Leicester game of late, his bias has been so obvious in his analysis during games. Then you have the endless supply of former Pool mugs infesting football punditry.

I try not to listen to any of it, but it would be nice to have a few more Spurs legends involved, we only really have Glenn Hoddle and Jermaine Jenas as regulars, most of the other former Spurs players in punditry have stronger affiliations with other clubs, such as Murphy and Redknapp.
 
Citizen Kane said:
Back in 2011, we were the toast of the town. I think this season we truly have been somewhat bizarrely cast as the pantomime villain to the fairytale, and that this has affected our image in the media.
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It's not even the first time we've been cast as a villain by the media in the last five years - the coverage for the battle to own the White Elephant was grossly slanted in Wet Spam's favour, to the point that every single time Karrunt Brady smeared our bid with some blatant lies in her Sun column the media were happy to regurgitate it.
 
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I don't think many Hammer fans want to go to Hackney Wick for their home games.Kind of like Arsenal going to Woolwich.........
 
Andre Marriner gives Sadio Mane a minor heart attack at the end of yesterday's game:
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The look on his face when he thinks he's losing his match ball! <laugh>

I suspect that the Saints will be fielding a few bids for the Senegalese winger in the summer.
His diving and dodgy tackles are quite annoying, but he's a very dangerous player.
 
I liked Roy Keanes comment that if someone pulls your hair it is a natural human reaction to immediately elbow them in the face, he implied that it was involuntary. Good man.
 
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deedub93 said:
I liked Roy Keanes comment that if someone pulls your hair it is a natural human reaction to immediately elbow them in the face, he implied that it was involuntary. Good man.
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Those two had been at each other all game. Huth pulled Fellaini's hair. Fellaini elbowed him in the gob. I expect both of them will get charged, but neither went crying to the ref yesterday. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves.
 
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