The Tiresome Football Media

Football is all about emotion. The highs, the Lows; The Glory, the despair; The expectation; the disappointment. Fans go through every one of these emotions through the course of a regular season, sometimes even throughout the course of a match. Fans are expected to be emotional, its their duty, its why they follow the game, for the love, for the potential that one day they will reach such a high that all the lows wont seem so bad. But the media, for the Libero, the media are not supposed to be emotional. Their role is to provide coverage, commentary, analysis, insight. Yes I will agree that an ‘emotion driven’ pundit/journalist is often entertaining, but when 90% of media coverage is emotion driven, it gets tiresome.

Today the back papers are covered by the outrage at Carlos Tevez’s refusal to play in Munich on Tuesday night. Outrage, despair, disgust, disgrace from all quarters. The media, former pros, anyone who has a view getting emotional. Watchin tv coverage of the Man Utd game, Mark Lawerenson and Martin Keown both voiced their disbelief at Man Utd’s failure to secure 3 points v Basel and Keown in particular was scathing of Tevez’s actions.

The purge of Arsene Wenger, the most successful manager in Arsenal’s History, over the last few weeks has been emotion driven. “Wenger Out! “ is the media cry “But who would replace him? Who could do better?”, a question they cannot answer.

It isn’t just the negatives which grind on the Libero, it’s the positives, the excitement. Phil Jones, Danny Wellbeck and Tom Cleverly, were the future of English football three weeks ago. Now Jones needs to work on his defending, Cleverly is on the sidelines and Wellbeck looks as inconsistent as ever.

Is it the case that the knowledgeable media has been replaced by ‘the lecherous mob’, baying for blood at the slightest sign of danger? This may be an emotional take from the Libero, and this whole article may have been ‘emotion driven’, but when compared to the work of Jonathan Wilson at the Guardian, Paul Joseph at the Independent or the BBC's Tim Vickery, some of the stuff written/said isn’t worth getting emotional about.