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Obviously Mediawatch can\u2019t entirely ignore Oliver Brown and Richard Keys, much as we\u2019d like to, but there\u2019s most important things to do than chuckle at a couple of dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s big Tottenham-based manager news, for instance, and poor old Mikel Arteta being hit by an injury curse.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve even been blessed with another \u2018unrecognisable\u2019 star who is in fact very recognisable as well as a dream scenario so drably uninspiring that we actually spent a good 20 minutes just sat staring blankly and emptily into the middle distance after reading about it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Yes, we\u2019ve all read Oliver Brown\u2019s astonishing interview with Richard Keys in the Telegraph<\/strong>. Yes, it\u2019s obviously the most Partridge thing ever<\/strong>up to and including every actual Partridge vehicle on radio, TV and audiobook over the last three decades.<\/p>\n Yes, we\u2019ve all agreed upon the main headline quote.<\/p>\n I remember one Christmas Day, the best Christmas of my life in fairness, when I sat with a bottle of champagne, a can of tuna, and I watched\u00a0The Great Escape,\u00a0Where Eagles Dare\u00a0and\u00a0The Guns of Navarone. Back-to-back-to-back. Three magnificent movies. Actually, I\u2019ve wanted to do it many times since.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Sensational, it really is. At times like these we find ourselves getting genuinely angry that Keys is real and not in fact a genius comic creation.<\/p>\n Sure, you could get every person who\u2019s ever written a single line for Partridge together in a room to write a \u201cBest Christmas Day\u201d bit and, sure, they could probably come up with an even funnier list of films for that particular joke bucket. Keysey\u2019s selections are, if anything, for me, Clive, almost too<\/em> Partridge.<\/p>\n But we really don\u2019t think they could come up with anything funnier than \u2018can of tuna\u2019 to accompany it.<\/p>\n It is a perfect bit of business and just beyond infuriating to think that it was an accident.<\/p>\n None of that is really Mediawatch\u2019s main concern, of course. We\u2019re more interested in the fact the primary purpose of the interview is for Brown to allow Keys ample space to attempt to launder his love-rat reputation.<\/p>\n Of course, he fumbles that chance entirely. When your best defence against allegations that you ran off with your daughter\u2019s best mate amounts to \u2018Well, they weren\u2019t really best<\/em> mates\u2019 you\u2019re not on the firmest ground.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s nevertheless an interest-piquer for Mediawatch that Brown\u2019s staunch and strident interest in tirelessly working to protect women in sports is suddenly neither quite so staunch nor quite so strident when there\u2019s a chance to spend 1000 words attempting to rehabilitate the image of a ludicrous old misogynist rather than a chance to be enormously transphobic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had our fun with \u2018Dream XIs\u2019 over the years, usually chortling it up at the idea of pretending playing Fantasy Football with a list of summer transfer targets constitutes meaningful analysis or useful content.<\/p>\n \u2018How Manchester United could line-up next season if they sign eight \u00a375m players\u2019 is all very exciting, sure, but it\u2019s not particularly meaningful.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also never actually left us feeling miserable and depressed before. It\u2019s sometimes possible to gently chide the lack of imagination that goes into a \u2018Dream XI\u2019 \u2013 if it\u2019s a dream then why not just pretend to sign all the best players in the world instead of just three or four! You can do what you want! It\u2019s a dream!<\/p>\n Yet now, thanks to football.london<\/strong>we might just have stumbled on the most dispiriting deployment of the \u2018Dream XI\u2019 we\u2019ve ever seen. Not least because it was actually published yesterday morning as Igor Tudor\u2019s Dream XI.<\/p>\n Sure, he was still technically in charge at that point, but his departure was not in any way a shock and in any case there was also even before the announcement no plausible \u2018dream\u2019 Spurs scenario that involved him remaining in charge.<\/p>\n Sorry, we maybe should have said before that it\u2019s a Spurs XI. But we figured that would go without saying, you know, with the dispiriting, miserable and depressed elements.<\/p>\n For what this dream XI contains is not a handful of new signings ranging from the possible to the absurdly optimistic, but the return of a handful of players from injury. Ranging from the possible to the absurdly optimistic.<\/p>\n Tottenham\u2019s dream XI for relegation battle with two stars returning from injury<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Surely at no other club could the idea of \u2018dream\u2019 and \u2018relegation battle\u2019 be in such close proximity.<\/p>\n Only for Spurs \u2013 once a club where even failure once famously carried an \u2018echo of glory\u2019 could their loftiest dreams now rest on the return to fitness of Rodrigo Bentancur and the hope that Richarlison might stay fit enough to be able to lead the line for the next seven games.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The big Tottenham-based managerial news<\/strong> of the day is, of course, Jermain Defoe\u2019s appointment at Woking. The Sun<\/strong> bring us the hottest and latest news.<\/p>\n Former England star joins Jermain Defoe\u2019s coaching staff for his first managerial position at non-league Woking<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Paul Bracewell. Three caps in 1985. A damn fine player and coach over an extensive career spanning many decades, roles and clubs. But \u2018England star\u2019 is surely pushing it.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s subjective and, dare we say it, even a bit mean-spirited. Sure, The Sun are calling him an England star for sh*thouse reasons. But still. Even one cap is hard-earned and rightly treasured. If you want to call Paul Bracewell an England star, you go for it.<\/p>\n But you still can\u2019t say this.<\/p>\n Jermain Defoe has been joined by a former England team-mate after being named the new boss of Woking.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Young Jermain had just turned three when \u2018former England team-mate\u2019 Bracewell won his final cap.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s not quite Chicharito levels<\/strong>but it is yet another entry into Mediawatch\u2019s bulging file of \u2018unrecognisable\u2019 pictures of very recognisable football players looking extremely recognisable, from The Sun<\/strong> this time.<\/p>\n Chelsea legend, 35, looks unrecognisable chugging a beer in lycra after completing epic bike ride<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If you picture Eden Hazard, for it is he, sat on a bike chugging a beer in lycra after completing an epic bike ride, we cannot stress enough that you are picturing exactly the right image. You might have missed off the sunglasses, but other than that you\u2019re spot on.<\/p>\n Hazard looked visibly tired and almost unrecognisable in his red lycra outfit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Only \u2018almost\u2019 unrecognisable now, is he, you cowards? Still no. We will grudgingly accept that the man who\u2019d just cycled 225km does indeed look \u2018visibly tired\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Breathless panic from John Cross in the Mirror<\/strong> as he reports:<\/p>\n Mikel Arteta has been hit by an international curse with ELEVEN players now on the injury list. Piero Hincapie and Martin Zubimendi are the latest to return to\u00a0Arsenal\u00a0after withdrawing from their camps with Ecuador and Spain respectively.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Now Cross has never particularly struck Mediawatch as a sweet summer child before, so we assume this is all performative on his part.<\/p>\n But at the very, very least, Mediawatch would advise Cross and anyone else declaring that the sky is falling might wait until the line-up announcement for Arsenal\u2019s Champions League trip to Sporting next week before proclaiming with any great confidence who\u2019s been hit by a curse and who is in fact wielding the wand.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n
Dream weaver<\/h2>\n
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There\u2019s a star man<\/h2>\n
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Hazard level<\/h2>\n
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The Curse of Arteta<\/h2>\n
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