Never has a hug between two men meant so much too me, than the embrace between Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal last weekend. The pair are old colleagues from years back and showed on Sunday, when their two sides faced each other in the English Premier League, that they clearly had respect and affection for one another.

Now I am not going to lie, I love all the managerial sub-plots that go on in football. Whether it’s Arsene Wenger shoving Jose or Neil Warnock winding up almost every opposite number or a hug that shows respect like the one we saw on Sunday. It all adds to the narrative, building up the drama and suspense.

Why shouldn’t two rival bosses show that they appreciate and like each other before and after a game? Surely in an era where opposition players and managers start fighting over the stupidest things it’s only right to highlight a bond, declare it a good thing and accept it.

This leads me on to another reason why I liked the managerial bromance shown at Old Trafford. It infuriates certain members of the press, who can’t stand anything different creeping into their football. A game that they always try and dictate to and take offence at.

The worst culprits are the Daily Mail and some of their ‘esteemed’ columnists.

A prime example of that ‘we deserve better’ journalism is Adrian Durham. His article on the subject was ridiculous in my opinion. Most of his arguments usually are bit ridiculous to be fair.

He goes on about how this Manchester United Chelsea rivalry is fierce and has been since Roman Abramovich turned up in London about a decade ago.

Was it really that fierce? Jose was extremely respectful of Sir Alex Ferguson and vice versa. In fairness, Adrian touches on that even though it kind of makes his use of ‘fierce rivalry’ in his opening gambit look flimsy to say the least. He forgets to point out that Jose and Louis have had a professional relationship since 1997, a full seven years before this ‘fierce rivalry’ between United and Chelsea began.

You cannot read Durham’s articles and not get the sense that Santa forgot his favourite toy as a child or that he has permanent toothache. Those are the only two logical reasons I can come up with for his constant negative opinion pieces.

Adrian states that Van Gaal has a lot to learn about the Premier League and that rivalry is a huge part of it. Yeah lets tell an experienced, world-class manager (who has been in the managerial game for twenty-three years) how things are done. Louis van Gaal has won the Champions League, the Eredivisie title four times, La Liga twice and the Bundesliga once! I think he understands football well enough. The English game really isn’t that different (the press might be a bit bonkers).

Both bosses are hugely successful and experienced. They know that the title isn’t won or lost in October.

Adrian seems to also point the finger at the Chelsea gaffer Mourinho, stating in his headline that ‘you almost felt the Chelsea boss was happy his old friend got a point‘. Well Jose always sets out to win, to suggest anything else is ridiculous. Also if his side had won or lost I still think he’d have given Van Gaal a bit of an embrace. Let’s not forget that they had given each other an equally cosy cuddle before the game had begun.

Now I personally dislike Durham’s provocative ‘let’s hate everything’ style but it works. It gets his newspaper big hits on their website. It had over 100 shares on social media and had 196 comments (at the time of writing this blog). That’s all that the Daily Mail care about.

Instead of informing the public with newsworthy content, it’s turning into a bit of a bitter blog. Shouting at its readers, telling them what to think.

This new crusade ‘Hands Off in the Box’ is just another pointless piece of poor journalism. ‘Oh lets eradicate pulling and grappling in the box’. They know fine well that the FA won’t look at changing any rules before seasons end. Plus they don’t even want them to change the rules because it would take out the one thing they need and that’s debate. The same can be said when the have similar campaigns against diving and abuse at referees. The fact is they will then come out and shout at us that football used to be a contact sport and then they’ll bait fights between managers and the officials. Lets face it they’ve hired Graham Poll to basically come out and attack refs whenever they get the slightest thing wrong.

Adrian Durham’s bitterness is systematic in the Daily Mail offices. It should really be renamed the ‘Daily Moan’ and rebranded as a blog not a newspaper. To be honest they are far from being the only media organisation to be heading down that road, they are actually in the majority.

But instead of hating it, I still read it. Not for the information, just for the laughs. But a hit is a hit right? So they won’t mind a jot! Shame that  professionalism comes at such a small price these days.

As for Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho… What should they do next time they meet? I will leave that up to them.

 

 

Posted on October 29th, 2014 by scott
Filed under: Article