Chelsea are going to struggle to sign good players in the Europa Conference League, but a Rio Ferdinand ‘incident’ is understandably dominating the news.
Badge of honour
The performative nonsense of refusing to step on a football club’s badge is on the rise and it is immense fun, making otherwise relatively sensible adult humans seem really quite silly indeed.
The latest example came on Wednesday evening, when Rio Ferdinand posted this on Twitter:
Surely we can’t stand on the crest right here….
Joe Cole said it, “don’t poke the bear on a night like this” 😂😂#UCL nights like tonight 😍 pic.twitter.com/Og4kEv6YJX
— Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) April 12, 2023
That right there, when put through The Sun website‘s headline churn machine, becomes:
‘Rio Ferdinand orders last minute tweak to BT Sport set as Man Utd legend refuses to disrespect Real Madrid’
And it includes a wonderful line about how this ‘comes just a day after Joao Cancelo avoided stepping on the Manchester City crest on his return to the Etihad’.
Honestly, that ‘just a day after’ is perfect. No notes. But even that has absolutely nothing on this game of spot the difference:
1) ‘The incident came 24 hours after Joao Cancelo opted to not stand on Manchester City ’s badge as he made his first return to the club. The Portuguese youngster was back in Manchester following his loan move to Bayern Munich in the January window’ – Ben Husband, Daily Mirror website, 19.14pm.
2) ‘The incident came 24 hours after Joao Cancelo opted to not stand on Manchester City’s badge as he made his first return to the club.
‘The Portuguese youngster was back in Manchester following his loan move to Bayern Munich in the January window’ – David Wood, MailOnline, 00.36am.
That paragraph break nearly had us fooled. But come on, ‘the incident’!? ’24 hours after’? Majestic. And the subsequent description of 28-year-old father Cancelo as ‘the Portuguese youngster’? *Chef’s kiss*.
Chelsea dagger
It was during his punditry duty on BT Sport when Joe Cole said the following:
“We are not talking about ‘who do Chelsea get’, we’re talking ‘who wants to go to Chelsea’ if they are playing in the Europa Conference League? We have to be honest.”
Playing in the Champions League doesn’t seem to have helped them all that much in the transfer market.
And Chelsea were, of course, absolutely knackered the last time they failed to qualify for…
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