Man Utd dealt transfer blow after Bruno Fernandes 'surprise' at Marcus Rashford

In which the Mirror do weird things with Bruno Fernandes quotes both ancient and modern, Florian Wirtz is absolutely furious and Mary Earps should be more like Joe Root. It’s only been a few days and we are already desperate for the return of actual football.

Final destination

What a whirlwind three days it’s been for Bruno Fernandes and, more importantly, the UK media’s reporting of Bruno Fernandes.

Seems wild to think it’s only two days ago that going to a friend’s birthday dinner was proof he was off to Saudi. Then came the confirmation that he was not in fact off to Saudi.

And now, a whole 24 hours later, the Mirror give us this.

‘It was an ambitious proposal!’ Fernandes finally explains why he rejected £300m offer to leave Man Utd for Saudi side Al-Hilal – and opens up on talks with Amorim

First of all, that’s a very MailOnline headline from the Mirror. Second of all, ‘finally’? It’s barely been a day, lads.

Mediawatch was concerned – as we’re sure were you, dear reader – that this long-awaited explanation didn’t immediately constitute a breaking of Bruno’s silence on the matter, but these fears were soon allayed by the intro.

Manchester United star Bruno Fernandes has broken his silence on his decision to reject Al-Hilal, insisting he wanted to remain ‘at the highest level’ despite receiving an ‘ambitious’ proposal from the Saudi outfit.

Phew.

Off the pace

You do start to understand why someone taking a whole 24 hours to speak about something qualifies as ‘finally’ in Tabloid Land (the world’s sh*ttest theme park) when you stop to consider what they actually consider to be current and newsworthy quotes.

Take this tale from the Mirror, for instance, that handily and clickily manages to combine ‘Man Utd’ and ‘Bruno Fernandes’ and ‘Marcus Rashford’.

Man Utd to be dealt huge blow with Bruno Fernandes ‘surprised’ by Marcus Rashford

What’s interesting here is that they’ve given you all the pieces of the puzzle; the Reach-required curiosity gap is how precisely they all fit together. And how they all fit together is with the use of brute force, a crowbar and above all else a complete and utter lack of shame.

Do you know what has ‘surprised’ Bruno Fernandes about Marcus Rashford? His pace. More importantly, do you know when it surprised him? In 2020, just after he joined United. It would be very odd if he were still surprised by it five years later.

And because Fernandes was surprised by Rashford’s attributes five entire years ago, it now constitutes a ‘huge blow’ that Manchester United will be selling a player they want to sell in 2025 but they did not want to sell in 2020.

When quotes from five years before an event are current and relevant, it’s suddenly no wonder quotes issued any time after something has actually happened are considered ‘finally’ ‘breaking silence’. It all makes ridiculous sense.

Sound and fury, signifying nothing

Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford aren’t the only transfer stories in town, though. No, there’s still Liverpool’s pursuit of Florian Wirtz.

Tricky one for the tabloids, this, because it is a) legitimately huge, b) taking a while to sort out but also c) pretty much definitely going to happen so there’s no great peril.

Which just means you have to create the peril. And in 2025, that surprisingly often means pretending shirt numbers are far, far more important than they are.

With Wirtz, that means pretending that stealing the number 10 shirt off Alexis Mac Allister’s back is some kind of deal-breaker.

So when Florian Wirtz himself says he’s not that arsed about it, how do you make that sound like it’s still potentially bad news?

Well first, let’s play a little game. Read Wirtz’s Instagram post on the subject and then select one word you’d use to describe his emotional state.

Who says I want the 10? I respect players. Don’t believe everything what’s written.

This was followed by a clown emoji, just for the sake of completeness and in case that changes your decision.

What do we reckon? Indignant? Irked? Mildly annoyed? Admittedly that’s two words.

If you’re a Reach headline noise-maker at the Express, though, the word you opt for here is furious. Wirtz is furious.

Florian Wirtz issues furious Liverpool response as transfer saga goes on

Mediawatch also enjoys the framing here, like he’s responding to Liverpool themselves rather than spurious media tittle-tattle. Makes it sound even more dramatic. And furious.

By the intro he has ‘furiously denied rumours’ about wanting the no. 10.

Mediawatch sighs, notes that we’ve got another three months of this, and longs for the return of actual football. Even the Club World Cup has to be better than this.

Root of all evil

Mediawatch genuinely doesn’t know where to start with Jeremy Cross’ truly bizarre football-cricket crossover piece in the Daily Star, in which Joe Root being f*cking brilliant is considered insufficiently newsworthy to stand alone. Not when it can also be used as a cudgel with which to attack an uppity woman.

We’ll start at the start, because it’s already very odd.

Pardon the pun, but we have run out of superlatives for Joe Root.

Eh? Is the pun there literally the presence of the words ‘run out’? Is that it? That this is what Crossy thinks we should be pardoning here only gets more amusing as this goes on.

At the age of 34, Root is setting records which might never be broken. Living proof to professional athletes around him of how longevity is one of the main stamps of greatness. I wonder if Mary Earps has taken note?

Sorry, what? That’s one crunching gear change.

Last week Earps called time on her international career. The decision followed a meeting with England manager Sarina Wiegman, in which she was told she wouldn’t be her number one goalkeeper at the Euros. So instead of digging in, in a bid to win back her place in the team, Earps took the easier option. Now we know the real reasons she was known as ‘Mary, Queen of Stops’.

Now there’s the pun you should be seeking forgiveness for.

Cross goes on to point out that retiring was an option Root could have chosen when relinquishing the England Test captaincy back in 2022.

He was England’s second highest run scorer in Tests at the time. The Yorkshireman had nothing left to prove.

Well, we can think of one thing left to prove; there’s a hint right there in the previous sentence. But that’s not really the point. We’re not really sure what the point actually is.

But Root realised people like him are a long time retired. He still had a love of batting and a heck of a lot more to give. And unlike Earps, when the going got tough, Root got going. Since relinquishing the captaincy to focus solely on batting, Root has gone on to smash bowlers to all four corners of the world. He has overtaken Sir Alastair Cook as England’s greatest Test run scorer.

Look, Joe Root is lovely and brilliant and all the rest of it, but this is a genuinely insane comparison.

These are not remotely comparable situations. When he gave up the captaincy, Root was 31 years old and unquestionably still England’s best batter. There was no suggestion whatsoever he might lose his place in England’s first-choice XI, as Earps has.

Faced with entirely different situations, Root wanted to carry on and Earps didn’t. Both are entirely valid choices and neither really any of our business.

You don’t have to like the choice Earps has made, and especially the way it’s all played out, but you do have to acknowledge that her situation and Root’s are not in any useful or meaningful way the same, and not just because they play completely different sports.

And you really, really don’t have to turn a nice piece about one of the country’s greatest sportspeople into a weird attack on a woman.

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