Real Madrid star may NEVER play in the Barclays but Ter Stegen and Zubimendi could…

Jude Bellingham being happy at one of the biggest clubs on earth causes head scratching in tabloid land, while there’s also news of Tony Fernandes’ nipples in today’s Mediawatch.

Spurred on
We’re pleased for Gareth and Jude and Harry and the rest of the England lads, but there’s no doubt the national team beating decent opposition quite well to impressively qualify for a major tournament while Jude Bellingham does repeated madnesses is a disaster for Mediawatch.

Instinctively we want to be going all ‘steady on’ about some of the Bellingham coverage but the reality is we just find ourselves nodding along and going ‘Yes, he is already one of the best midfielders in the world, and yes he quite possibly is already England’s best and most important player’.

We’d slightly temper our England expectations for as long as full-time meme Harry Maguire and professional substitute Kalvin Phillips are in the starting XI, but they absolutely could win the Euros and absolutely are among the favourites.

Great. But shit-all use to us.

Luckily, though, the Manchester United takeover nonsense rumbles ever on and the Express have combined it with an old favourite. What if Qatar instead decide to lavish their billions on Tottenham? What then?

How Tottenham could look with Sheikh Jassim’s billions to rub salt in Man Utd wounds

Yes, that’s right, it’s a ‘How Team X could look if they signed some players they don’t currently own’ classic. Love those. Apparently in this case, Spurs would have Marc-Andre Ter Stegen in goal, Jeremie Frimpong at right-back, Martin Zubimendi in midfield and Kaoru Mitoma and Ivan Toney in the front three. So now you know.

The Express have clearly hit on this wound-salting Qatari revenge as a theme, though. It’s a clever way to continue putting ‘Sheikh Jassim’ in headlines alongside ‘Man Utd’ and if you’re really lucky ‘Liverpool’. A quick look reveals the following from the last 48 hours.

Spurs and Liverpool can rub salt in Man Utd wounds after Sheikh Jassim pulls out

Sheikh Jassim can get revenge on Man Utd owners Prem rivals ‘open’ to talks

Sheikh Jassim ‘decides Manchester United revenge stance’ after failed takeover bid

That last one is particularly interesting. It’s from two days ago, and that ‘Manchester United revenge stance’ is that… he isn’t going to take revenge.

‘But Sheikh Jassim is reportedly not looking for revenge on the Red Devils as he isn’t interested in buying a rival club at the moment.’

Poor Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. He’s going to be devastated.

Bell tolls
There is one element of the Bellingham noise that does slightly grate, though: the general air of wonder and befuddlement that someone playing for Real Madrid might not harbour dreams of playing in England.

It is undeniably unusual that such a key English player might never play in the English top flight, but having reached a point where he’s starring for Real Madrid having never even played so much as a minute of Barclays in his fraudulent life we should perhaps now have all moved on from being staggered.

‘Jude Bellingham may NEVER play in the Premier League after outlining plans to stay at Real Madrid for “10 to 15 years”‘ caps-locks the Mail.

‘Bellingham announces Real Madrid plan in telling new Premier League transfer message’ headshakes the Mirror about some quotes in which Bellingham mentions the Premier League not a single time.

He doesn’t need to play in the Premier League, lads.

Massage the facts
Mediawatch often finds itself reading some guff or other and wondering about the poor sods writing it, about the dreams and ambitions they might have had about an exciting career in sports journalism versus the apparent reality. Did the Star’s Tom Sunderland, for instance, get into this game to write about Tony Fernandes’ nipples?

We don’t know Tom personally, but we’re pretty sure the answer is no.

Ex-QPR chairman rips off shirt to conduct topless ‘business meeting’ while being massaged

That’s the headline which does rather brilliantly manage to make the whole thing sound seedier than it is with those euphemistic-looking scare quotes and the bit about ripping off his shirt, which appears to be entirely artistic licence.

Whereas the reality appears to be precisely what it looks like from the admittedly very strange picture he chose – apparently under no duress or compulsion – to willingly share with the world. He had a massage, while topless, and doing a meeting. It’s a bit of a weird thing to do, and it’s a very weird thing to decide to post on LinkedIn, but that’s literally the entirety of the story here.

However, we had to read the following sentence in this exhaustive piece about a former football club chairman taking his top off for a meeting, and now you have to read it as well. We’re not facing this alone, we refuse. Please note that standard F365 advice to enjoy Mediawatch with your lunch or a cuppa is suspended at this time.

The AirAsia mogul can be seen sat at a conference table – tablet at attention and nipples, too – while a female masseuse works on his shoulders.

Self-Awareness Paragraph of the Day
‘Back in the bad old days, England used to arrive at major tournaments full of jingoistic tub-thumping with precious little to back up our nation’s empty bluster.’

Dave Kidd there writing in The Sun, a newspaper that greeted England’s 2010 World Cup group stage draw with the acronym ‘E.A.S.Y’ for the full names of all the teams in said group; England, Algeria, Slovenia and, er, Yanks while declaring it ‘the best English group since The Beatles’.

England famously, of course, managed to beat precisely one of those teams, thumping Slovenia 1-0 to march through the group stage in a commanding second place to set up a narrow 4-1 thrashing from Germany in the last 16.

Second Mention of the Day
And while we’re on Kidd, full elegant variation marks for ‘lanky young Brummie’ having already used up ’20-year-old phenomenon’ in a piece quite rightly giddy at Jude Bellingham’s brilliance.