Manchester United rocked as Amorim makes 'ruthless' decision

Ruben Amorim might finally have lost it at Manchester United; four players he is trying to sell won’t come on tour and he wants new signings fairly soon.

Rule the world

‘Man City discover Premier League punishment after admitting rule breach and apologising’ – Daily Express website.

Pretty much everyone else saw the open net and wisely decided against it – aside from GB News, which is not the right side of any argument to be on – but fair play for just devouring such low-hanging fruit whole.

Mind you, other places might have chosen an even more preposterous way of covering a story about Manchester City being fined £1m for breaking kick-off rules multiple times over this past season:

‘Manchester City discover Premier League punishment after breaking rule NINE times’ – Daily Mirror website.

‘Man City slapped with huge fine as they accept breaching Premier League rule NINE times’ – The Sun website.

‘Man City receive £1MILLION fine for breaching Premier League rule NINE times – as Pep Guardiola’s side accept hefty punishment’ – MailOnline.

Wow, NINE times?! Thank Christ they haven’t been accused of or are being investigated over a considerably higher number of charges.

READ MORE: Man City FFP: Pundit rules out one punishment in ‘incredible’ claim as ‘complete disaster’ looms for PL

Tour de fource

‘YANKS BUT NO THANKS’ screams the back page of The Sun – obviously, because what other entity sees a mention of the United States of America and is overcome with an uncontrollable argue to shout about ‘YANKS’?

The ‘exclusive’ story? Well that would be the revelation that ‘RUBEN AMORIM is set to axe Alejandro Garnacho, Antony, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford from Manchester United’s pre-season USA tour.’

It feels like a good time to invoke The Rule: if the opposite is a bigger story, it probably isn’t worthy of a back page.

Were Manchester United taking any of four players they have made explicitly clear have no future at the club on a pre-season tour, that would be quite something. Leaving all of them out, especially at a time they are trying to find new clubs, seems like an obvious thing to do. So obvious it barely needs pointing out, and absolutely doesn’t need to be near a back page.

The worst part is that by the 12th paragraph of the actual story, the ostracised quartet will only ‘almost certainly be missing when the Red Devils fly Stateside for a three-match tour’. So The Sun aren’t even able to bring themselves to fully commit to this groundbreaking report.

Ru the day

But where one leads, others must follow in the eternal search for clicks about three players who ended last season on loan elsewhere and another who the manager told to “pray that you can find a club to sign you” probably not forming a part of Manchester United’s future:

‘Ruben Amorim ‘to axe FOUR Man Utd players’ from pre-season tour in ruthless decision’ – Daily Mirror website, who also call it ‘brutal’.

‘Ruben Amorim ‘set to banish FOUR Man United outcasts’ from pre-season tour as he prepares for Old Trafford rebuild’ – MailOnline, who say the ‘castaway quartet’ will be ‘exiled’.

‘Ruben Amorim wields the axe! Man Utd boss to BANISH four players from first-team squad with Marcus Rashford & Antony to be left off pre-season tour’ – Goal.com, who appear to think they are the MailOnline.

‘Ruben Amorim decides to axe four Manchester United stars from pre-season tour’ – Metro, who call it ‘a hardline stance’.

‘Amorim bans four ‘bad apples’ from Man Utd tour as Aston Villa make shock outcast ‘enquiry’‘ – Football365. Oh for fu…

Impatient zero

But the, ‘well, yeah…’ coverage of Manchester United does not stop there. David McDonnell has contacts at Old Trafford and a Daily Mirror platform from which he can inform the unwashed masses of his inside knowledge.

And apparently Ruben Amorim is ‘growing impatient and wants Man Utd transfers completed urgently’.

In other news, water is wet and the sun is hot.

Honestly, ‘manager wants club to sign players as quickly as possible’ is such an incredible non-story. Especially when Manchester United have not only already made one signing, but made the most expensive signing of any club in the world so far this summer.

And by the opening paragraph it becomes even more laughable:

‘Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim wants his new signings on board for the club’s pre-season tour of the USA in four weeks’ time.’

Again, obviously. But also does he want them ‘urgently’ or just at some point within the next month or so? Because those feel like two very different measures of time.

Like we did last summer

After struggling with the concept of a ‘U-turn’ when it came to Florian Wirtz recently, the media is back to display perhaps wilful ignorance over the idea of a transfer ‘twist’.

‘Gyokeres turns down latest huge contract offer as Man Utd and Arsenal transfer saga takes yet another twist,’ is the Daily Mirror website headline. But Gyokeres turning down Juventus is in no way ‘yet another twist’ when he has at no stage looked like going there.

Indeed, as they point out in the story, ‘Juventus have been informed that Gyokeres only wants to join Arsenal this summer’. Which is very much the line we all know to be true. It’s not exactly M. Night Shyamalan.

Jack the lad

The art of showing one’s true colours has taken an absolute battering of late, losing all meaning completely in the world of football reporting because Reach have decided on their new favourite phrase and will be damned if they aren’t going to flog it to death.

But this is just nonsense from the Daily Mirror website:

‘Jack Grealish shows true colours with latest act amid Man City transfer speculation’

It turns out that Grealish donates to charity and is not a prick just because Manchester City want to sell him. Who knew?

MUM’s the word

‘Arsenal star Myles Lewis-Skelly set to become one of world’s best-paid young players after MUM negotiated new contract’ – The Sun website.

‘Arsenal star Myles Lewis-Skelly set to become one of world’s best-paid young players after AGENT negotiated new contract’ – Mediawatch.

‘Liverpool to pay Florian Wirtz’s parents eye-watering fee in £116m transfer deal’ – Daily Mirror website.

‘Liverpool to pay Florian Wirtz’s agents eye-watering fee in £116m transfer deal’ – Mediawatch.

Partey central

‘Thomas Partey writes emotional farewell as Arsenal confirm exit’ is another excellent Daily Express website headline attempt, but it again feels necessary to propose a couple of changes:

‘Thomas Partey writes emotional farewell to Carlos Cuesta as Arsenal confirm exit of assistant manager‘. There, much better. Wouldn’t want anyone to be confused.

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