There are stories, there are non stories, then there are those stories which leave you breathless with embarrassment at their audacity and of any media choosing to publish them.
The latest appeared in the once great newspaper called The Times – now owned by an Australian who doesn’t need to be named – before being repeated in his downmarket red top.
It surfaced this morning claiming that Manuel Pellegrini “is concerned” that his team is known and published on a Twitter account four hours before the players know themselves, they being apparently informed four hours before the game .
The Twitter account concerned belongs to ExWHUemployee where it was claimed that he has published 89 correct line-ups on the trot before AFC Wimbledon.
Apparently according to The Times Pellegrini is now making enquiries to find the ‘leak’, but in his presser ahead of Everton he boss was singularly unconcerned.
He said: “I am not angry about it. Normally in every team that I manage, the day before the game I work on set pieces and all the players know the day before. I do not keep the team news until four hours before the game.”
So it is The Times that is wrong then – not Ex!
As I understand it Ex has been publishing the team half an hour before it is announced and I can’t imagine that at that time of day an opposition manager is glued to his laptop to find out what it might be.
Not a story….and a far worse reflection on shabby journalism than the Twitter account they have tried to victimise!
The journo responsible also claimed that this top secret leak was a ‘symptom of the disarray at the club’. Well there are a number of things that have raised doubts about the running of West Ham in the last few years, but if the best you can do for a ‘symptom’ of it is the leaking of the team sheets you are hardly justifying your salary as a journalist. You are hardly justifying ANY salary.