Well, last night two things happened which amused me greatly; first, Sevco left Morelos out of the starting eleven for the game against Thistle as the full measure of their miscalculation started to hit home and then, later, after the game itself, the newspaper which launched this seven-day frenzy of nonsense did what I expected days ago; they started rolling it back.
The Daily Express was the first paper to go with this stupid story.
The Record amplified it spectacularly, and were the ones who did most to unsettle the player with talk about contracts worth tens of thousands of pounds. It’s no surprise that The Express was the lead-off hitter last night. It’s equally unsurprising that The Record followed suit.
This story is a bust. Everyone knows it now, even Kheredine Idessane must know it. He has been grafted royally here, either by Sevco or by his own bosses. Forced into a humiliating retreat last week for daring to question the veracity of this nonsense, he has been hung out like a tarts knickers, his credibility absolutely shot by the way this has gone. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of or seen a broadcast journalist given such a comprehensive using.
The Express doesn’t say the story was made up; the media is never going to admit that they were turned over here.
What it does is start the process of eradicating it from the public consciousness.
The Express says the Beijing club has “cooled their interest” and are now “moving on” to other targets.
This is the closest we’ll get to a full-on retraction.
The article says there is “some interest” from another Chinese club; yeah, maybe it’s the one The Express mentioned in the original piece and which every outlet had to swiftly remove when it became clear they couldn’t do the deal.
Honest to God, there is no end to the nonsense these people are willing to write. That interest is as non-existent as that from Beijing, something the writer seems to acknowledge; “But it remains to be seen if that will be firmed up with a bid,” the report says.
In case you’re waiting, in suspense, with baited breath to see if one transpires I can help you out; find something else to focus on. It will never come to pass.
The Morelos story is twitching, still with more life in it than our media would like, but don’t mistake this for something that’s living. It’s as dead as it can be, with about as much worth as petrified dog shit, but unfortunately for Sevco the consequences are very real.
How scared are they? Well they are desperate to make sure the player has his head screwed on for the rest of the campaign; unfortunately, that means paying him more. A lot more. Check out this wonderful line from The Express article.
“The summer signing from HJK Helsinki also knows that he would have a better chance of achieving his dream of playing in the English Premier League if he signs on at Ibrox rather than heading to the Far East.”
Ha! Talk about transparent!
That is ridiculous. That’s the media’s way of saying “Hey, it’s alright son, you wouldn’t have liked it out there anyway.”
Sadly, for the club, and hilariously for the rest of us, the only way he will re-focus on the job at hand is if he gets the new contract he’s after.
Morelos wants wage parity with the club’s highest earners; that is nothing but bad news for everyone at Ibrox, because as I’ll explore later that would put him in the stratosphere of Scottish football player wages, and would almost certainly kill stone dead any hope they had of moving him on for a significant fee in the summer.
Like I said, this is a shambles wholly of their own making … and what a beauty of it is.
This is one of these Sevco moments that make you glad you’ve lived this long.
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