In the future, every Premier League club will be the crisis club for 15 minutes.

Even Arsenal are back involved trying to steal some of Man United’s limelight after a Grimsby-topping bit of Carabao comeuppance.

Henderson’s relish
Huge breaking news from the Daily Express, who have somehow managed to wrangle an astonishing admission out of Jordan Henderson below the following headline

Jordan Henderson makes clear where his loyalties lie with Liverpool vs Chelsea comment

Under what we can only imagine was the most intense questioning, Henderson finally buckled.

Former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson admitted that he will forever remain associated with the club.

Whoa, there. A man who spent 12 years at Liverpool – eight as captain – admits he’ll always be associated with them? We’re not sure how he (or we) can recover from this.

But the really interesting thing turns out to be when he made such a startling admission that the Express have now tarted up into a ‘Liverpool vs Chelsea comment’ ahead of the clubs’ Carabao Cup clash.

The former skipper penned a heartfelt message upon his exit over three years ago, expressing his lasting affection for the club.

Henderson wrote on social media: “It’s hard to put these last 12 years into words and it’s even harder to say goodbye. I will always be a Red. Until the day I die. Thank you for everything. You’ll never walk alone. Jordan.”

That is not in any way a Liverpool vs Chelsea comment. That is a Liverpool comment. He has played for three other clubs since then and before joining Chelsea. That comment has absolutely nothing to do with Chelsea.

But the Express do, in fairness, also have this.

“I was there 12 years, dedicated a lot of my life. My kids were born there, so it holds a special place in my heart. I still want Liverpool to do well – of course not when we’re playing them, but overall – and that’ll never change.”

That’s closer to being a ‘Liverpool vs Chelsea’ comment. Until you realise that actually this is what he said after playing Liverpool last season with Brentford. So it’s a Liverpool vs Brentford comment. But it’s as close as we get to delivering on the promise of that headline.

In fairness to the Express, what else could they do? You couldn’t possibly ignore a story on the scale of this one. The revelation that Henderson wants the club where he spent 12 years to do well except when they play against the team that currently employs him is one that the public simply has to know.

And if that means you have to engage in a bit of unfortunate headline housery to get it done, then tough. Sometimes you have to bend the rules to break the big stories.

Now they’re back on the horse using the exact same quotes from the exact same interview for the exact same reason, but in a slightly different way.

Back in the far off distant days of September, the Express were using them to suggest he might have changed his mind. Which, well, he might have because there is a subtle difference in his situation between then (employed as manager by another football club) and now (not employed by another football club).

It was strangely done, and the headline such a hotch-potch collection of words that it barely qualified as language, but the central thrust was, while very obvious, reasonable.

Now they’re back using the same quotes but pretending the change in his circumstances doesn’t affect their relevance at all.

Eddie Howe’s reaction to becoming Man Utd boss spoke volumes after Roy Keane’s endorsement

There’s a subtle little clue in there, isn’t there, if you look hard enough. That reaction, which amounted to “I’m committed to the job I currently have” and thus is now of no relevance at all as he no longer has said job, ‘spoke volumes’. It didn’t ‘speak volumes’.

But what Howe’s reaction absolutely definitely did not do at any volume was anything at all ‘after Roy Keane’s endorsement’ because that happened this week.

We’re already past a point where any hope that clinging to the old-fashioned idea that words have meanings has been lost; must we also give up clinging to such other outdated notions as the linear passage of time?

High and mighty
Mediawatch completely understands that there is simply no way you can expect reporters to resist the open goal that was Arsenal slipping so hilariously on some Carabao peel at a ground called Highbury.

But we have still enjoyed the way ‘This small ground on the North Sea is in fact not similar to the famous and large Art Deco one there used to be in That London’ has often been said as if it is some profound and revealing truth.

There’s Oliver Holt, because of course there is, in the Daily Mail:

This was Highbury, but not as Arsenal know it. There is nothing Art Deco about any of the stands at Fleetwood Town’s delightful ground. The capacity is 5327. The trendy restaurants of Upper Street are not a short walk away down Holloway Road. This is a different kind of Highbury. A single-storey sports and social club sits behind the touchline opposite the main stand. A banner proclaiming ‘Up the Cods’ hung behind one of the goals.

The Sun had this:

The Cod Army’s home is Highbury, but with a capacity of 5,327 it is very different to Arsenal’s old ground.

The two may share the same name, however that is where the similarities end.

Fleetwood’s Highbury is in stark contrast to the marble halls of North London and its compact nature gave the venue a giant-killing feel.

We really need Exeter v Newcastle in the FA Cup now.

Holt, who goes there
Before Holt gets to his lengthy ‘This Highbury is small, the other Highbury is far away’ paragraph, we are treated to some lovely scene-setting colour from a man who definitely didn’t expect to have an interesting football match to write about and wasn’t about to let that inconvenient and unexpected occurrence throw him off his pre-planned course.

Beside the tram tracks that run all the way down to Blackpool and the Pleasure Beach, just along from the hulking iron anchor embedded in the pavement at the start of Fisherman’s Walk, they were doing a brisk trade at The Eating Plaice as kick-off edged closer.

One of the ladies behind the counter upbraided a customer who was taking his plate of fish and chips through to the restaurant. ‘You’ve done yourself there, love,’ she said. ‘If you’d ordered in there, you could have had fish and chips, mushy peas, a brew and bread and butter for £10.95.’

There is a frontier feel about this town, a bit like Barrow-in-Furness on the other side of Morecambe Bay. Sea salt in the veins and a harbour that was once home to a flotilla of trawlers. The wind blows through it so hard it whisks away anything that is not nailed down. The Vintage Emporium and Odditorium advertises its wares near the seafront.

Just to be absolutely clear, those are the first three paragraphs. That’s the start of his report on the biggest League Cup shock of all time. What we think is most impressive that as well as making no mention of Arsenal or football, it even manages not to include the word ‘Fleetwood’.

Mediawatch always has a great fondness for convenient colour quotes from quaint salt-of-the-earth locals in this particular style of pseudish sportswriting.

And by ‘has a great fondness for’ we of course mean ‘grinds its teeth to dusty stumps in impotent rage at’.

Lowered volume
We’re not angry, Daily Mirror website, just disappointed.

Fleetwood manager says Mikel Arteta’s tunnel behaviour after cup upset sums up Arsenal boss

It’s not that you’ve framed the headline to look like Arteta has flounced off in a huff when he was actually ‘really gracious’ and thus acted, inevitably, ‘with class’. No. That’s just par for the headline course.

What we can’t understand is why oh why this Hashtag Classy Touch merely ‘sums up Arsenal boss’ when it so comfortably clears the threshold for at least a showing of true colours, and quite possibly even the speaking of volumes. What are you playing at?

Shining through
At least standards are being maintained somewhere in the Reach stable, thanks to the Daily Express.

Man Utd LIVE: Michael Carrick shows true colours as Bruno Fernandes transfer demand made

He signed some autographs.

Oh, and the Bruno Fernandes transfer demand, if you can even be bothered to care, is that Paul Scholes has demanded he be sent to Saudi Arabia. Something we’re not sure is within Scholes’ gift to demand, if we’re honest.