Another week, another crisis at Manchester United who are now the worst United team since either 2025 or 1988 depending on how you frame it.

But there’s also all manner of ‘fume’ from Liverpool, the innermost thoughts of VAR and the sad demise of what absolutely everyone was calling the bright exciting future of Newcastle 2.0 back in the summer.

Hit the bottle
As if things weren’t already bad enough at Manchester United, along comes Steve Judge in the Mirror with some tortured wordplay that could drive anyone to drink.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of Sir Alex Ferguson’s arrival at Manchester United.

Back on November 6, 1986, he walked into Old Trafford to find a dressing-room booze culture that needed ripping apart. Fast forward to the present day and United have a squad that has the fans hitting the boos and needs bulldozing.

The only problem is that the modern, rudderless United is home to the only Last Chance Saloon on earth that has lock-ins. Still, the last orders’ bell looks set to ring for boss Michael Carrick come the international break.

We did enjoy this from the same piece.

That may sound harsh, but United are on their worst run without a league win since May 2025.

Just doesn’t land, does it? As a scare stat? Genuinely is quite inconvenient that Man United have been just as sh*t as they are now, in the midst of what feels like a monumental all-time Premier League low, really very recently indeed.

The daftest thing, though, is that you can easily make it sound more dramatic, you don’t even need to cheat, and the Mirror have done it elsewhere. All you have to do is widen the filter to ‘all competitions’. It’s as easy as this.

The Red Devils now sit 17th in the Premier League table and have gone without a victory in their last nine games in all competitions, their longest winless run since 1988.

That hits the spot.

Future imperfect
Ballsy stuff from Luke Edwards at the Telegraph under this headline…

Newcastle need more from the players brought in to launch new era

As Edwards then notes:

It was heralded as Newcastle United 2.0 as the club sold off its crown jewels and replaced them with a group of ‘future stars’ to usher in a new era.

Was it now? Was it heralded as that? We seem to remember most people seeing Newcastle’s summer business for precisely what it was: a club finding out where it sits in the food chain, and that this place was still below even a Spurs team that had just finished 17th twice, and having to scramble to make the best of it after losing their manager and multiple key players, and getting knocked back by any and all experienced replacements.

We can only remember one person high enough on copium to herald this new-look squad  as ‘Newcastle United 2.0’ and pretend this was all part of some grand plan rather than enforced desperation.

And who was that brave lone voice heralding away? You’re already way ahead of us, aren’t you? Of course it was.

To fume it may concern
Mediawatch loves nothing more than a forlorn campaign doomed to fail. We’re still desperately fighting the long-lost battle for the idea that Words Have Meanings.

But it doesn’t mean we can’t multitask and open up another front where defeat has already been established, and it’s this: if the only thing making your story a story is some fans having conniptions on social media, then it is not a story.

The top two ‘stories’ on The Sun’s football homepage this morning both concern Liverpool fans and ‘fume’. It is the tishiest fipsy imaginable and achieves nothing beyond providing exhibit 3828276487 of the long-settled truth that social media was a terrible mistake.

Fume one is this:

RED MIST: Fans fume as footage emerges of grinning Gabriel and referee at half-time of Arsenal’s controversial win at Liverpool

And fume two is this:

GRAV TO BE KIDDING: ‘Enjoy this one, Gooners’ – Liverpool fans fume as Gravenberch likes Arsenal star’s Instagram post after Anfield win

Both are absolute nothingburgers, obviously.

The second really is a complete nothing and relies once more on a very weird yet very prevalent surprise when it turns out that two professional footballers who play for different clubs but are international team-mates might also be friends in real life, which is why Ryan Gravenberch has liked a post from Jurrien Timber about a football match they both played in.

The first, in which supposedly damning footage of human beings who happen to be footballers and a referee having a conversation is supposedly proof of something or other sinister is more damaging, because anything that nudge-nudges the braindead idea that there exists an official-led conspiracy to favour one football team or another makes football worse for us all.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. You can find a few people saying almost anything at any given time on the various social-media hellscapes they have now. It doesn’t make it news.

Private chancer
Huge scoop here from the Daily Express after Alexis Mac Allister’s antics against Arsenal on Sunday.

Liverpool star branded ’embarrassing’ as VAR’s private comments emerge in Arsenal fury

Those ‘private comments’ from the VAR in full were fairly withering and moderately entertaining:

“All of the situations have been checked and cleared. There is some contact as Madueke and Mac Allister square-up. In my opinion, it’s not forceful, not violent, not brutal.”

But just how did the Express manage to uncover such private comments that were mentioned on commentary by Gary Neville and then carried in full by the Premier League Match Centre account on X-formerly-Twitter?

#LIVARS – 79’

The referee’s call of no violent conduct by Madueke on Mac Allister was checked and confirmed by VAR.

VAR: “All of the situations have been checked and cleared. There is some contact as Madueke and Mac Allister square-up. In my opinion, it's not forceful, not…

— Premier League Match Centre (@PLMatchCentre) November 1, 2026

Lovely to see that even in the era of churnalism and AI-generated shod there’s still a place for good old-fashioned journalistic investigation and endeavour to get such private thoughts into the public domain.