Chelsea have been on the losing side of many media narratives over the years. Tottenham and Liverpool, though, illustrate the extent of the media’s skew when they promote their favorites.
Football is a game of opinions and narratives. The media, to some extent, do their best to shape the opinions of fans to make sure the “right” narrative is upheld. Some managers benefit from the narrative the media pushes, others have suffered from it.
Media darlings like Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp enjoy more leeway than demonized characters like two-time Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and Diego Simeone. Mourinho seems to get the brunt of media criticism. Even seemingly objective pundits tend to misrepresent situations and facts to ensure that certain narratives are preserved. The person with the most believed narrative always wins.
After listening to the songs that pundits have been singing following the results of the latest round of UEFA Champions League Round of 16 matches, it’s clear that their punditry is heavily dependent on the manager in question.
The impact of injuries on various team performances of Klopp’s Liverpool and Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur have been considered to different degrees.
Jose Mourinho is without his club captain, Harry Kane, as well as Son Heung-Min, Steven Bergwijn and Moussa Sissoko. That’s four key players out of the starting lineup. There’s a limit to how many key players a team can do without.
Players like these offer so much to a team, more than the raw difference in quality. Key players are often match winners. They have the ability to change a game in the blink of an eye. They don’t have to be on a 9/10 performance for the whole game, but when they’re on the pitch, other players are forced to play better. They cover the deficiencies of other players, and make up for lapses in concentration.
It was, therefore, quite outrageous to see pundits just mention Tottenham’s injuries in passing while they continue to criticize Mourinho and Tottenham. These pundits claim that Tottenham should have played better “despite” their injuries.
All this wouldn’t have been an issue if said pundits were consistent with their dismissive injury analysis. Watching Liverpool get turned over by a disciplined Atletico Madrid team saw many of these same pundits call the Liverpool performance a good display. They perfunctorily filed the defeat in the Alisson-Becker-did-not-play folder.
Liverpool had their entire starting XI available to them against Atletico Madrid except their No. 1 goalkeeper, Alisson.
Liverpool needed to win that game by at least two goals. Instead, they lost – on the night and on aggregate.
Pundits magnified the effect Alisson’s absence had on that match to make it look like Liverpool could not have done any better, while downplaying the effects of Spurs’ absentees to make it look like Spurs should have done much better.
These narratives have pushed many to believe that Liverpool were just “unlucky” on the day, and Spurs was just horrible.
In reality, both teams lost their two legs of the Round of 16 tie and both teams deserved to. Spurs did because they suffered from key injuries and, as a result, did not have much quality in their play. Liverpool, because they knew what to expect from Atletico Madrid and still went from a winning position to a losing position in fewer than 25 extra time minutes.
Liverpool’s Alisson excuse is even more absurd considering that they had their full strength team in the first leg of the tie and lost that game, too.
These, and many other things, are intentionally to push the narrative that Klopp is a master tactician and sometimes “things don’t just go your way,” while Mourinho is the washed up manager who has forgotten how to manage a team and get good performances out of them.
Don’t let the media brainwash you. No team can do any better than what Tottenham did with the amount and weight of the injuries they had, and Liverpool should have done much better against Atletico Madrid, especially defensively. Adrian is not the reason they lost that game or tie. Liverpool lost the tie because they put all their focus on the offensive side of the game and neglected the defensive side.
For a club and manager that are touted for recognizing the importance of balancing those aspects, it’s not good enough. A performance and team like that do not have a place in the quarterfinals.