View: Bitter Leeds tweet from journalist doing rounds again after Wilder news
The big football news on Friday came from Sheffield United with reports emerging that Chris Wilder is set to leave the club. [BBC]
Sheffield United are rock bottom of the Premier League and are looking almost certain to drop down to the Championship.
Leeds fans were happy with the news for a couple of reasons.
First, Wilder called Leeds ‘muppets’ when Sheffield United pipped us to promotion in Marcelo Bielsa’s first season in charge.
Secondly, it gave them another chance to highlight an extraordinarily bitter tweet from Daily Telegraph journalist Matt Law.
Shortly after Bielsa was nominated for FIFA’s Best Men’s Coach award, Law tweeted, “Chris Wilder, Frank Lampard and Dean Smith all did better jobs than Bielsa last season. But they are English so they are not allowed to be nominated or recognised.”
Since this tweet, which was only posted in November last year, Lampard and Wilder have both (or are about to, in Wilder’s case) lost their jobs.
Dean Smith is the exception and he is having a great season with Aston Villa.
Law’s tweet was picked up by Leeds fans for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the journalist’s insistence that only foreign managers could win awards.
This peculiar stance might be a bit of pandering to his paper’s audience, but it was a pretty shocking take from a serious journalist.
And with Leeds fans retweeting it left and right today (along with comedy football page Out of Context UK Football), a brand new audience is getting exposed to it.
Surely it would have been easier – and maybe less embarrassing – for Law to congratulate Bielsa and say other managers were deserving of mention too?
Why does a positive have to be twisted to suit another agenda?
Perhaps Law is regretting his tweet today.
In other Leeds United news, ‘I’m not sold’ – Phil Hay slams Leeds summer signing, hints at potential exit