You Can Never, Ever Trust A Headline

So obviously, Carlo Ancelotti was asked about John Terry’s sending off at the weekend (more of that after the jump), and gave a pretty balanced answer. This presents a problem for hyperbolic headline writers who have to sum up a story in a few words. That bastion of quality, the Murdoch Press has been pretty undecided about how to report Carlo’s words.

You see the Times post to the left, which you can read here. Which suggests that Carlo jumped to the defence Terry. Which is fine, and probably what you would expect.

Below you see Sky Sports headline, which tells a different story. The headline suggets Carlo is pretty critical of the defender, saying he “lost it” and was “below par”.

Meanwhile, the Sun (bottom), never knowingly understated claims that Terry was “Out of Control” in Carlo’s words, which paints an entirely different story.

Obviously, if you read all the stories, they go more into detail into what Carlo had to say, but if you were the kind of person who just read the headlines (lets be honest we’ve all been guilty of it at some stage), you’d get a totally different perception based entriely on which of the publications you were reading.

As someone who obviously writes headlines myself, I do try and get something that represents the thing I hope you’re going to read in some way. But it can be difficult to sum up a couple of hundred words in a catchy six words or so.

Anyway, forwards towards the title race, which just got interesting again.

Man United won dramatically in a slightly disappointing Manchester Derby, with an injury time winner from Paul Scholes. Not every game between any two given sides can be a classic, and we’ve kind of been spoiled by Manchester Derbies this year, so we’ll let this one slide. Even though the game wasn’t the most gripping though, it injected a bit of Drama into the Premier League.

City’s loss meant that Spurs knew if they could beat league-leaders Chelsea, they would move back into fourth place, and that they did with the help of a slightly fortunate penalty and an “Out of Control/reckless/lost it” John Terry.

Which means Advantage Spurs in the race to break the Big Four Monopoly, and the title race has heated up again. Chelsea are still top, just a single point clear of Man United.

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Category: Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur