The things that hacks will make up to sell players, eh? I mean, come on, there ‘s no way that Bobby would say such mean and spiteful things about that nice Sir Alex, Fat Sam and S**** B****. Would he? Bullies? Ganging up? FA in their pocket? Poor old Rafa, he must be in a bad way if he ‘s having to get people to make that sort of stuff up to cover his back.

Well that ‘s one way of looking at it. The other is that Latics ‘ manager just got his fingers burnt on the Premier League printing press. Everyone wants an angle, everyone wants a story and they ‘re willing to take any seed available to try and grow one. It ‘s rare that every aspect of a story will be made up, but say the wrong thing to the wrong person and you shouldn ‘t be surprised to see your comments exaggerated and misconstrued all the way to the bank.

Of course Bobby said some of what ‘s been reported and, let ‘s face it, there ‘s nothing new in what was said. The English media have celebrated Sir Alex ‘s standing as the master of psychological warfare for years. They ‘ve examined his effect on Kevin, on Arsene, on Jose and now on Rafa. We ‘ve all had a good laugh but it ‘s a fine line between psyching an opponent out and bullying him into submission.

Mourinho might have give as good as he got and Wenger played his own game, but it ‘s clear to anyone that saw the car crash snapping points of Keegan and Benitez that they were victims, not combatants. Still it makes for good soap opera so let ‘s not be concerned, eh?

As for Bobby? Guillem Balague ‘s piece for the Mirror pretty much sums the situation up. Of course Bobby said some of those things, or at least something near enough to be misconstrued into them. We ‘ve seen plenty of situations where players go outside the reaches of the club and get drawn into all sorts of daft conversations, Paul Scharner is an expert on it, but our managers have, in the main, been more canny than that.

Bobby might be Spanish, but that doesn ‘t mean that he knows the Spanish media, and he ‘s been caught out thinking that he can say things to them that wouldn ‘t get reported in England, either because they were off the record, or because there just wasn ‘t any real story in them. But as Big Sam says, he won ‘t make the same mistake again!

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