Match report in The Sun today

[SNOOBS]

Aston Villa 3 Brighton 2 | The Sun |Sport|Football
Its a terrible match report as it hardly mentions the game at all but I don't think its that unfair

BBC start their report with

Aston Villa outclassed hard-working League One side Brighton to ease into the fifth round of the FA Cup.

3-2 is never an ease is it? We had some good spells in the game but I always felt they could go up and score if they needed too. Against quicker and stronger players it was always going to be difficult.

 

[withdeanwombat]

Generally speaking,we were bloody good.They were bloody better.

Twas a shame about Bennet's cross which could have given us a goal;worse when they went up the other end and scored.

All in all,though,a BLOOMIN' GOOD day out.Makes you want more like it (please!)

 

[Acker79]

Sounded to me (listening on the radio) as if we matched Villa, but that Villa were a gear or two down what they are capable of, and they only stepped it up for their goals, for which they seemed to glide through us.

 

[WhingForPresident]

That Sun article is a f***ing joke of epic proportions. 3 sentences or so about the actual match in a match report?!
& None of our players rated over six?!

Oh it's a bird who clearly wasn't at the game; that explains it.

 

[theonesmith]

Thing is, Villa play a very annoying counter attack game. If the had dominated the midfield and possession and truly beaten us I would feel less aggrieved, but because they gave us the ball and let us come onto them so they could break it feels like we had more of a chance.

Am I the only one who thinks that the 5/6/7th best team in the country should be above counter attacking? I suppose they do it very well.. But I'd hate to consistently watch it at home.. And if they get into the Champion's League and play that way against top clubs, they'll get slaughtered.

 

[Acker79]

Am I the only one who thinks that the 5/6/7th best team in the country should be above counter attacking?

There is something wrong with it, but I guess if it makes you a top 6 club you won't complain for a while. (After a few years of top six without progress you may feel you need something more).

And if they get into the Champion's League and play that way against top clubs, they'll get slaughtered.

So, their victories against Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool weren't against top teams the likes of which they'd meet in the champions league (well, maybe not liverpool)?

 

[sten_super]

That Sun article is a f***ing joke of epic proportions. 3 sentences or so about the actual match in a match report?!
& None of our players rated over six?!

Oh it's a bird who clearly wasn't at the game; that explains it.

It's blatently obvious that whoever has written that hasn't so much as looked at the PA report. It simply notes the scorers and the times of the goals, there's not even a mention of assists! It's horrific that they can get away with printing stuff like that...

 

[Mtoto]

It reads to me as though her football editor was very specific in asking for something other than a straight match report. Not surprising, really - that would have been the instruction for all the writers producing pieces for Monday, because anyone who wants a blow-by-blow account will have got it on Sunday or, more likely these days, from the web on Saturday.

If she'd filed a straight report, it would have been spiked, or cut down to a couple of paragraphs, and the editor would have marked her down as being unable to follow simple instructions.

Instead, she got 17 pars into the country's best-selling paper, about a match 36 hours earlier in which a hot favourite from the top six in the Premiership duly knocked out a side from Div One. A very good weekend's work, in fact.

 

[sten_super]

It reads to me as though her football editor was very specific in asking for something other than a straight match report. Not surprising, really - that would have been the instruction for all the writers producing pieces for Monday, because anyone who wants a blow-by-blow account will have got it on Sunday or, more likely these days, from the web on Saturday.

If she'd filed a straight report, it would have been spiked, or cut down to a couple of paragraphs, and the editor would have marked her down as being unable to follow simple instructions.

Instead, she got 17 pars into the country's best-selling paper, about a match 36 hours earlier in which a hot favourite from the top six in the Premiership duly knocked out a side from Div One. A very good weekend's work, in fact.

If that's the case (and I've no reason to doubt it is), why is the article titled 'ASTON VILLA 3 BRIGHTON 2"? Surely 'Delph not easily scared' or some much more pun-tastic headline would have made more sense, with a couple of lines like;

"Delph showed his hunger by getting forward well in Aston Villa's 3-2 win over Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday. After being denied by a fine reflex save by Michel Kuipers in the 60th minute, the former dutch chef couldn't prevent Delph from scoring after a fine run into the box by the fearless 19 year old on 72 minutes."

Basically why pretend the article is about the game when it's not, it's an article about Fabien Delph?

 

[Mtoto]

I'd guess one reason is that Aston Villa in bold type will help to catch the eye of Villa fans (and lets face it, the Sun must have more readers in Birmingham than they do in Brighton). But I can see what you mean.

It's a convention as much as anything. The way reports are done on Mondays has moved on, but they put the scoreline at the top because it's always been like that, and also establishes that the reporter was actually there (for all that some on this thread don't believe it).

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Well, if you get a response I am predicting it will be exactly the same as the last time there was one of these reactions (Amy Lawrence at West Ham) which is that she will say she included Brighton quotes in the report, the space got cut, and they all got subbed out. The sub should have kept a couple of Brighton quotes in at the end.

You can't criticise the choice of angle from a national perspective. Villa won the game. Delph played very well and doesn't get a lot of pitch-time, so it's more interesting to hear a bit about him than Milner or Young yet again.

If Forster's late goal had been an equaliser, things would of course have been very different in today's papers...

Tooting Gull is spot on, as is Mtoto.

FYI, Janine Self of The Sun was indeed at the game, and you have to say that the haunted hotel line was classic Sun territory. In fact, a Times source has revealed to me that the Villa-Albion report was due to be 400 words until the talented match reporter mentioned the haunting line to his football editor, at which point it was bumped up to a 650-word page lead. That's the way of the world.

Unfortunately, all the best Albion quotes were given by Martin O'Neill in the main post-match press conference and therefore used by the Sunday papers. Gus's line about the games against the Leeds under-16s had to be used, and when you have the man of the match, who hasn't spoken much before, telling you he's afraid of ghosts, there's not much of a decision to be made.

 

[Gerbil]

That Sun article is a f***ing joke of epic proportions. 3 sentences or so about the actual match in a match report?!
& None of our players rated over six?!

Oh it's a bird who clearly wasn't at the game; that explains it.

I think that says it all.