An odd little Mediawatch today, if we’re honest. There’s a bit of The Sun being odd about Estevao. The Telegraph being odd about Harry Kane. The Daily Mail being odd about James McClean.

And everyone being odd about random cup draws.

Bridge out
Just an odd piece, this, from The Sun, and odder still for carrying the byline of Chief Sports Reporter Martin Lipton alongside freelancer Henry Tomlinson.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS: Chelsea star Estevao seems almost certain to ask for transfer after biggest snub from Xabi Alonso yet at Liverpool

The odd thing about it is that… there’s just nothing here. It’s neither news nor opinion. It’s literally just adding two and two together without even concocting a report or source to confirm the answer is five.

The intro is very confident.

ESTEVAO is almost certain to ask for a Stamford Bridge exit after his latest snub from Xabi Alonso.

But there’s absolutely no meat added to those bones beyond looking at his lack of minutes this season and concluding he probably isn’t all that happy about it.

It seems that it will be only a matter of time until Estevao seeks pastures new unless his fortunes change with the Blues.

Alonso could have done with some of the Brazilian’s magic as his team failed to win.

Estevao could be nursing an injury or not performing in training but it could be as simple as not being favoured by the boss.

Call Mediawatch old-fashioned, but didn’t journalism used to have the quaint idea that journalists might try and find out that kind of information using their sources and contacts or even just by asking the manager a direct question in a press conference? Rather than just shrugging their shoulders and going ‘Maybe, dunno’ and writing it anyway?

As, you like it
Regular readers will know Mediawatch’s enduring fondness for the sheer scale of the mischief that can be wrought upon a headline via the simple application of a well-placed ‘as’. Such an innocent little word, and such absolute nonsense it can create.

Just look at this absolute beauty from the Daily Star.

Man Utd news: Bruno Fernandes told he’s ‘finished’ as star out of team until January

You can see why they wanted to reheat Paul Scholes’ three-day-old quotes about banishing Bruno to Saudi Arabia; when Benjamin Sesko’s injury being more serious than first feared offers this kind of headline mischief-making opportunity, you’d be a fool not to take it.

Tattoo and whose army?
A reminder that even the nicest stories can be turned into yet more dispiriting culture-war slop if you really put your mind to it.

Just as our hearts became adequately and sincerely warmed by Harry Kane's Ballon d'Or, it's over to the beleaguered Telegraph… pic.twitter.com/QEjW3ke7GE

— Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) October 29, 2026

It’s all under a headline that, in typical Telegraph style, yearns for the good old days.

Kane and Root embody decency and authenticity – British values that are dying out

We’re really not qwhite sure what you’re trying to say here.

It’s just immensely irritating dog-whistle sh*te. Mediawatch bows to no man in its admiration for both Harry Kane and Joe Root. They both absolutely are wonderful world-class athletes and fine role models, among the very best this country has ever produced in any sport. And it really is entirely possible to just say that without being f*cking weird about it.

Draw bias
Always the same, and always infuriating. Every single time there’s a cup draw, the same story results. We’ve picked on the Express here, but it could’ve been anyone.

Fans convinced Carabao Cup draw is ‘rigged’ as Man City get League One team

It’s just so boring. You know what happens in every random cup draw? Some teams get easier draws than others. That is quite literally the nature of the random draw.

The fact a few randoms on Formerly Twitter have got upset about it means quite literally nothing and really, really, really shouldn’t be enough for theoretically serious news sources (yeah, yeah, we know) to produce a story they know to be bollocks but in which they can hide behind those randoms rather than say it out loud themselves.

Also, if we were for some reason going to rig the draw in favour of a pariah team that’s just been found guilty of industrial-scale cheating, we would probably have started that operation before pairing them with a very good Brighton side in the previous round. But that’s just us.

Weirdest ALL-CAPS of the day
Meanwhile, instead of some randoms off the X-formerly-Twitter nonsense generator, The Sun opt for a different approach to their nudge-nudge, wink-winkery.

Carabao Cup quarter-final draw LIVE: Man City GIFTED favourable home tie, Iraola to face former side in last-eight

We’re genuinely not sure what they’re even trying to imply with that. More cheating? The ol’ warm balls theory? Or should that be WARM balls? Or warm BALLS? It’s definitely some load of old balls anyway.

Headline second mention of the day
Could only ever be the Daily Mail of course. Nobody else has headlines long enough to even require elegant variation. But it’s not just for its cram-the-whole-story-in approach that this headline is so tremendously Daily Mail, whose general editorial slant appears – as with the Telegraph – to be popping up ever more frequently within the previously often-quite-reasonable sports pages.

Derry City TEAR UP James McClean’s contract: Poppy protest footballer’s nightmare return to childhood club comes to an end amid claims he was ‘permanently incapacitated’

We wonder if there’s any way they could have squeezed a derogatory reference to Meghan Markle in there as well for full marks, but that’s nitpicking really.

It’s also, by the way, the fifth piece about McClean on the Daily Mail website this month. That’s quite in-depth coverage for an Ireland Premier Division player. ‘Poppy protest footballer’ appears in every one of those headlines. Mediawatch fears for November, it really does.