Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
"Action, like a sacrament, is the visible form of an invisible spirit" (bell hooks) || journalist || campaigner || @amnesty || Easily distracte

May 7, 2020, 17 tweets

It’s early in the season & your team are having an awful start.

No decent signings over the summer, injuries stacking up & confusion on & off the pitch.

You have a new manager who keeps saying everything will be just fine. And you want to believe him.👇

👆Things are going from bad to worse

Painful to watch

Leaking goals at the back

No creativity up front

Baffling team selection

Incomprehensible tactics & formation

Fans getting restless

Hopefully we’ll sign some top players in the transfer window.👇

👆The transfer window comes & goes with no signings

Then reports from the dressing room reveal that the players don’t EVEN have the proper kit

Frustration is building with the manager, but he injures himself on the training ground & ends up in hospital.👇

👆Bottom of the league & you think things can’t get any worse.

Then comes news that the team didn’t do any pre-season training.

The manager had cancelled it to go to the Caribbean with his girlfriend.

He comes out of hospital & talks about “success”!👇

👆After another 5-0 drubbing the manager & faces the press

Q. What’s gone wrong?

A. We’re ramping up

Q. Will you apologise?

A. I’m sorry if people feel there have been failings

Q. But you’re bottom of the league?

A. It’s too early to judge. Wait until the end of the season

👆”That’s not what I was saying!”

The pundit that the manager referred to in his press conference to back up his argument that comparisons with other teams can’t be made & talk about performance isn’t valid until the end of the season, slams him on TV.👇

👆Some players & backroom staff aren’t happy.

They’ve known about ‘the strategy’ - drawn-up by the manager’s Machiavellian ‘Director of Football’ - all along.

Hearing about this, the ‘Director’ comes into the dressing room for a motivational team talk.👇 vine.co/v/Ow9Qx9H6Ked

👆Your team is STILL bottom of the league.

The manager comes out & tells the fans again that they’re wrong to judge the team’s performance until the end of the season.

Until then, they should “contain their impatience.” 👇
#PMQs #PMQ #BorisJohnson #COVID

👆#SCANDAL Footage emerges of the manager at the start of the season telling club shareholders:

“If the team do really badly this year, then we’ll be able to sack the chair, sell the club to a Saudi Prince, completely restructure & emerge like Superman.”👇

👆With mounting media criticism, the manager sends backroom staff to post-match press conferences.

Asked why management are now refusing to talk about the fact the team are bottom of the League, the physio says:

"I'm absolutely delighted to discuss it.”👇

👆A v respected football pundit says on #MOTD:👇

“When this manager says optimism, he means he hasn't got any ideas. When he says we need to be positive, he means he has no plan. When he says it's very simple, he means he hasn't read any of the detail.”👇

The pundit (@GNev2) here is @d_spiegel, who the PM referenced in PMQs.

He went on TV, called govt’s use of figures “frankly embarrassing", a "theatre of numbers" & “not a trustworthy communication of statistics” & told them to treat people like grown-ups.

👆Fans are getting angry, threatening to burn their season tickets.

Loyal fanzines are starting to ask difficult questions.

Assistant manager, Gove, speaks: “Our return to the top will be staggered...& so will you be when you find out what we’re up to.”👇

👆A ban on players talking to the media has silenced the ‘lack-of-proper-equipment’ scandal.

But the shocking goal difference won’t go away & isn’t helped when the trainer says it’s “hundred thousand, & thirty four, nine hundred & seventy four thousand."👇

👆Still rooted to the bottom of the table & with multiple scandals mounting, the manager makes a rare public appearance.

“Our defence may be conceding the most goals but they offer a ‘protective ring’ around the keeper. Talk of relegation is negative.”👇

👆News leaks that the team’s Machiavellian ‘Director of Football’ had not only ignored the strict rules against gambling on matches but had bet on the team to lose.

The manager defends him: “it’s not as if he was shagging about” he says. #Dom #DominicCummings #ClassicDom #MOTD👇

👆Stuck in the relegation zone, with scandals piling up on & off the pitch, the manager announces he will sign a “world beating” player on 1 June: Lionel Messi.

Messi doesn’t show up!

The manager says: “I signed him but he won’t start for 3 or 4 months.👇

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