MERSEY MAYHEM
As assorted boots, fists, water bottles, yellow and red cards, a policeman’s helmet and various expletives not suitable for a family football email emerged from a cartoon cloud of dust soundtracked by a baying mob in one corner of Goodison Park moments after the final whistle of Wednesday’s Merseyside derby, TNT Sports co-commentator Rio Ferdinand sounded very morose. “Nobody wants to see this,” he mournfully intoned, providing a level of insight into the human condition and fan culture that really ought to preclude him from ever being handsomely paid to enhance the TV viewer’s experience of what’s happening on a football pitch again. Needless to say, Football Daily is of the opinion that Rio enjoys a heated post-match stramash as much as the next football fan and was probably only saying what he thought his bosses would want to hear. The same bosses, presumably, who quickly posted an almost four-minute long clip of these “scenes nobody wants to see” on their YouTube channel, because they knew perfectly well that everybody who hadn’t been watching them unfold in real time would be desperate to watch them later.