Graeme Souness’s careless comments meant his point got lost in translation

‘I think what he was trying to express, poorly, was his enthusiasm for letting the game flow, a lust for extreme physicality, and his own obvious nostalgia for the world of his youth.’ Illustration: Lo Cole/The Guardian

It is one of the most reliable features of modern life that any piece of news, no matter how banal, must inspire an instant and violently polarised public response.

In its simplest form this boils down to the standard opposition of snowflakes and gammons. These are familiar, comforting categories by now. The snowflake is cloyingly pure, but also fragile, wet, melty and cold. The gammon is empurpled, stubborn, salty and thick with gristle. Both come with their own discrete areas of concern, left versus right, old versus young, furiously angry versus angrily furious.