When Jamie Carragher appeared as a pundit on Sky Sports Super Sunday, Football Daily was surprised he didn’t have a solicitor sitting alongside him, occasionally jotting notes on a pad or leaning over to give whispered instructions and answer “no comment” to any leading questions about Trey Nyoni starting ahead of Ryan Gravenberch. On Friday night, the former Liverpool defender was subjected to a threat of legal action from Aston Villa, who took such grave exception to some “unacceptable insults” he had rained down on them from his podcast pulpit, that they were ready to call in the heavy legal artillery and stop him from preventing their “ascension in English and European football”. Taking a leaf out of the tried-and-much-ridiculed Nottingham Forest playbook, Villa chair Nassef Sawiris appears to have eschewed contacting Carragher through the usual formal channels and instead cajoled some unfortunate junior comms staffer to make the portentous announcement on their Social Media Disgraces.
Villa’s threat came on the back of some fairly obvious observations he made on Stick To Football, when he pointed out that English football has a food-chain and despite their commendable successes in recent seasons, Villa aren’t quite as high up it as the richest man in Egypt might like to think. During a debate about the likelihood of Unai Emery leaving Villa to take over the soon-to-be-vacant head coach’s job at Manchester United, Carragher had said the Spaniard would “want that opportunity to manage a giant again”, before pointing out “there is a chain in football, whether you like it or not”. As controversial footballing takes go, it was right up there with pointing out that bears defecate in the woods and Pope Leo XIV wears a funny hat.
But it is usually self-professed terminally-online superfans, not multi-billionaire club chairs whose hands instinctively reach for their pearls. While it remains unclear what exactly it was he said that was actionable, Carragher subsequently apologised for his comments. I can assure Villa fans it was tongue in cheek but I can understand it’s not come across that way, so apologies.
Good luck today UTV!” It has now been reported that Villa have dropped their threat of unspecified legal action against Carragher but it remains to be seen if Fulham can look forward to hearing from their lawyers after helping to prevent their ascension up the league after [Snip! Snippety-snip! – Football Daily Lawyers] at Villa Park on Saturday night. Join Daniel Harris from 8pm GMT for hot minute-by-minute updates from Newcastle 2-1 Everton in the Premier League, for which Jack Grealish will again be absent.
Sport in Focus picks out the best images from the past week and delivers them, along with the stories behind them, to your inbox every Friday. It’s great and well worth your time subscribing to. So maybe it looks like I’m an ‘ice king’, so to say.
Normally in Holland we say ‘ice queen’, but therefore an ice king because I’m not a woman. But for me, it is really important that this happens and it comes close to my heart. Guys who inspire people on the pitch with something people off the pitch and in the stands love to see.
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