The Warm-Up: Will Manchester City go top? Blame young people for everything

Updated 06/02/2019 at 08:17 GMT

Plus: John Barnes went there, and Newport County brace themselves for a nine-nilling.

Sergio Aguero of Manchester City celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Arsenal

Image credit: Getty Images

WEDNESDAY’S BIG STORIES

Manchester City can go top tonight

Will Everton try tonight? And given their recent results, how will we be able to tell?

Premier League

Maguire ruled out for three weeks, doubt for FA Cup final

Yesterday at 19:56

It must be a sad existence, wanting your team to lose just to further the ‘higher cause’ of preventing your rivals from winning.

And this with 13 games still to play. As the title race kicks into top gear, it’s worth remembering there are still three months left in the season. Whether Liverpool’s recent blip is down to jitters, they have more than enough time to rediscover their nerve, then lose it a couple more times.

Of course, once the match starts, Everton fans will support their team as normal. And if they do lose, it won’t be because of any lack of application.

Everton have 33 points from 25 games, have lost more games than they have won and aren’t even guaranteed to stay up yet. For the umpteenth time in as many seasons their manager’s position is precarious. If they lose, it will be because they aren’t very good.

Let’s try to understand the feeble-brained young

It’s a quiet morning, so let’s dig into a really bad take.

The article here is about the threat posed to the Premier League by young people... well, wanting to do other things than watch live football.

The thrust of the piece is that they have more competing interests (true) and lack the attention span to watch a full match (absolute rot).

Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore articulates the argument thus:

Ninety minutes is a long time for a millennial male to sit down on a couch.

Yes, because millennial males are famed for their couch-hating ways.

The piece adds:

Social-first publisher Media Chain recently released research findings that 64 per cent of young fans preferred social media sports coverage than TV broadcasts

So the cost of annual TV subscriptions to all major competitions just went over £1,000 – and people would rather follow games on free platforms? Get out.

Almost half watched their sports content on websites such as YouTube rather than traditional channels.

People watching videos on websites? It’ll never catch on. Particularly when the best place to find official Champions League highlights is... YouTube?

Gary Lineker and Co at Match of the Day should be worried, too, that 57 per cent preferred to watch goals immediately online rather than wait for a longer show later on.

Seriously? You’re saying 43 per cent would rather wait six hours than watch goals straight away? (And it’s a false dichotomy – lots of people watch both.)

Ninja, the 27-year-old American with dyed hair (it’s currently pink) is perhaps the most famous of them and regularly has around 70,000 concurrent viewers to his streams, which last 10-plus hours with his 12m followers dipping in and out.

Ah, 10-hour Twitch streams! It’s almost like young people do have long attention spans – just not when people would necessarily like them to.

Millennials would rather spend an afternoon playing FIFA, watching Netflix or – hey! Sometimes kids like to go outside! - than enduring Wolves v Burnley. True. That makes them rational and discerning people. And the problem isn’t the format. It’s the product. Serve them up Wolves v Burnley in any form – 10 minutes each way, six-a-side, multiball, sharks in the centre circle – and it will still struggle to pull in the viewers.

People (not just young ones) have many more ways to spend their free time. So, yes, football faces more competition than when Elton Welsby broadcast to a captive audience in the 80s.

While Premier League clubs wring their hands, the league persists with a laughably outdated digital video offering. Earlier this season, the Warm-Up wanted to show its kids Arsenal’s incredible ‘Ozil’ goal against Leicester (finished by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang). There was no official clip, so it had to find a dodgy version. Until the Premier League gets better at showcasing amazing moments that will win it new fans, its clubs has no business blaming rival pastimes or its audience’s attention span for its woes.

IN OTHER NEWS

Welcome to 2019, where John Barnes delivers spicy takes on why Liam Neeson is a better person than Winston Churchill.

HEROES AND ZEROES

Heroes: Newport County

Does beating Middlesbrough count as a giant-killing? Regardless, hats off to Newport who now face Manchester City in the fifth round. Gulp.

Zeroes: Jose Mourinho

Pay your tax, people.

RETRO CORNER

Sixty-one years ago today, 23 people died when a plane carrying the Manchester United team, along with fans and journalists, crashed while attempting to take off from Munich airport.