Brighton fallout: Manchester United takeover evolution and Erik ten Hag's posh dinner

Has the loss to Brighton accelerated Manchester United's takeover plans? Obviously not, but there are clicks to click. Meanwhile, Erik ten Hag dines and Thomas Tuchel finally matches his Chelsea predecessor in a key metric. It's a big Monday media watch.

Coulda woulda shouldaSensational effort by the Express to find a different angle to the latest Manchester United Unpleasantness. While other smaller outlets focused on Erik ten Hag or McFred or Ronaldo or Paul Scholes swearing, the Express singled out the owners as a legitimate target of opprobrium.

So far so good. But where to go with it? For the Express, it's just a case of making up a story about a possible takeover based on precisely no new information whatsoever.

“Man Utd could be saved from Glazers by Sir Jim Ratcliffe after dismal loss to Brighton,” the headline reads.

Seasoned Mediawatchers will be ahead of us and already prepared for the likelihood that "could" do more work here than Emily Campbell. Let's find out.

“The Glazers, owners of Manchester United, are in the spotlight more than ever after Sunday's 2-1 loss to Brighton. The Red Devils are a poorly run club at the top after nine years in the wasteland since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013. And Sir Jim Ratcliffe is one of the only people on the planet with the wealth to oust them. '

All of this is correct, but does nothing to dispel the idea that two and two are about to be added together to make three billion pounds.

“In May, the Independent claimed that industry insiders believed Ratcliffe was unfazed by his failure to buy Chelsea.

‘The 69-year-old billionaire had been interested in buying the Blues from Roman Abramovich, before missing out on Todd Boehly.

"And it was stated that there was a sense that the approach was 'really to broadcast to the Glazers' that Ratcliffe is willing and ready to buy United."

Hmm. Everyone starting to feel a little fragile, that. Surely something has happened since May beyond an admittedly disappointing opening day loss to Brighton to merit this brand new story? Surely there have been developments?

“Since then, obviously, there has been no development.”

Ah! Good. Nevertheless,

At least, as the Express itself noted, there are only a finite number of billionaires who can be linked to Manchester United based on zero new information after each subsequent defeat. Elon Musk next, please.

LATEST: Man eats dinnerTop of the Sun's football homepage at 11.38am on this bright Monday morning is the fact that Erik ten Hag ate again last night despite his Manchester side losing United v Brighton.

“Erik ten Hag had a nightmare with a German; so he drowned his sorrows with an Italian," reads the intro to a story in which, you'll be pleased to know, the Italian restaurant Piccolino is described as both "lavish" and a "fancy restaurant." p>

Our biggest gripe, however, concerns the title. We generally have a grudging respect for The Sun's wordplay abilities, even though what's contained below contains no viable content, but "TAGLIA-TEN-E" has divided opinion here between those who think (wrongly) that it's so bad it's good and the rest of us who rightly believe it's so bad it's bad. At least try to find out if it had a starter…

Winners and LosersA brilliant new concept from the Mirror, which came up with the idea of ​​listing the 'winners' and 'losers' of the weekend with a bit of explanatory text for each entry. We think it could spread.

But if we could give a rating? If we were to make a feature along these lines, we might consider doing it for all the weekend action rather than just focusing on a high-profile game. Because the way you did it just means your winners are "winning manager", "man who scored two goals for the winning team" and "famous player who wants to quit the losing team" while your losers are "losing manager" and "obviously shitty players on the losing team".

It's almost as if, in a way, Manchester United's winners against Brighton were Brighton and Manchester United's losers against Brighton were Manchester United.

Trust the process It seems a long time ago now, but Arsenal's 2-0 win at Crystal Palace on Friday night...