The Mirror's deputy editor Des Kelly has poured scorn on the scurrilous
suggestion in today's Times media diary that the tabloid's sports pages led
with a story about Arsenal on Wednesday just to please Gunners fan Piers
Morgan.
The Times questioned the Mirror's decision to splash with "Arsenal's
predictable defeat of lowly West Bromwich Albion" rather than Manchester
United's 5-0 victory over some Hungarian team or other.
Kelly has drawn up a detailed list of where the "bespectacled saddos" on the Times media diary have gone wrong:
"a) We produce different editions of the paper for different parts of the country. United was the back page splash across all the country except our London edition. So, that Times Media pillock needs to get out beyond the M25 sometime.
b) United SHOULD be beating unknown Hungarians 5-0.
c) Piers Morgan's off - so I'm editing. And, as you know, I am a United fan who HATES Arsenal. So the Sports Editor's certainly not bloody well sucking up to me. He's just doing a good job.
d) This kind of understanding from The Times of what football fans want from their sports pages explains why the Times' chief sports writer, Oliver Holt, quit the Murdoch empire to join The Mirror a few months ago."