As Twitter spats go, the one between Stan Collymore and Joey Barton on Wednesday/Thursday got particularly down and dirty. It started when Collymore took to posting late-night Periscope updates following hordes of English fans marching around Lille. The internet was not kind to the Talksport host, lampooning him for pretending to be a journalist. Collymore didn't take it well, not unreasonably posting a pic of his 2014 Sports Journalists Association Award and telling the haters to kindly eff-off.
Barton piled in, predictably enough.
“Can’t wait for new series of @StanCollymore on gangs!”
“Will someone please get @StanCollymore off the streets of Lille before French Police batter him...”
“Is it just me thinking WTF is he doing? Get in the hotel FFS. You’re Sports broadcaster not War Correspondent! #lostithim”
Collymore’s retort – “Don’t worry about me Joseph, surely you have some Socrates to be reading?” – gave things a bit of juice to carry it into Thursday. Whereupon things descended pretty quickly. Barton posted a photoshopped pic of Collymore as an embedded war reporter, Collymore came back with an old pic of Barton doing litter-picking community service: “Good to see you joining in with the cleaning effort in Lille. Very benevolent of you.”
All very merry and japey until – again, predictably enough – Barton replied with a picture of Ulrika Jonsson after Collymore attacked her in a Paris bar during the 1998 World Cup. “How’s the weather In Lille? Still Sunny?”
Ugh.
Hodgson the England trend-setter
Plenty of firsts for England against Wales the other day. By sticking on Daniel Sturridge and Jamie Vardy for the second half, Roy Hodgson became the first England manager ever to make a double substitution at half-time in a major tournament. In a not unrelated development, the goals from Vardy and Sturridge made it the first time England had ever come from behind at the break win a game at a major tournament.
Numbers
13: The number of goals scored before half-time.
12: The number of goals scored after 87 minutes
Word of mouth
“I think we should be grateful for him for having given Iceland that extra dimension of publicity.” – Iceland’s president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson. Small mentality.
Uefa give Wes the Trap treatment
Speaking of Ronaldo, he somehow made it into Uefa’s team of the week after the first round of matches. Despite taking 10 shots and not scoring (coming second only to himself for all-time the record of shots take in a Euros match without scoring) Ronaldo made it into the front three alongside Gareth Bale and Dmitri Payet.
As ever with these makey-uppy jobs, it looks very much like you have to be from either a big country or a big club to make it in. Sorry, Wes. Although almost as hilarious as Ronaldo’s inclusion is the lack of a single Italian goalkeeper or defender after one of the all-time great tournament defensive displays against Belgium.
Uefa Team Of The Week (Matchday One): Neuer (Germany); Alba (Spain), Pique (Spain), Mustafi (Germany) Juanfran (Spain); Dier (England), Kroos (Germany), Kanté (France); Payet (France), Bale (Wales), Ronaldo (Portugal).
Tweet of the Day
Jonathan Wilson ?@jonawils: "Sweden have still only got two efforts on target all tournament. Both from Ciaran Clark, whose absence has been sorely felt today."
