🏆🤩 Lamine Yamal: “For Ferran's goal in the World Cup final… I drew two defenders with me, and Pedro Perro was able to deliver the cross on his own”.
“Drawing 2 or 3 opponents is not enough for me. I know I'm helping the team massively, but people don't realize that”.
“Only those who really understand football are the ones who appreciate these things”, told Movistar.
Players coming out blaming the offside goal....You had over an hour against ten men, played shit, and didn't score. If you're hiding behind a dodgy goal a point was never enough and the performance was dreadful. Own it
🚨🌕 Lamine Yamal: “Kylian Mbappé and I, we are the two BEST in the world…
…but I think I AM the one who deserves to win the Ballon d’Or”, told Movistar. 🔥☝🏽
A Loud 'Whisper'
I do not know Dujuan Richards. I have never met him. I have never sat in a room with him, never kicked a ball with him. I have seen him play footballer live and on TV and he is an amazing football talent, perhaps the best we have had in a long time. So this is not about defending a friend. This is about us, Jamaicans.
A 20 year old Jamaican boy came out of Port Royal and Kingston College, scored over 30 goals in a Manning Cup season, made his senior debut for Jamaica at 17, and became the youngest Gold Cup goalscorer we have ever had. Chelsea signed him. Then a serious knee injury took a big chunk of his development. He got a few minutes at Leicester. Now he is going to AFC Wimbledon on loan to play football. That is the story. Not a fall from grace. A young man still trying to find regular senior minutes.
And yet as soon as the announcement video dropped, the same old soundtrack started. Him shame. Him nuh look happy. Him think him better than him is. Career rocky. Boy look vex. We took a reserved face in a stadium shoot and turned it into a character assassination.
Look in the mirror and ask yourself why. Because this is not new. We did versions of this with Leon Bailey for years. Lift him when he scores, bury him when he has a quiet night or a quiet camp. We do it with young players the minute the path is not straight up. Injury, loan, League One, a face that is not smiling wide enough for Instagram. Suddenly the same people who posted “this is our future” are in the comments trying to humble a youth they have never coached, never paid, and never had to walk that road with.
Ask yourself what you are actually doing. Are you analysing the player, or are you discharging something else? The World Cup miss still sits heavy. High hopes sit heavy. Seeing a Jamaican name at Chelsea and then seeing him at Wimbledon feels like a comedown, so we punish the boy for not arriving on our timetable. That is not standards. That is disappointment looking for a target.
He is 20. Plenty of players who later made it spent years on loan, in League One, in the Championship, getting minutes, getting stronger, getting used to men’s football. A loan is not a funeral. A serious face in a promo is not proof of arrogance. Quiet is not the same thing as ungrateful.
I want him to do well. We should all want him to do well. Not because he is perfect. Because when one of ours finds his feet, it opens the door a little wider for the next KC boy, the next Phoenix All Stars boy, the next youth who thinks Europe is only a rumour. When the tide rises, all the ships sail.
If you have real football criticism, say it like an adult. Minutes, movement, finishing, work rate, that is fair. Mocking a 20 year old’s face because he did not perform joy on command is cheap. It costs you nothing and it can cost him confidence at the exact moment he needs to go and earn a living in a new dressing room.
Leave the youth. Let him work. If he scores, celebrate. If he struggles, let him fight through it without a whole country sitting in the comments waiting to say we told you so. We keep saying we want Jamaican players to succeed. Then act like it.
Like I said before, David Ornstein’s posts are mostly about the UK and a few of Europe’s biggest clubs.
The hate he’s getting is becoming irritating and unnecessary. I don’t understand why a professional journalist would join faceless accounts in doing this.
Fabrizio’s “HERE WE GO” is one of the biggest phrases football fans love hearing whenever a player is signing for our club.
If you don’t like how Fabrizio recycles his updates to keep people engaged, then unfollow him or block him and focus only on David.
I genuinely don't understand the Fabrizio Romano hate.
Different journalists have different ways of reporting news, and at such a young age (33), he has worked so hard to become arguably the biggest football reporter in the world.
I have massive and equal respect for him and David Ornstein, and it doesn't make sense pulling one down while trying to appreciate the other.
Asides his transfer news, I have come to enjoy his general football updates.
The thing is, a lot of people have absolutely no idea the level of hard work required to do what Fabrizio is doing.
If you don't like how he works, simply unfollow him instead of rubbishing his sleepless nights of hard work.
I’ve taken my time to observe many journalists in the transfer market over the years. Competition is part of the job, and everyone works with their own sources. What has always stood out to me about Fabrizio Romano is that when another journalist breaks a story first, he often gives them full credit, tags them, and acknowledges their work. That’s professionalism.
It’s perfectly normal for journalists to have different information. What’s not healthy is turning professional disagreement into public attempts to discredit a colleague. Credibility is built over years through consistency, accuracy, and hard work, and Fabrizio has earned that credibility.
No journalist is infallible, but professional respect should always come before rivalry.