simon-mullcock

This week’s prize goes to the Mirror’s Simon Mullcock for an unnecessary and, frankly, ill-timed attack on Dimitar Berbatov. Just as the Bulgarian has hit top form for Manchester United over the past month, Mullcock’s lazy cliché-ridden diatribe serves only one purpose – to drive traffic to the Mirror’s turgid website.

Unassuming Berbatov, known as shy, intelligent and of fragile confidence to those with even a modicum of football knowledge, is essentially accused of being an “arrogant flop” by Mullcock. The Mirror hack – for the term journalist is an insult to the profession – facsimiles any number of tabloid ‘opinion’ pieces on the striker from his past two years in Manchester.

Quoting an unnamed source from, you guessed it, an unnamed Bulgaria media outlet, Mullcock claims that the prevailing opinion on Berbatov extends from England to Bulgaria, where the striker is the country’s all-time record goalscorer.

Shame then that Mullock is unable to recognise the irony in quoting Berbatov’s official website, which under the banner “haters” ridicules a media onslaught, derived as it is from jealousy of the Bulgarian’s success.

But let us leave the final word to the Manchester United forward, who – paraphrasing Mark Twain – warns readers to “beware people who downplay your achievements.”

Small people always do, says Twain.