An overblown reaction to a standard announcement

You would be forgiven for thinking that Roy Hodgson announced today that he plans to lobby the government for a tax on having sex judging by the Twitter backlash this afternoon.

Of course he didn't make such announcement it something football related which now, thanks to Twitter, can cause the same kind of constellation which once merely accompanied moral panics in the media back in the 1970s.

Hodgson's crime was to announce that he had called up three replacements to his England squad due to injury and illness in the initial squad.

These players were Raheem Sterling, Jake Livermore and Adam Llallana; admittedly three somewhat left-field selections but still, relatively sensible when one considers that they will not play in the Ukraine game as they wouldn't have an opportunity to train with the rest of the squad and are basically last ditch cover.

Each of them will gain valuable experience being involved in international squads and, in the case of Sterling, ensures his allegiances are kept to England despite the interest of Jamaica in his services, a county he is eligible for.

Despite these perfectly reasonable explanations, Twitter exploded into “why isn't X in the squad?”, “why isn't Y being picked?”, “what does Z have to do be chosen?” and so on.

Perhaps it is just another example of how Twitter is changing perceptions of things but it all seemed very angered and very vehement today regarding a statement that was at best minor.

Still, such is football really.

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