'Exactly what happened'

Yesterday, Daily Mail Sport tweeted a link to an article claiming Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini had fallen asleep during his team's recent game against Tottenham Hotspur:

MailOnline's Martin Domin wrote:

Manchester City have yet to hit the heights of their Premier League winning campaign last season but they haven't been so bad to send anyone to sleep.

But that is exactly what happened at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday when City boss Roberto Mancini appeared to nod off during injury time in the first half.

And it's not as if his side were winning at the time - Tottenham were in front thanks to a Steven Caulker header.

Thankfully for City's title hopes, Mancini woke from his slumber in time to deliver a half-time team talk that inspired his men to victory after goals from Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko.

But if you try to click on that link now, you get a 'The page you have requested does not exist or is no longer available' error page.

Why?

Probably because Mancini didn't actually fall asleep (from Kiimi):

As the Guardian's 'as it happened' report of the match explained:

45 min+1: Aguero takes the ball on his chest masterfully in the box. He finds Silva, who works a slide ball through to Zabaleta. His shot is saved though. The cameras cut to Mancini in his dug out. He looks momentarily interested, sees Zabaleta's shot, then rolls his eyes, slumps in his chair and goes back to talking to himself.

(Hat-tip to Ste)

'Another example of Mail Online not bothering to change a word when cutting and pasting stories'

Yesterday, Daily Mirror football writer Simon Bird tweeted:

His article published at 22:30 on 15 June stated:

Everton are trailing Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic - and could land him for a bargain £7million.

The Croatia hitman, one of the stars of Euro 2012 so far with his three goals in two games, could be paired with team mate Nikica Jelavic at Goodison Park.

Mandzukic is on the radar of other Premier League sides too, because he is available at a “fair” price from his German club, Wolfsburg.

The 26-year-old was signed by Wolfsburg's then-coach Steve McClaren - a friend of Everton boss David Moyes' No2 Steve Round - for £6million and has two years left on his contract.

Everton were also interested in him two years ago, when he played for Dinamo Zagreb, and have had Mandzukic watched during the Euros.

His partnership with Jelavic at international level is thriving and could be rekindled on Merseyside.

The article on the Mail's website - which appears under the byline of 'SportsMail Reporter' - was published at 17:46 on 16 June and is a word-for-word copy:

In April, Mail Online publisher Martin Clarke told The New Yorker that his site 'adhered to fair-use rules'.

(Hat-tip to nutts2020)

UPDATE: By 6:25pm on Monday, the Mail's article had been removed.

Star: 'Only says this in the headline, the story itself does not suggest this is your quote'

Today's Daily Star says:

Soon after this front page emerged last night, Gary Lineker took to Twitter to deny he had ever said the England team were 'losers':

'Only says this in the headline, the story itself does not suggest this is your quote'. 

Like when they said Simon Cowell was 'dead' - it only said this in the front page headline, the story itself didn't actually say he was dead.

And when they ran the front page headline 'Cowell: My feud with Cheryl' which included the actual quote 'we haven't had a fight'.

And when they said a celebrity couple had 'kissed and made up' in a front page headline, when the story itself said no such thing.

And so on...

This morning, Lineker added:

When she appeared before the Leveson Inquiry, Star editor Dawn Neesom refused to admit the 'Cowell is dead' headline was complete rubbish, saying instead:

you only have a finite amount of words you can fit on a page 1 as a headline...it was designed to be an eye-catching headline.

(Hat-tip to Martin Baker)

Mail removes story about Hibs after club denial

On Monday, the MailOnline deleted their article about Carol Vorderman hiring a superyacht, having originally believed a joke she made on Twitter was true.

Yesterday, another story vanished from the Mail's website. This time, it was a football story by John McGarry which ran under the headline: Leigh Griffiths headbutts Hibs manager Pat Fenlon.

The story was soon picked up by the Telegraph (also deleted) and the Metro (not yet deleted).

The Mail said:

Leigh Griffiths has played his last game for Hibs after head-butting manager Pat Fenlon and then punching assistant Billy Brown in an astonishing training ground bust-up on Tuesday.

The on-loan Wolves star is understood to have taken exception to comments made by the Easter Road manager at the Ormiston complex.

It seems the 21-year-old striker, who is on loan until the end of the season, was disgusted at being singled out for criticism over recent displays and simply blew a fuse. The flashpoint came at the end of a stormy training session in the aftermath of Sunday’s derby defeat to Hearts.

Sportsmail understands several Hibs players had to be pulled apart earlier in the day before being addressed by Fenlon.

When Fenlon’s attention turned to Griffiths, the player snapped and butted the Irishman, knocking his glasses off.

After the ugly altercation, the Scotland Under-21 star marched off in the direction of the changing rooms hotly pursued by Fenlon’s assistant Brown. Griffiths is then said to have landed a punch on Brown which knocked over the former Hearts No 2.

He then raced to the changing room where he emptied his locker and sped off.

Gripping stuff. Except:

Hibernian has moved to address erroneous press reports regarding an alleged incident involving Leigh Griffiths at the Hibernian Training Centre yesterday.

Contrary to a report in today's Daily Mail, Leigh Griffiths did not head butt Manager Pat Fenlon nor punch Assistant Manager Billy Brown. The striker will be in the squad for Saturday's crucial SPL fixture versus Dundee United.

Pat Fenlon said, "Yesterday was typical training ground stuff, and I'm surprised at the rubbish in the press today. As is usual for high tempo training sessions, involving committed players and coaching staff, robust views and opinions are shared, and yesterday's session was no different.

"Leigh is a quality striker, and a lively personality, and will remain a key part of my team for the rest of the season. There's nothing at all in the story. We just want to focus on winning games and getting up the table."

Hibernian will not tolerate, nor be distracted by, unverified and irresponsible 'reporting' in the media. 

Hibs club captain James McPake told his Twitter followers:

(Hat-tip to Anonymous)