SLINGING THE BULL: ENRIQUE PRACTICES HIS BACKPEDAL

The Newcastle United Football Club has wired up a ventriloquist's dummy of Jose Enrique to say his recent comments about wanting a shorter commute to the Champions League were taken "out of context."

Hmmm. In exactly what context are we supposed to take "I'm OK at Newcastle but I aspire to more"?

"Newcastle is a great club with some excellent players and I hope we can kick on and continue to progress," continued the disembodied voice of NUFC through the Enrique-like vessel, clarifying Enrique's previous comment that "we have to be honest. Newcastle aren't performing well." It's easy to see how that could've been misunderstood.

As a public relations move, this is about as graceful and convincing as a guided tour of Pyongyang. Better would've been "I didn't mean it" or "I was caught in a bad mood" or "I screwed up." Any of which would've been understandable, reassuring, and maybe, true.

Comments

[ToonArmyMIA]

Well a bit of detective work and I found the original interview. The translation of this would back up more or less what Enrique claims.
Read it here:
http://toonarmymia.tumblr.com/post/3365889437/the-original-jose-enrique-article-translated-from

[Bob]

Interesting, thanks. One never knows about a translation - this one could be as flattering as the original was damning. But if this translation is accurate, it's still a PR failure by the club. Being mistranslated is different than being taken out of context. And waving the words "taken out of context" in front of journalists is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. So to speak.

[Tom]

Thanks for sharing that, ToonArmyMIA.

Enrique doesn't look as bad after reading that, but to me the bottom line is that he's going to push for a move in the summer nonetheless. If one of those clubs really offers £12 million, I think I'd probably take that. Very good player, but that's hard to pass up for a left back.