The next big thing to be furious at: footballers on holiday

Welcome to football’s silly season, the hinterland between the end of last season and the beginning of the next. With nothing to do but peruse glacier-like transfer developments around Declan Rice and Mason Mount, the general public are becoming increasingly feral. Those glory days of watching actual football or even Jack Grealish seem light years away, and now they have to make do by following Phil Foden’s son on Instagram. No, really (1.4m followers and counting).

At Big Website HQ, The Man and tea-timely emails are scrambling around for the whiff of the next story. Things are getting increasingly desperate. Football Daily is learning Japanese to prepare for the midweek J-League fixtures. “Bring back Small Talk,” somebody suggests. “You can’t beat quality content like asking Mark Lawrenson what his favourite biscuit is,” chimes another, slightly hysterically – Blue Riband, obviously. Out on the streets/keyboards, things aren’t much better. With little else to do, some “fans” have found the next big thing to be furious at: footballers on holiday.

“Bunch of reptiles,” tweets one choice account at a snap of Kai Havertz, Mateo Kovacic and Andreas Christensen, who are innocently enjoying some downtime at Kepa Arrizabalaga’s wedding after a long, hard, extended season. Arsenal’s Fábio Vieira is told, in no uncertain terms, to stop taking a cute selfie with his pregnant partner and “go and eat some red meat and eggs”. Everton boss Sean Dyche is told to sort out their transfer dealings from his tent at Glastonbury. Pictures circulate of Kevin De Bruyne relaxing poolside with Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Aké, with some people left inconsolable that the Belgian might have a relationship with anything but Erling Haaland’s left