I said I wouldn’t dwell on this sort of expose much, so apologies up front, but once again a slightly negative story with a sensationalized headline in the British tabloid media is seized upon by the delusional Aston Villa blogger in Sweden to further bolster his bizarre agenda.

This time the subject is Habib Beye and his quite understandable frustration at his lack of playing time. Firstly, let’s look at the headline and quotes (yes, they have quotes!!) from the Daily Star:-

FALL GUY HABIB BEYE IN VILLA QUIT THREAT

Things are not going too well for me at Villa, I have only played in 10 games in all ­competitions. This is the first time in 12 years I’ve had a season like this – and it is not easy for me to put up with. I am 32, I feel in good physical shape and I don’t see myself sitting on the bench.

If I can’t express myself as a footballer with Aston Villa, it will be elsewhere. I have always been important, to a ­greater or lesser degree, at every club where I’ve played. It is the manager’s choice. You have to respect his decisions even if you don’t ­accept them, as he is the sole captain of the ship.

Returning to France would be complicated for me. French clubs don’t punch at the same weight as ­English ones when it comes to salaries, the wages in England are twice as high and I can’t see a French club investing that much money in a ­player. I’d consider an ­interesting challenge in France but the salary is the problem.

Fall Guy? Really? Wow, that brings back some memories…

Well, I’m not the kind to kiss and tell,
But I’ve been seen with Farrah.
I’m never seen with anything less than a nine, so fine.

…anyway…

What Habib is saying is fairly innocuous stuff, but to paraphrase him: he feels that he’s capable of still playing football at a high level, but while he’s frustrated that he’s not getting the playing time at Aston Villa he respects the manager’s decision and recognizes that if he can’t force his way into the team then he’ll have to look elsewhere. However, he does slightly contradict his stated motivation somewhat by revealing that France is an unlikely destination for him as they don’t pay so well.

Way to go Habib, it’s all about the football, right?

It’s worth considering what the landscape looked like when Beye came to Villa. Luke Young was injured, Curtis Davies was showing signs that his shoulder would need looking at sooner rather than later, it looked certain that we’d have the burden of several games and long distance travel participating in the Europa League and we had yet to acquire Richard Dunne and James Collins. It’s fair to say that at that point Habib had every reason to expect to play more than he has.

Does he regret not completing that switch to Hull now? Possibly, although only he could tell you whether Championship football next season would satisfy his desire for both playing time and an acceptable salary.

But I digress.

As ever, I wondered where the quotes published by The Star came from as it seemed unlikely to me that they had actually spoken to him themselves. My first port of call was the French media. Back in January the story about Beye moving to Sunderland first emerged from France and although it was very tabloid in nature, there was something about it that suggested credibility. Sources in north east that I place a reasonable amount of trust in seemed to confirm that something was going on. Obviously the switch didn’t happen so I can’t pretend to know for sure, but something tells me that the two clubs were discussing a transfer.

However, scouring the French media this time, I could only find reference back to The Daily Star. Sacrebleu!! Could it really be that The Daily Star had conducted an interview with Habib Beye? It certainly seemed to be the case, everyone who carried the story all credited The Star. Still, why on earth would The Daily Star be conducting an interview with Habib Beye? It didn’t make sense.

I got to thinking about similar expressions of frustration from a couple of other Villa players who couldn’t get much of a look in at the first team; Marlon Harewood and Nicky Shorey. Both had said they weren’t exactly over the moon, but were diplomatic enough and their feelings were perfectly understandable.

What I suspect would have happened in both cases is that they were interviewed either separately or in some regular press conference by local media at the clubs they were out on loan at. Newcastle, Forest, Fulham, whatever. It’s possible that national media were there, but not necessarily the case. A lot of local media outlets are part of the same group and they simply syndicate news within the group. Even if that isn’t the case, as we’ll see, they can simply read it online, just like you or I, and then republish it.

So I’m comfortable enough with how Harewood and Shorey’s words appeared in the media, but it was bugging me where Beye’s quote had come from. Just so we’re clear here; there’s absolutely zero chance that anyone at The Star were concerned enough about Habib Beye that they picked up the phone to get an interview. Just in case you think the reverse might be the case, that Beye was sat at home feeling angry after one too many Stellas so picked up the phone to vent with some hack at The Star – think again.

So I went back to my search, but this time went a little deeper, past France and into Beye’s homeland of Senegal… and… bingo!! Here I found the story including the original words that later appeared in The Daily Star without attribution at lequotidien.sn. However, while they didn’t provide an actual link, they were honest enough to cite another source at the bottom of the story – Leral.net.

It takes absolutely no effort to use a simple Google search operator to search the Leral site and in seconds I had what I believe is the original story first published on March 1st. To summarize; Beye hasn’t played for the Senegalese national team since 2008 and it’s been claimed in newspapers back in Senegal that he has retired from international football. It would appear that he has given this interview to set the record straight. Of course, during that interview the subject of his current situation at Villa and his future aspirations came up and what he said has been quoted fairly accurately by The Star, so I’ve really no argument with that. The problem is that they chose to put it under a headline of “FALL GUY HABIB BEYE IN VILLA QUIT THREAT” because that’s how they operate.

I’ve said that I don’t intend to spend my time continually debunking the crap that emanates from the tabloids, that would be an exercise in futility, I’ll never stop it. Then again, when you get some delusional blogger who purports to be an Aston Villa fan commenting on this story under the headline “Aston Villa player threatens to quit and others will be leaving too” perhaps it’s better that it doesn’t go unchallenged.

The fact is that the Habib Beye story, with all due respect to the player, is a nothing story. Beye is a back up player, he was always going to be a back up player. If we had had the Europa League to contend with as we expected we would this season, I’m confident that he would have picked up a few extra games. Perhaps either Collins or Dunne, or even both, were somewhat opportunist acquisitions that have subsequently had an influence on the number of games Beye has been picked to play in.

Again, with all due respect to Beye, he was never going to be a player that really makes a substantial difference to our season and if he feels that he can still play regular football at high level and get paid well for it, then good luck to him. He’s right, he will need to look into a move elsewhere in the summer. Big deal.

To take the story and sensationalize it to sell newspapers or attract hits to their website is one thing, but to take that sensationalized version and twist it further to use it as a springboard to launch yet more baseless criticism of the football club you claim to support, well that’s beneath contempt.

Sadly, in both cases, this is a prime example of their typical modus operandi. I know what the tabloids get out of it, but what about the blogger?