Poor old Wayne Bridge. The England player must know how Gordon Brown feels this morning. As in politics, so in football: there’s no pleasing the popular press.
First, the Mail campaigns for John Terry, who had a relationship with Bridge’s ex, to be sacked. Then — after the England manager, Fabio Capello, tells Terry to step down as England captain during a 12-minute meeting — the paper congratulates the decisiveness of the Italian “family man”, in contrast to the “dithering” Football Association.
Next Bridge announces after some consideration that he is withdrawing from the England squad in protest at Terry and the “divisive” nature of the situation.
And yet today the Mail does not pat him on the back for such a bold stance, but asks whether Bridge is a “wimp”!
How exhausting it must be for the right-wing press, to hold such a complex range of moral values.