The Mirror - Photo Daveybot CCAL
It’s come up a few times on these pages, but Nicklas Bendtner was the victim of some brutal mistranslating last month when it was made to look as if he was sufficiently arrogant to believe himself worthy of starting every minute of every game for Arsenal, and had never watched Arshavin play.
We suggested that this was something of a fantasy by checking out the original quotes in a Danish paper, noticing the original article ran almost a week before the Mirror’s and the cutting of clarifying comments that would have significantly softened the tone of Bendtner’s words.
We were delighted to see that Football 365’s mediawatch, which is always a very entertaining read, had spotted the same thing and on Friday had spotted a little apology lodged in the back pages of the Mirror. Unfortunately it is not available online on the Mirror’s website, but to quote from Football365:
‘On 16 February, under the headline: ‘Big ‘Ead Bendtner’, we quoted Nicklas Bendtner from an interview given to a Danish newspaper as saying: “I should start every game, I should be playing every minute of every match and always be in the team.”
‘Nicklas Bendtner actually said: “I constantly belive that when I am in my best playing form then I should play from the start, whoever is ready or injured.”
‘We are happy to make this clear and regret any misunderstanding.’
Embarrassing - and it only took six weeks to clarify too. No damage done to the player in the eyes of Arsenal fans at all in the interim.
Still, it feels like a little victory this morning for accuracy, so let’s enjoy it until the next unreasonable misquote.
[...] all reasonable doubt how big headed and arrogant he was. The fact that the rag had to issue an apology to our occasionally untrousered Dane will have been lost in the minds of Goons who were supposed to [...]
[...] We also love the logic of their ‘apology’ - printing a transfer rumour about a fictitious player - ’someone has been had’. Manipulating the words of a Danish striker - late, late apology. [...]
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