Someone call the internet, we may have just found the new gold standard of the crazed post-game manager rant. And it’s so…composed. It’s really a paradox to read what Carlisle manager Keith Curle has to say about his team, and to then hear the tone with which he says it.
Under Curle, Carlisle are within three points of being relegated to the third division of English football; it has been a bad year. Curle is about as happy with his team and it’s performances as a librarian with a newborn. He is frustrated, he has had enough, and he let BBC Radio Cumbria know it after losing 3-1 to Accrington Stanley.
Here are the highlights of what he had to say:
“We’ve got to play people with the male genitalia to go out and play, but I don’t think I can do that as I’d only start with five or six players because I don’t think there are players there that have got the male genitalia.
“Those players need to know that basically they’re soft. The strength of character in that changing room is alarming weak.
“They are players who don’t deserve to be professionals. They are weak.”
“I’ve had to tell players individually what I thought of their performances, and yes it did get personal.”
“There’s no spirit in that changing room – they’ve got no male genitalia. They are weak, and we need a reaction.”
It got personal with the players? You don’t say, Keith. Because it doesn’t really get more personal — and uncomfortable — than repeatedly talking about your players lack of “male genitalia.” And who says “male genitalia,” anyways? Doctors? Parents giving their children the “Birds and the Bees” talk? Surely not a grown man talking about the faults of other grown men.
The scientifically correct way in which he chooses his words is matched by his tone. He goes on this rant as if he’s pointing out the flaws in a financial portfolio. He could have just as easily said “weak” as he could have said “the future integrity of this trust is questionable.” “Male genitalia” sounds like he has gone through a cost benefit analysis, and determined that it is what his assets lack.
You can listen to him here — you’ll want to skip to around 2:30. We highly recommend it.
