A question of honesty

FAIR play to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for backing up Liverpool team-mate Philippe Coutinho when he was asked about speculation surrounding him and Barcelona in a TV interview on Sunday.

But it was a fairly straightforward question, and a legitimate one, and I don’t see why any player would need protecting when quizzed in such a way.

Footballers are men-children these days — I was the same — and all too often they and their managers get the hump about questions that, really, aren’t that bad.

The problem is there are only three or four good press officers in the Premier League and the rest of them are taught to say no to everything.

That gets passed on to the players and there’s no understanding that fans, as much as the media, want proper appraisals of games and what’s going on behind the scenes, not just to hear them paying some sort of lip service to everything.

Broadcasters are paying so much money and not getting a basic courtesy of honest and open responses. It’s embarrassing.