When Saturday Comes‘ William Turvill adds to the lengthening discourse on the difficult relationship between players and social media, which is basically a euphemism for Twitter (you don’t normally expect to read about Ravel Morrison being a horrible person on Bebo, for example). The article follows a familiar trajectory until the end:

The most simple and logical solution is to stop players from referring directly to club affairs and make clear their opinions are personal and not representative of their employer’s. Players like Barton – who came dangerously close to contempt of court on Twitter over the weekend – might not enjoy such top-down moderation, but in light of how badly players come across on the site, closing their accounts wouldn’t be the worst solution.

Journalists love to focus on players abusing social media, in part because it distracts from another, less sexy issue—football journalists expressing knee-jerk, heat-of-the-moment opinions on football. Turvill mentions this very controversial Patrick Barclay Tweet referring to Heysel, but a far better example would be the countless moments when journalists reveal their team bias, or lack of journalistic integrity, only to write careful, stale prose in the newspaper proper the next day.

Several clever journalists squirm out of this conundrum via the old “my views do not express those of my employer” trick. Turvill rather smarly asks why players should not merely be asked to do the same. As I’ve written before, a blanket ban on Twitter would simply put up another barrier between the unwashed players and coddles millionaire players. But a legal disclaimer, along with a stern legal warning from clubs to players not to besmirch their employers or their customers, would at least help neuter this idea that players must reflect some ridiculous ideal of club unity and Charlie Davies-like enthusiasm.

It won’t stop players from being arseholes in public, but it would at least tie off a legal loose-end.