Martin Samuel was once a brilliant sports writer and probably has an attic full of accolades to prove it. He won three successive British sports journalist of the year awards between 2005 and 2007 and was the landslide winner of a UK Press Gazette poll to find Britain’s best sports journalist in 2012. He also co-wrote a fabulous book with the former Fulham centre forward and manager Malcolm McDonald called ‘How to score goals’. It may have been published in 1985 but it stands the test of time.

Something has happened since Samuel took the News UK shilling and was granted a double-page spread in the Sunday Times sports section every week. He used eight of his first fourteen opportunities to take aim at the plans for an independent regulator for football, lambasting state inference in the beautiful game – suggesting that he hadn’t bothered to read any of the submissions to the inquiry co-ordinated by Tracey Crouch.

A fortnight ago, Samuel laid the blame for Andy Murray’s second round exit at Wimbledon firmly at the feet of the BBC, who together with the tournament’s organisers had scheduled the Scot’s epic encounter Stefanos Tsitsipas, for late on Friday night. Murray was in front when play was suspended late into the evening, but his momentum dissipated when the match resumed the following afternoon. His case was unimpeachable: paying spectators had to leave to make the last train and fans are short-changed at the behest of the broadcaster.

Last week, Samuel weighed in behind the TV companies who frequently alter fixtures to suit their schedules rather than the match-going supporters. ‘Broadcasters are entitled to what they paid for,’ he wrote – before lambasting the train companies. Perhaps Samuel didn’t notice the breathtaking inconsistency and incoherence of those two offerings, but a sub-editor or someone at the Sunday Times probably should have done.

In today’s paper, Samuel slams Marco Silva for ‘a brazen act of disloyalty’. His article thunders with condemnation:

“Heads are being turned by the money on offer from Saudi Arabia, and managers are no exception. Steven Gerrard is now out there, so too Slaven Bilic and Nuno Espírito Santo. So why does it feel that if Marco Silva walks out on Fulham for a job with Al-Ahly, that is him done in the English game?

Perhaps because, with his club also set to lose their main goalscorer Aleksandar Mitrovic to Al-Hilal – Fulham are asking £52 million, but Mitrovic is actively trying to force the move and has spoken privately of refusing to play – it seems like such a brazen act of disloyalty. Silva has always been ambitious and mercenary, that much is understood. He took the job at Hull City as a springboard into English football, resigned at the end of the 2016-17 season and was appointed Watford manager two days later; he was being linked with Everton roughly six months into his tenure at Vicarage Road, and they ended up paying £4 million in compensation when Watford sued. Now everyone seemingly knows the details of his Fulham release clause, which is the sort of convenient leak that happens when a manager has his eye out for a better job. And if all of this moves Silva up management’s greasy pole, we would typically shrug and dismiss it as the business of football.

Yet, in professional terms, Al-Ahly aren’t promotion. Not from Fulham, and not from the Premier League. It’s a purely financial move and while no one’s judging, it doesn’t make Silva the man for the long term, or a project, or a manager a club can even rely on being there next week, if he spies an opportunity elsewhere.

Silva has done well for Fulham, but they have supported him, too, and deserve better. If he goes, he can bank on £40m, but he shouldn’t bank on a return to English football any time soon.”

With wonderful irony, Samuel’s tirade – written after Thursday’s suggestion on Sky Sports News that Silva was likely to accept Al-Alhy’s offer – appeared in print in the Sunday paper only hours after the Fulham head coach reaffirmed his total commitment the club during a lively press conference in Philadelphia. Silva, derided as a mercenary by Samuel, pointed out that he rejected several mid-season offers to jump ship to guide the Whites to tenth in the Premier League. He continues to rebuff overtures from both Al-Hilal and Al-Ahly because, as he put it last night, he considers England’s top flight to be ‘the best league in the world’. Superbly, Samuel’s Silva-bashing appears opposite his article entitled ‘Why should footballers always have to be moral crusaders?’ defending Jordan Henderson’s right to accept the Saudi cash.

Protecting England’s clubs from sportwashing Saudi Arabians sounds like one of the key responsibilities of an independent regulator for football. I’m grateful to Martin for making us not need to look far for another example of the fact that, where London’s oldest professional club are concerned, near enough is good enough.