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We have noticed a trend in recent weeks, one that strikes us with cold chills of fear. That creeping dread, that slow terror, is felt on behalf of Carl Jenkinson's career. There surely can be no man on earth who does not empathise with Jenkinson, who is essentially that friend you had as a kid who was football crazy, chocolate mad, grabbed more than his fair share of power pods and cried for three days straight when England went out of the 2002 World Cup. Jenkinson is that mate who was too busy listening to his Best Unofficial Footie Anthems… Ever! album to revise for his GCSEs, left school at 16 and went to work on a building site in Stevenage, still happily playing a bit of football on the side in the Hertfordshire Senior League. Except, now he actually plays for Arsenal. Now he's a fucking millionaire, and you're a sad, washed-up late twentysomething scratching out a living, and the whole world has lied to you, and it turns out GCSE grades are pointless and working hard at school is for wonks.Anyway, although our lives are almost certainly quite a bit bleaker than Carl Jenkinson's, it seems that his spell at Arsenal is probably coming to an end. We can tell this not only because he was recently dropped by Arsene Wenger and replaced by a makeshift centre-back on the right side of defence, but also because he has started to become more and more involved with the creation of the club's online content, despite the fact he is not currently injured and therefore not simply a convenient stooge. While content creation is a life source for many of us, a sweet manna on which we just about sustain our dependants, feed ourselves and narrowly survive, it is a lethal toxin for footballers which, when consumed too frequently, poisons their professional futures. So, when Jenkinson started to appear with semi-regularity on Arsenal's official media channels, we were worried. When he was given a starring role in their atrocious Christmas advert, we despaired.It's not entirely clear why excessive content creation sounds the death knell for footballers, but the link between career decline and shareable media is abundantly clear. Arsenal fans will remember that erstwhile defender Johan Djourou was given a weekly online video feature at the club, in which he generally hung about in the changing rooms and said cheerful things about his teammates' inoffensive quirks. Before long, he had been unceremoniously dumped, booted out of the front door of the Emirates with a sad smattering of his belongings and a salty, resentful tear in his eye. Content creation had done for him, as it does for so many others. Similarly, see Fabian Delph at Manchester City this season. He spent much of the last campaign making frivolous videos about how he believes in ghosts and adores the colloquialisms of Yorkshire, working with City's in-house media team. He has made three appearances for the club this term, and is most likely going to be moved on in the summer. There is no such thing as coincidence in this life.With the dawning of the age of social media, this is happening to more and more footballers. Almost every club has one player who is currently starring in a jovial eight-part YouTube mini series, and who is almost certainly destined for a transfer at the nearest convenient time. The correlation between content and professional collapse in football is obvious, and the process is usually rather tragic. The players grin their way through scripted segments, laughing just that little too loudly, trying to force themselves to be cheerful, secretly thinking about finances, mortgages and the stress and pain of relocating their families after their impending transfer. So they grimace through their fifth Twitter Q&A of the week, and we, the viewers, see the fear in their eyes.Of course, it's possible that creating content has no causal effect on a player's future, and that excessive involvement in a club's media output is indicative of a career that is already doomed. That said, it's also possible that content is a form of lethal kryptonite for footballers, weakening their athletic powers and condemning them to rejection and failure. While there is absolutely no evidence for the latter on a scientific level, there's a spiritual plane to a player's success which must not be ignored. Perhaps a footballer can only participate in so many YouTube, Facebook and Periscope sessions before they ultimately drain his soul of its essence. Maybe there is only so much shareable content a man can make, before he ultimately gives away too much of himself.@W_F_Magee
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