ljkeane

In fairness I think the point of adding Thiago was to allow us to better move up and down the gears as required and we did more of that in 21/22 when he had the most impact. It's was always a gamble given his previous injury history but the number of games we got out of him was definitely at the lower end of the scale. If he'd just ended up playing ~60% of the games for us I think we probably win a few more trophies over those 4 years. If we'd just gotten the right 40% of the games out of him this season it feels like it might have pushed us over the top in the league. So, yeah, I think it was a gamble worth taking even if ultimately it didn't work out. From Thiago's point of view I think he was going to have injury problems anywhere he went so why not go to the side he might push over the top to being the best team in the world?

About 2 years to be exact.

Considering how weak the team looks on paper United haven’t actually been that bad. Just, you know, don’t hand Arsenal a cheap goal and this would have been a half decent performance so far. ETA: Arsenal really haven’t been great. Casemiro’s done them a pretty big favour. I’m not sure United have a goal in them but this would be nervy as fuck without that lead being gifted to them.

Heh, on cue United concede an incredibly soft goal and Casemiro’s entirely at fault.

Two pretty rubbish first legs of the Championship playoffs. Nobody really seemed inclined to take too many risks. ETA: Jesus, this is a weak United lineup. I do quite like the set piece move Arsenal have been doing recently were they all set up at the back post then filter to the front post at the last minute and unlike a lot of what they’ve done this season it doesn’t seem to rely on getting away with various stuff.

No luck unfortunately. Bah.

Apparently he had to get the tap on the shoulder from McCullum too. There was no way he was going to call time on his own career like Broad did last year. ETA: With only one test to go he probably won’t overhaul Warne’s test wicket total (although you wouldn’t completely rule it out) but for a fast bowler to come this close is fairly nuts.

Yeah, Luton have done pretty well to be as competitive as they have been given their resources and Sheffield United basically gave up on staying up before the season started given they had a weaker squad than they did in the Championship. It was only ever Burnley that had any hope of staying up and they've been a bit disappointing to be fair. Next season should be more competitive with Leicester plus potentially one of Leeds or Southampton coming up, not sure what Ipswich will be like.

Forest effectively safe too now with their goal difference advantage over Luton. Good season to be docked points in.

For it to come down to goal difference City would have to draw one and Arsenal win both their games. So best case scenario for City would be them needing to win their other game by at least 4 goals. Not impossible but they’d not be a in a great position. They probably could have racked up a few more goals today if they’d really put their foot down.

I didn’t see it but apparently I could have if I’d gone to a bunch of places in easy driving distance. That’s fairly annoying.

It’s not a niqab, it’s a keffiyeh. It’s not a religious thing so far as I know and it’s not traditionally worn by women apparently.

Toronaga might not be Tokugawa Ieyasu but he basically is. So a fictionalised version of him eventually becoming Shogun I’d guess.

97th minute equaliser to keep Leverkusen’s unbeaten run going. An Atalanta Leverkusen final should be fun.

Arsenal have obviously had bunch of players having a good season but I think Odegaard's the stand out candidate for player of the season amongst the Arsenal options for me. I kind of thought he hit a hot streak last year and wasn't sure he'd replicate it again but he really has. He's basically playing as a traditional 10 in the attacking third and has the attacking numbers to back it up but he's also great at pressing without the ball and when Arsenal need to progress the ball from deep he's also dropping deep and is their best progessive passer. Having said all that I'm still going for Watkins overall. 19 non penalty goals and 12 assists playing for Villa is nuts.

I think you have to give quite a lot of extra weight to non penalty goals to be fair. Foden's on 16 non penalty goals and 8 assists. That's a better season than Saka's 10 non penalty goals (plus six penalties) and 9 assists I'd say.

Mainoo shouldn't be on that young player list. You could argue about whether they should significantly restrict the cut offs but there are a lot of players under the current rules who've been better than him. There's a definite 'lot of former United players in the media talking about the one bright spark' boost there. He's had some real flashes that show he's got a lot potential but if you look at his stats objectively he hasn't had a great season, there's a lot of red on there. Compare that to Wharton or Elliott as young players in midfield.

I mean, sure, but they've won multiple Champions Leagues in recent years when they clearly weren't the better side so it'd be nice if the shoe was on the other foot for once.

Bayern with some justification irritated with that. The assistant ref shouldn’t be raising his flag there. The Bayern player was probably off but it was tight.

Ffs. Fucking Real Madrid.

Nice goal. Real getting Real’d by Bayern would be amusing. Also TNT taking the executive decision to give us more Rio Ferdinand by sticking him on commentary wasn’t a good choice. ETA: Fuck’s sake. And Bayern have subbed Kane and Musiala off.

Yeah, if PSG win we can’t be messing about hoping Bayern turn up and play well in the final, so I’d definitely prefer Real go through to try and prevent the disaster result of a PSG win. If Dortmund go through though an all German final would be great.

On reflection maybe only losing by one goal to this Palace juggernaut wasn’t that bad of a result.

I’m pretty sure it’ll be down to him and, quite possibly his family, getting horrendous abuse online. So, you know, it’s not really him deleting a few pictures I’d have the issue with.

Ithaca was ok. It's well written like all of North's books but it felt a bit predictable being constrained to stick to the outline of the story we know from the Odyssey and the premise of 'actually all the men from the Illiad/Odyssey were fairly awful' doesn't feel like an especially radical reimagining of the original. I didn't dislike it and I'll read the sequel but it didn't really hold my attention that well either. Next I'm going to read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay.