Tag: Tottenham Hotspur

  • Sports and Autumn

    Chelsea fired their manager, Thomas Tuchel, this morning. A little surprised, but Chelsea is having a pretty rough start to their season. Their loss yesterday, in the group stage of the Champions league, didn’t help, but still, it’s just the group stage. I would have thought if they didn’t make it out of the group, that that’s when I would have fired Tuchel. This is the one aspect of the Premier League that I don’t understand: you can be a manager with a winning record and still get fired. In the US, you have to lose first, then get fired.

    Enough of Chelsea!

    Today starts Tottenham’s Champions League campaign! Spurs will be taking on Marseille, and… I know nothing about Marseille, other than that it’s a city in France. The match is on at 3pm today on Paramount+, and there is a slight chance that I will be able to watch it. (If it rains today, I will be watching. If the skies are clear, I will be at the playground with the kid.) I’ll see how it goes.

    As for sports, the fantasy football league that I play in is about the start up. I haven’t paid any attention to what is going on in the NFL. And I really haven’t paid any attention to what the Dallas Cowboys are up to. The only thing I head this summer is that the Eagles should take the division, and that the JETS and GIANTS are BACK! Mind you, the local NYC sports news always says this about the JETS and GIANTS every year. Don’t worry, the press gives up on the JETS after the third game, and then they dump the GIANTS about half way through the season.

    The older I get, the more I enjoy the rhythm of sports leagues being rolled out in the Fall. The ramping up of both of the footballs, and the winding down of baseball. Basketball will start soon enough, and I again will flirt with following the Knicks. (My New York friends will talk me out of it.) In one sense, it gives me something to do on the weekends when it starts getting too cold and rainy to go out. I never really thought of myself as a sports fan, but since I moved from Texas to NYC, sports has given me a way to stay connected with friends and family. It’s an easy conversation I can have with people, and it’s also an easy excuse to send an old friend a text message, or when I talk to my dad, we can complain about the Cowboy’s O-line.

    I wonder if any of this sports watching will pass on to the kid? Right now, she finds it boring, but every now and then, she curls up with me and watch what I’m watching. Sometimes she asks questions, most of the time she doesn’t. Maybe what she’ll take away from sports is that it’s a chance to hang out together.

    (Speaking of which! If you are enjoying this, please take a moment to like, share of comment on this blog! I hear it helps needy people like me!)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Student Loans, Champions League, and This Site

    (I haven’t done the tag line thing in awhile…)

    I am sure you all know this; if you have a Federally backed student loan, the government is forgiving $10,000 of it, and up to $20,000 if you received a Pell Grant. This does personally affect me, as I have student loans, and when I was in college, I received Pell Grants. (Full disclosure: I did refinance and consolidate my loans fifteen years ago, so I’m in a limbo right now because I’m not sure the action I took so long ago now disqualifies me from the forgiveness. I’m still waiting to hear from the DOE as to what the status of my loans are.) What I do want to talk about is the debate about this action taken by Biden. Conservatives have an emotional response to it (It’s not FAIR!) while Liberals seem to be mucking up their response – veering between emotional (The right thing to do) and logical (It will help people economically) which makes the progressive message not very clear and easy to explain. The one argument I find funny is the Conservative accusation that Biden is just doing this to please his base, which Democrats dance around. Personally, I think that Biden should just lean into it and say, “Yes, I am doing this for my base.” Republicans have been cutting wealthy peoples taxes for years, and the only reason they do it is to make their donors happy, and no one is surprised by it. Biden has sort of said it, claiming that he’s fulfilling his campaign promise. But, really, I just want to see a Democrat put it like this, “You vote for us, you get your loan forgiven. You vote for them, you get nothing.” At the end of the day, that is politics. No one votes for a party to only help the other side. People vote for a party because they will get something first, and then hopefully the rest of the country next.

    CHAMPIONS LEAGUE is COMING! Which means I will be writing about Tottenham matches even more! And the Spurs play Nottingham Forrest this weekend in the Premier League, which I am expecting Tottenham to win. No offense to Nottingham.

    So, I paid the money and have my own site now, and no longer am I under the yoke of Word Press. I really haven’t had a chance to try out all the bells and whistles that I now have access to being that I am a paid site. Most likely, I’ll start working on some updates after Labor Day, when the kid is back in school. The one thing I have noticed is that my page views are WAY UP! While my blog views are exactly the same. Not sure if this means anything, but my gut tells me that my site is being poked by bots. The four of you who continue to come by and read this blog, again, I thank you for your dedication. I am looking into monetizing this site. Not sure how to do that, nor am I sure how I’m going to spend the $0.15 cents I will make annually. But, I think some changes might be coming.

    (Yo! Please take a moment to give tis post a like, or a share. No comments though. Seriously, I don’t know if I can handle to contact.)

  • Premier League Week 3: A Tottenham Win, Brentford’s Heartbreaker, and Leeds

    Tottenham Hotspur took on Wolverhampton this Saturday, and it was a mixed blessing of a match. A win is a win, so I’ll take it – No complaints there. But the start of the match, Wolverhampton looked pretty solid, as they had some good chances that they just couldn’t convert. What I thought the Wolves did great against Spurs was shut Son out of the match, which third match into the season, I have yet to see Son be Son. Either way, Spurs had another slow start, and the first half of the match left me feeling like this is a team that keeps bending to opponents, but not breaking. In the second half, Tottenham came out fighting, and it really felt like it was only a matter of time before that were able to strike. It came in the 64th minute when Harry Kane got a header to score which was all Spurs needed to get the win. This match did feel like another test, and Tottenham proved that they could keep it together to stay undefeated. Yet, this still doesn’t feel like a team that finds ways to win, but a club that refuses to lose.

    Then there was my dark horse team Brentford that lost a heartbreaking nail biter at Fulham. The match started off awful for the Bees who gave up two goals early, one being in the first minute. Brentford hung in there with Norgarrd scoring at the end of the first half, and Toney scorning an equalizer in the 71st minute. But Fulham’s forward Mitrovic was able to put the match away at the 90th minute. Sure, there were four minutes of stoppage time, but Brentford was spent. This was a match of two very scrappy teams fighting it out for respect in the League. Fulham just got promoted last year, and Brentford looking to prove they belong here as well, especially after the drumming the handed Man United last week. I’m telling you, and I know nothing about football, keep your eye on Brentford.

    Hey! Leeds beat Chelsea 3 – 0. That just made me happy, as clearly I’m not a fan of Chelsea. Nor of Arsenal. Or Man City. I’ll throw Liverpool in there as well. But Hey! Leeds looked awesome! No disrespect to Leeds.

    On to Week Four!

    (And, as always, if you are find this insights insightful, then don’t be a bother, give a like, share a share, or sound off in the comments. It’ll do you good, as I knew your father, I did!)

  • ODDS and ENDS: I Want to Watch Tottenham Live, Office Drone, and It’s Hot Out

    Tottenham is playing Wolverhampton this Saturday morning. It’s a home match for Spurs, and they should win, but I won’t be able to watch it live, because the match is being shown on USA. See, we cut the cord years ago, and I got Peacock to watch the Premier League, but not every match is shown live, so I have to wait to watch the replay later that night. I have to be very selective when it comes to going on social media Saturday, because I don’t want to accidently see the score. It’s a minor inconvenience, but it still is an inconvenience. I am sure there is a contractual reason for all for, but I still don’t understand why there isn’t one place you can go to watch all the matches live. It’s taken some time, but you can now do that with the NFL. It costs you, but there is a way for an out of market fan to watch their favorite team all season long. I’m a bit surprised that Peacock/NBC Sports hasn’t figured out a way to do this. Currently, if you want to watch your PL team live, then you need to have access to NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, Univeriso, and USA: two are free channels, two are cable channels, and one is streaming. That’s a lot of hoops to jump through, and I don’t know if that is the smartest way to build a brand. What it feels like is that NBC is just replicating their Olympic coverage system, which is terrible and no one likes. Just, come up with a better system guys.

    The wife got me to start watching Severance on Apple TV. I know that I am late to the party, as everyone has already talked about how great the show is, and I don’t disagree with that. (It’s like, if OK Computer were a tv show.) Last night as I was watching the third episode, and a thought went through my head; This show reminds me so much of working in the corporate/business world. And then I thought; I have never worked in the corporate/business world. I have worked for the past 15 years in the arts, about as far as you can get from the corporate world. Yet, this show seems to tap into something within me that makes me think that I have experienced what this show is presenting. I find that deeply fascinating.

    I love my daughter. Let’s just get that out there. I love her, and it’s my job to look after her. Today, it will be close to 90 degrees in NYC, and we have a playdate at the park. I explained to the kid that it will be hot today, and she should dress in shorts or a skirt, and a tee-shirt. Having given her these parameters, I sent her off into her room to pick out clothes, and she comes back in pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Now, my gut reaction is to tell her to go back into her room and change, but there is also part of me that wants to let her go to the park that way. You know, so she can learn to ware temperature appropriate clothing; experience is the best teacher, right? No, I chose the argument and the avoidance of heat stroke.

    (And again – please take a moment to like, share, or comment on this blog. Little kittens are counting on you.)

  • Premier League Week 2: Tottenham Draw, and Brentford’s Statement Win

    I was all hyped up for the Tottenham v Chelsea match, and it didn’t disappoint. I can be fully honest while also being biased for Spurs, but Chelsea was the better team that day. Raheem Sterling is just a dangerous man on the pitch, and it looked like Tottenham’s defense didn’t have an answer to stop him, or the rest of Chelsea for that matter. Clearly, these two teams don’t like each other, and everyone was getting chippy out there. But I will say this, Chelsea shut Son down, and made him a non-factor in the match, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do to stop Kane. Chelsea gave Tottenham too many opportunities at the end, and if you do that, Kane will find a way to get the ball. In that sense, Chelsea got what the deserved. Yup, Conte wanted to make a statement, and the first statement was don’t piss him off when shaking hands, and the second was the team never gave up; Spurs were out matched, out played, and out classed, but they never gave up. That’s a huge difference from the team that took the field last season. Last year, Tottenham would just folded in the last ten minutes of a match. This team fought, and pushed, and hung in there. A win would have been great, but the draw meant this Tottenham team won’t accept a loss.

    I think I have mention that I don’t know a whole lot about the Premier League. That also includes looking up the schedule for the other 19 teams. I wasn’t paying attention, and didn’t realize that Man United, who picked up Christian Eriksen off of Brentford, was coming to Brentford to play this past Saturday. On paper, Manchester United still looks like a powerhouse; they have Ronaldo, Maguire and Eriksen to say the least, so heading into Brentford, this should have been an easy win for Man United. Brentford is only starting their second season the the PL, after having won promotion, and normally a team like that is still adjusting to the new level. What ended up happening was a statement win from the Bees, that I am sure made Eriksen wonder if he made the right decision in leaving the team for United. Yes, the first goal Brentford got was a bit of a fluke, as the ball went through the United goalie’s hands, but the three that followed were executed by a team that was focused and ready to play, and acted like they expected to win this match from the beginning. Manchester United looked like the inferior club, like they hand just been promoted. Yes, that 4 – 0 win by Brentford was impressive, and I won’t lie, made me feel like I knew something that no one else did. Keep an eye on Brentford.

    (Pardon me, but if you found my personal insight into the world of English football enjoyable, please, try keeping calm, and liking, commenting, or sharing this post. Carpenters and Walruses would approve.)