Naitch

Agreed. I won't pretend I'm familiar with any of the other games but Stanley Parable is a fantastic game that doesn't require too much effort or time, but will entertain.

Do people who live within 10km of multiple stadiums (Liverpool, Nottingham, London, etc) get to choose their team or are they forced to support the nearest team in this scenario? I feel sorry for people whose biggest club in that catchment area play at the 11th level of the football pyramid, which is certainly the case in some areas of Norfolk. Yes, this is a good point. The PSG shirts only popped up at Goals when Neymar moved there and Juventus shirts started appearing when Ronaldo signed for them.

To be fair, when I worked at a Goals Soccer Centre there were kids wearing Man City (and the European teams @Hobo mentions) shirts as often as you'd see them wearing Man Utd and Arsenal shirts in the early 00s. Liverpool have maintained a fairly consistent presence, as well as Spurs for being the nearest consistently Premier League team. I knew one pre-money Man City fan while I was at high school, not sure why he supported them though.

For the last few years, I've found the scramble of several teams falling over each other trying to finish 3rd/4th has been much more interesting. Chelsea being consistently involved in that certainly helps, which is probably also why I've been much more invested in the FA Cup than the Premier League for the last 2 seasons. 100% agree with this. I have absolutely no emotions towards Man City other than apathy whereas I can't stand Liverpool. Pep's statement that everyone wants Liverpool to win the league was astoundingly oblivious to the fact that Everton and Chelsea fans exist. I'm sure there are even Man Utd fans who are divided in a situation like this where, perhaps, they're more emotionally invested in their rivalry with Liverpool than Man City for historical reasons. This poll on BBC Football shows that Pep was talking out of his ass (spoilered for size):

I had sympathy for Egypt until I discovered that their fans had also been using laser pointers, having been criticised for doing so as far back as 2013. Different tournament but weren't the latest Euros group draws also affected by Covid delays?

Just threw together an England squad I'd like to see in Qatar later this year: Very difficult to pick without dropping significant names: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11096/12576746/who-will-make-englands-2022-world-cup-squad

Between this and the World Cup expanding to 48 teams, can we just agree that football will finally end after the 2023/24 season. Doesn't seem much point continuing after that.

I had high hopes for MGK's latest album but it's quite bland compared to his previous one. Avril Lavigne's new album is a banger though. Lots of influence from John Feldmann and Travis Barker helps it hugely.

The Boehly/Wyss consortium seems like the best bet to me. I don't know much about this Broughton/Coe bid but have heard that Broughton is a Chelsea fan and vaguely recall Coe being too. Glad the SMG bid has been rejected, hopefully the Ricketts family follow them out of the door shortly.

Marina Granovskaia will sort things out. Putin won't know what hit him.

Fair play to FIFA for somehow predicting the logistical issues caused by COVID and Russia being colossal dicks all the way back in 2009, whereby giving the World Cup to Qatar provides an extra 5-6 months for qualifiers and playoffs to take place.

Srupset.

I'm guessing there's a similar element that cities who host the Olympics find, where all these facilities that have been specially constructed for the event end up going to waste. Perhaps not so much in the examples of already prepared host nations like damshow used as an example, but I can't see the likes of South Africa, Brazil, and maybe even South Korea/Japan using all their World Cup host stadiums and facilities to the same capacity or frequency.

I don't see the harm in making them all go through the qualifiers. All of them have qualified for a major tournament in the last 6 years, so it isn't unfeasible for them to all earn a spot. And, if they don't qualify, then they don't deserve to be there in the first place **cough, cough, sorry I have some Qatar in my throat...**

I'm partway through a similar project, which is essentially creating a year-by-year library of all the music I like ever. One key reason is to then see which years have the most music I like, which I'm expecting to be somewhere between my high school/sixth form years - 2006 and 2012. 2007 is currently winning at 233 songs but 2006, 2009, and 2011 aren't far behind with all four years still to be properly looked at. I'm through 1950-1987, as well as ~2012 to now; the entirety of the 1950s and 1960-64 are lumped together in one playlist due to there being so few. Initially, I started working backwards from my starting point in 2017. Working on and off, finding new music that I like, and sometimes those artists already having quite significant back catalogues, I decided that working forward would be easier as I could then go through an artist's entire catalogue when I reached their debut album. Finding out which songs of wildly different genres came out around the same time has been an interesting experience. Here's 1970 as an example: I'm expecting the 1990s to be even more eclectic when I start looking at them properly.

Even Italy is that way really. You've got Lukaku faltering right now (though he's performed in the PL before), Balotelli being a dud 10 years ago, and, even further back, the likes of Veron, Crespo, Mutu, Shevchenko, etc.

Agreed. I mentioned the inevitability of it to the missus during both cup games.

I recently watched the animated episodes from The Reign of Terror (Hartnell S1) and found the animation style... jarring. Perhaps it was because I'd already seen half of the serial in the usual format, but it was rather difficult to get into the episodes and work out which minor characters were which.

Nothing wrong with participating in the transfer market but outbound movement and "we don't have enough players" doesn't gel. Could always accept an automatic 3-0 loss instead? I'm guessing that Kolasnic hasn't been a first-team regular for a while, and loanees tend to be youngsters, but that hasn't stopped most other PL clubs from fielding a complete team (even if 2 GKs on the bench has been a thing).

Be thankful that Norwich are comfortably reducing the number of relegation spots available (that goes for Everton fans too). They might be 18th and only a point from safety, but they've played the most games of the bottom 6, didn't score a goal in December, and Everton's Michael Keane is their joint 2nd highest goalscorer.

I like the takes on the Chelsea and Liverpool logos there but that Man City one is awful.

Wordle 207 X/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 This one sucked.

Wordle 206 3/6 🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Easy

Wordle 205 3/6 🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Best performance yet! Spent ages trying to think of an actual word to even enter, which ended up being a total punt that paid off.

He did incredibly well. Staying engaged after he lost the ball to win it back and set up Lukaku's goal was brilliant play.