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Tbf, the new voting system led to some suspense right at the end which you wouldn’t have gotten the old way. That said, Finland was robbed.

Renewed for a new season as well. I know what you mean though, the show has threatened to make a wider point a couple of times (Nolan taking night classes, Jackson’s racist training officer etc) but always reverts back to “the cops save the day again”. And yet it doesn’t take itself seriously enough that it becomes off putting. It lives in a category along with 911-Lone-Star for me. Dumb but weirdly entertaining. The latter with Rob Lowe doing the Nathan Fillion thing.

Better, looks like they’re going for Big Sam.

I mean at the start of the season, it was pretty ridiculous, what with that useless dickhead Gerrard in charge. But if you predicted we’d bin him off for a proper manager, hats off to you. Weirdest timeline continues though, was hoping Chelsea could do us a favour and take points off a European contender. Odds on Frank lasting till the end of the season?

5th at the end of April is just absurd.

The Stellini era is over already.

This crosses my mind at least twice a day, every day. Squad’s pretty bare bones now and we put out that level of performance today. Just unbelievable.

Jude’s a lifelong Birmingham City fan, so Liverpool falling below Villa probably does little to make them look an appealing destination…

What a fucking game this ended up being.

Dean Smith’s legitimately a great manager. Was one of the first managers to get the Brentford ball rolling, got Villa promoted with 10 wins in our last 10 games to get into the playoffs, kept a pretty shit Villa up, then provided a platform that Unai Emery is now building on from (ignoring the Gerrard detour) - worth remembering that Smith brought Ollie Watkins from Exeter to Brentford, and then to Villa, and look at him now. Leicester would be lucky to have him.

This Villa side is something else man. Honestly unbelievable.

Up above Chelsea and Liverpool, what a time to be alive.

Unai Emery is so good. We’ve made it to the top half!

Viaplay is actually alright to be fair. Premier Sports was fucking shocking until Viaplay bought them, but it is actually pretty watchable these days without breaking every few minutes. Only downside is that it isn’t available on a lot of smart TVs yet which is pretty annoying.

Got promoted to the Premier League, but damn it was undeserved. Won one of my last seven games. Both of my starting CBs picked up three game bans in the 3rd and 4th last games, while my next two best CBs were injured. Assistant manager quit to take the Southampton job in the middle of this run as well. Scraped 2nd place with 0-0 draws against Brentford and Hull, and got outrageously lucky as Cardiff threw away a 2-1 lead in the 88th minute against Blackburn to lose 3-2. Got so much work to do to even have a chance of surviving in the division above. Gonna be tough I think.

Ranieri apparently had a stint at Watford in 2021. Guus Hiddinck rounds off the top five.

Can we not make fun of people with speech impediments? Wondered earlier if this would make Roy the oldest ever managerial appointment in the league. Turns out he’s now the first, second AND third oldest managerial appointment in the Premier League. Legend.

Lovely wins for Leon Edwards and Jack Shore tonight. Great stuff. Oh! And Christian Leroy Duncan, albeit in unfortunate circumstances. Watched him live as a 2-2 ammy fighter years ago, and a fair few times on the regionals since. Guy is really really good, hopefully he’ll go far in the UFC.

Using the tackle framework, it has to be a red. His arm is tucked down by his side so he’s never in a realistic position to make a tackle. He’s had time to brace as well, which doesn’t help his case. Poor discipline all round from England today.

Owners in the football league are right bastards. Started out with Bolton in League 2 (FM21 here), financially unstable so objective was to balance the books. Managed to get an affiliate deal with Tottenham, got some class loans in, and won the league. Second season and I make some smart free transfers, get a few loans in, and we have a decent amount of money spare in the wage budget. All going well until December, in the League 1 playoff positions…and the board decide to slash the wage budget - would have to sell 4-5 first team players just to break even again. Pissed off, I applied for, and got a job with Championship side Huddersfield. Struggling at first, moved loanee Isaac Success from the wing to ST (and got Manchester United as an affiliate for easy loans), ended up starting in 18th, and finishing in 7th, missing out on the playoffs on the final day of the season. Transfer window starts well, manage to get Anthony Gordon and Benjamin Sesko on loan, and tie my captain/star CM Lewis O’Brien down to a new contract. Until deadline day…when my chairman accepts on my behalf a £30m bid from Newcastle for O’Brien. I get 75% of the fee, but literally no time to replace him. Started the season well, but that has certainly made life more difficult.

Good game of rugby that 👀

Weird one this. Massive main event on paper, and honestly could not care less about it. Just didn’t bring with it a big fight feel, despite there being a title on the line. I wonder if that is a bit to do with having no confidence in Jon Jones staying active, or the feeling that the real champion should be Ngannou (and subsequently listening to Jones and Dana’s bullshit rhetoric about Ngannou not wanting to fight). Outside of the main event, and the bullshit that is pushing Bo Nickal and Ian Garry to excess, that was a fun card though.

That Nketiah one was real bad.

One of them is, that’s for sure.

Wild.