Lurker > voltch

Have teams started closing the gap on Arsenal before they could close it on City.

Arsenal could very well have won this, but it wasn't nearly as dominant a showing as what we've seen in the last couple of years.

And Odegaard was back so both sides looked pretty close to complete.

League all in all seems to be decent enough in that aspect.

How do you judge a game like Holocure which outright doesn't have any paid content, but has massive updates which includes new game modes.

Interesting move by Forest there to grab Edu.

It's a weird one, they spent loads on getting bodies in and every year seem to have a lot of players coming and going.

Very different to Brentford or some of the other squads with more settle lineups.

Meanwhile I'm thankful for the rather barebones content as I have my attention focused on FGO.

The upcoming Uma Musume gacha means juggling 3 mobile games.
That I'm not looking forward to based on how it went the last time.

Just sticking to online AI battles to start with.
Baby steps.

So everything going forward is just expansions adding new sets and they're unlikely to phase out current sets?

Asking as one of my favourite approaches to gacha games is to hoard free currency for banners where I want to ensure I can hit the games pity system.(if it has one).

Like does it make sense to start hoarding hundreds of hourglasses to go crazy when a set I really like comes out.

Friend ID

2000912336208567

No idea how to play the card game, but it seems like a nice app for card collecting.

Isn't it the Vinicius camp that is screaming racism rather than Madrid?

But honestly, I feel like Bellingham had a stronger case and if Southgate starts Cole Palmer and England win the Euros, I think Bellingham would have won it over Rodri.

Today is absolutely hilarious with Madrid players posting on Insta their support for Vini. Makes it look like his career ended.

Atletico players and former teammates of Rodri in full congratulatory mode.

Sancho in the middle of it all waving goodbye to ETH.

It's like the Oscars where the winner didn't matter but the drama surrounding the event was gripping.

Whew, happy Chelsea got the 3 points.

Jackson's output of late is p good. Don't think he strikes much fear into opposing fanbases though.
Lavia and James being on the pitch is a nice encouraging sign.

It's possible the starting lineup against Newcastle late this week is completely different from today's.
Not sure if depth is for real.

Not a great result but avoided the loss.
Villa, Utd, Spurs not doing too much helps in that chase for 4th.

Cole Palmer, that was nice.
Team is not ready, too many issues in defense.

If they can keep it going, it'll be the most fun stretch since that Tuchel team before Chilwell got injured vs Juventus and Lukaku then went on to make that interview.

But am liking Jackson even though he kinda seem to be chalked up as a flop by fans of other teams.

From the sidelines

It's nice seeing two sides go at it like this.
Seeing Haaland, Bernardo, Akanji talking smack.
Ian Wright getting outraged

It adds something

Team is nowhere near back.

But there's a few glimpses to give one hope that things aren't totally off the rails.
Mainly Jackson, Caiceido, Palmer and Colwill.
The bench also looks a lot better than last year.

Also seeing Andrey Santos score again for Strasbourg gives me great hope.

Do we want a sequel or a new cast.

Trigger or work with a different studio?

Maybe collaborative approach like Shigure Ui or Tamaki.
She will still show up in merch, but no more new songs, streams, memberships and so on.

Not the greatest haul in hindsight but some quality in there. Paulinho randomly went on to join Barca at some point have a great season then went back to China. Turns he was one of the few who seemed to actually give a damn and try playing hard over there. Weirdest shit.

Tbh at the time of the signings quite a few looked promising.
Better than that weird Everton window where they spent like mad on Klaasen, Pickford, Walcott, Keane, Sigurdsson, Tosun, Rooney and more.

So many swing for the fences windows that ended in disaster, makes their current predicament feel deserved.

Going from Modric, to Bale to Kane was a pretty nice streak of world class talent to build around.

If they can just find a Ballon D'Or level player like they did with those 3 they'll be back to competing.

Maybe Gray or Odobert are that kind of talent, hard to judge such young players.

Bit rich coming from me due to who I support.

But it feels like Spurs have low key not gotten value out of a number of their acquisitions made for Ange.
That team has undergone a bit of a transformation in his image.
Not on the hot seat but it's gotten warmer.

I am banking on the Chalobah loan to go well enough that they reconsider selling.
He was a valuable contributor down the stretch last year.

Team spent decades not producing anything from the youth under Roman, towards the end talents did start getting bedded in, but new ownership seem them more as assets that'll generate pure profit.
I hope all those that move on do well, just sucks that the rules currently incentivise selling academy players.

A win is a win.
But blimey there's often a story regarding Anthony Taylor after a match involving Chelsea.

Only 4 games in and I'm mostly treating Paez, Estevao, Penders, Anselmino and Santos as future saviours of this team.
I also have 0 evidence any of those 5 will do anything beyond their highlight reels.

9 more years of Nico Jackson.
Weird but ok sure why not.

We're now normalising baseball style contracts in the EPL.

Jadon Sancho huh.

Must say that one's puzzling as I'm not really seeing much about Sterling actually leaving either.

Does come across like one of those games of FM where you stack the team and don't really worry as you'll probably quit the game before anything of consequence comes up.

But that said I'm curious as to what monstrosity is going to emerge out of all this.

Was a tad worried as most of the signings this window seemed to be for the future.
Neto, Felix and even Dewsbury-Hall are immediate contributors though.

Weird bit is why they are after so many goalkeeping prospects when Sanchez still gives one the fits. But Jorgensen looked OK and seems to be earmarked as the cup goalie. Penders hype is there but I don't know if the deal was closed.

It was messy but it seems the team has for the most part completed the reset and moved out the majority of the big wage players.

At the same time they've done that Dodgers thing of maintaining a well stocked farm system at all times and them hiring so many guys from the City development setup means they still intend for Cobham to be a factory of players. For those who say then 8-9 year old kids from the are will stop joining, there's no other team in the area that offers the same path to a pro career even if it's not with Chelsea. West London and surrounding area is barren, so they can just hoover up all the Surrey based talent.

That said the big money has gone to South American prospects, and Paez, Estevao and Anselmino have turned heads. No idea how they'll do, but it's sorta like watching a draft prospect only knowing you already secured the rights.

Andrey Santos also looking very good for his age.
Not all these prospects will pan out but if one or two land the way Palmer did then things do start to get interesting.

The coverage on the Sterling/Nketiah attempted exits is weird.
Essentially both are surplus to requirements who are difficult to move due to high wages.

Tbh both are in their rights to not accept lower wages even if it results in their clubs not getting and fee and not playing them.

BBC couldn't get it all due to not having the rights to certain sports.
I do hope legislation changes regarding sports, the current ones in place were made before streaming sports was much of a thing.

and the way USA performed at this Olympics, I reckon they're gearing up for some monstrous medal totals in LA, they're for sure be back in swimming/wrestling and will do really well in other events, could see them with 65+ Golds and over 170 medals.
Even if Russia's back.

With the Velodrome over, although GB won a lot of medals, very few golds.

Given the massive funding they receive, this is a huge disappointment.

Harrie Lavreysen looked amazing for Netherlands though.

And another gold to Japan in wrestling!
Puts them 3rd in the medal table for the time being.

Wow didn't expect that.

I'll chalk it up to Canadian announcers hyping up the great Canadian entrant.

Though during the round robin stage they left for long stretches so it was showing the event with no commentary.

I am so shocked at Japan doing well in wrestling on the men's side. The women have at least been good for years.
With Russia out I assumed Iran and USA would dominate and USA's underperformance given their tradition in the sport is incomprehensible to me.

Would not be surprised if USA comes back with a vengeance and completely dominates in LA to redeem this showing.

Also Uzbekistan has 5 gold medals in boxing bringing their total up to 8 gold medals this Olympics.
I had no idea their boxing program was so good.

Although Japan's Shigekix could only manage a respectable 4th, this Phil Wizard was really entertaining to watch.

Men's breaking was a lot of fun.
Seems like the judges aren't fans of power moves though.

andylt posted...

That men's high jump final was intense! That's kinda what I wanted from the Tokyo final instead of the shared gold, in terms of drama if nothing else. (Terrible broadcasting from the BBC but still)

Beeb have not been good for the field events.
And in Tokyo it should have gone to a jump off

More drama as Romania get the Bronze in gymnastics back from USA.
Something over the inquiry being voided.

China good at Weightlifting as well.

Japan's second b-boy Hiro was doing incredible moves, but I guess he wasn't hitting those judging criterias as he's out in the round robin.

The Madison is always one of the more confusing races to follow but 200 laps with sprints every 10 laps makes this a grueling affair.

I was not prepared for the level of athleticism in the men's Breaking.

While the women's early rounds I guess had many say they could do X moves, the guys are coming up with some really crowd pleasing moves.

Japan wins the first and maybe last women's gold medal in breaking.

I had no idea how the judges scored any of this but it was a good vibes event.

Looking forward to what the men do tomorrow. Japan's flag bearer is competing in the event.

Thiam winning her 3rd Heptathlon gold is incredible.
Even Carolina Kluft couldn't manage and she has 3 world titles.

Breaking is my fav event.
Comes with good music and people going nuts with their moves.

Seems like 5-6 countries excel at Squash with Egypt featuring the current top talents.
Though we'll see in 4 years how things change.

I did not know there was a Flag Football World Championship, but of late USA is winning both the men and women's game.

really looking forward to the Breaking events as it's only for this Olympics.

LA instead gets sports such as Baseball/Softball/Cricket/Flag Football/Squash

I've least followed the WBC and occasional Cricket World Cup results.
But who else plays flag football outside the USA at a high level?

I thought the women's team was the dream team.
But I don't know which countries outside of USA have a culture of women's basketball.

Javelin was great as India and Pakistan went head to head.
The throws from Pakistan were like a bomb just got detonated.

I hope covid is the only thing they test positive for.

Would be a shame if we had some Balco level shenanigans going after seeing so many great performances.

Elimination Race in Cycling is always fun to see, but often with loads of controversy.

Wow hope the Ethiopian in the steeplechase is ok, one of the more brutal track falls we've seen so far and there's been a few.

But what a silver from USA in that race.

We all already have our Ereshes!

What the flying fuck was the end to that men's 400m.
Hall just went flying in that last 100m, ugliest technique but he was just charging through.

I like how in the men's discus the Lithuanian World Record holder is trying to live up to his dad a double olympic champion.

Oh wow disaster on the final lap for GB in the team pursuit.
It was a nail biter of a catchup.

Australia are having a great Olympics

I don't follow Greco-Roman wrestling.
I see maybe 2 or 3 bouts every 4 years.
But Mijain Lopez winning Gold in his 5th straight games boggles the mind.

Even Redgrave needed Pinsent to help him accomplish his feat.

The Steeplechase is something of a national sport in Kenya apparently
Their record in the event is incredible even compared to other long distance events.