Definitely. Clubs too often sack the manager after a few bad results, and then have to start again with a completely new manager. Simple continuity can have huge benefits, and is really under-rated. Whenever a new manager is brought in anywhere, they inherit the previous manager's team, so they have to start rebuilding the team to suit their own desires... which often means a lot of new faces, and some ill-feeling in the dressing room about old friends being let go... and when the newly put together team doesn't click instantly, the manager is sacked, and the whole process begins again.

Arteta is doing pretty well, I'm glad he's staying.

In my country, over the last five years the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer... because we have a right-wing party in power, and this is their raison d'être.
I would suspect that in a lot of countries there has been a general decline in standard of living, but that the poor are hit disproportionately hard, whilst the ultra-rich have actually benefitted.

The biggest impact on standard of living at the moment is ever-increasing energy prices; help from the government for ordinary people has been effectively zero. The government refuses to tax their friends the energy giants, who are reaping record profits.

I suspect the one they really want is Messi, and I'm sure he'd go back there as well if he could. But it just isn't possibile with their financial situation, IIRC he was even willing to take a huge pay cut to stay, but he wasn't allowed to because it violated the league rules. The future of the club really is in securing the good young players over the longer-term, and then building a team around them. It seems they might be on the right track at last... just a shame it can't include Messi.

I'd really like to see Alcaraz vs a fully-fit Nadal, that would be some match ... and I'd definitely have Nadal as favourite for it.
But as everyone is saying, Nadal is not fully-fit yet, and is slowly making a comeback. Alcaraz should probably be favourite, but even so I don't think it will be easy for him. Nadal can never be written off, as we saw in the AO only a few months ago.

The speculation is that they are using this weekend for "experiments" to determine how to fix the car. Not sure if any of this will involve real upgrades, but I think it's extremely unlikely that they will suddenly be challenging at the front again.

Yes, no chance Hamilton would go to RB, particularly whilst Max is there - and I'm sure Max wouldn't want him in the team either. Ferrari obviously have Leclerc who is doing well, but if Sainz continues to underperform, who knows? I'm sure Hamilton would relish a chance for a season or two in a Ferrari before he ends his career.

The problem with football at the very top level, is that success or failure all comes down to a few key games, the rest of the season is essentially meaningless.
Look at a mid-table team, almost every game is a challenge, success can be finishing 8th in the league, reaching one cup semi-final, etc.
But look at a team like Man City... they are expected to win most league games and most cup games. The CL group stages are just money-generating activity, there's never much doubt that they will qualify and make it through to the later stages. Same in the league and other domestic matches, most matches are untroubled, routine victories. Only a few games in each season matter, and these are games against your real rivals, the only other super-teams about. Success for Man City is winning the CL, anything else is failure. For them, it's all fine margins - one slip-up at the wrong moment, and your season can completely unravel.

I think they thought the job was done, there was no way that Real could score two goals in the small amount of time that was left. So their concentration lapsed a bit, and Real came through and scored. That was the first mistake, then the second mistake was letting this rattle them. Even after conceding that goal, they were still going through, they just needed to control the match for a few more minutes, like they had just controlled it for the past 90 minutes... but they didn't regroup, and so Real scored again.

Once it reached extra-time, there was only going to be one winner really, there's no way a team comes back from a psychological blow like that. By extra time, Man City were reeling and on the ropes, just waiting for the final knockout punch.

This is it exactly. They can't afford any hangover at all from the Champions League disaster. Any dropped points, and Liverpool win the league. Man City's next game now is absolutely vital, and Newcastle will certainly be sensing some vulnerability there.

Of course, the opposite could happen, and City could come roaring back.
One thing I'd predict though is that if Man City do win the Newcastle game, it will be by a huge margin. They might drop points, but if they're going to win it, they'll do it in style to really overcompensate for that bitter CL defeat.

Regardless of it being Donald Trump's baby, if anyone starts up any new venture, and feels the need to emphasise in the name itself that this thing is true, this should really be sufficient warning that it's not. To any sensible person, at least.

I mean, if you feel the need to explicitly claim that it's true, then the only reason you'd do this is that if you didn't, then people would assume the content is either false or misleading... which could only happen if either a) it is false or misleading, or b) your past behaviour has been dishonest, and leads people to that conclusion.

See also: Project Veritas, and numerous others.

Rublev vs Evans is about as close as it gets, just about every games is going to deuce, and there are break points all over the place. I do get the feeling that Rublev may edge it though, similar to the way he edged past Draper last time around.

And yes I think Alacaraz will win, Norrie is good, but Alcaraz is just beating everyone he comes up against at the moment.

It is a good poster, yeah. One thing I don't understand is why the guy from Ghostbusters is in it.

Murray's big problem in recent times is that he can still pull off wins against top players, but his body can't sustain it over the course of a tournament. Many times we've seen him take a major scalp, and then lose meekly to a worse player in the next round. Murray in a one-off match can still be a tough proposition, but Murray a few matches deep into a tournament, when his body has been taking punishment from playing multiple matches in a few days, is usually less of a problem.

I will certainly be hoping Murray wins this, but it seems a huge ask, even if Djokovic is somewhat out of form/fitness.

It's not just mistakes though, really, a big part of it is that Real just never know when to give up. Some quite incredible comebacks from them, but this one is by far the biggest. An astonishing end to the 90 minutes.


Yep. They've been knocked out of the CL, but they now have another huge test, to pick themselves up and immediately start playing with their usual swagger and dominance... any points dropped in the league, and Liverpool will take it.

Man U vs Bayern was the first thing that came into my mind, too, with that first goal to make it 1-1 on the night... of course there wasn't much time to think about the possibility of that before it happened, and it was 2-1, and the tie was level on aggregate. It's difficult to imagine what the Man C players were feeling at that point - but certainly the Bayern players from all those years ago would know what it felt like. And then once it was level, it seemed like there could only ever be one winner, which is the way it turned out. It's going to be difficult for Man C to come back from this immediately, but they need to as the premier league title is at stake too, and they can't afford to dwell on this.

I can't see it being a boring match. It's everything to play for, very finely balanced, but Madrid know they have to score, so it can't just be both teams sitting back and playing a cautious game. With the attacking abilities of both teams, and the high-scoring first leg, this does look like it could be a really exciting semi-final.

I don't really know who I'd prefer to go through. On the one hand Madrid, because Liverpool vs Man City is just an all-England domestic match. But on the other hand... Liverpool and Man City have been fighting all year, and a final showdown for the biggest tournament in club football would be a great way to finish the season.

Yes, definitely it was the engine change and Merc's technical edge that propelled them to the front of the field in the last era. I wouldn't credit Schumacher with much if anything there.
As for Hamilton moving or retiring, I think what he wants is that 8th title. If that doesn't look achievable at Mercedes, I can't see him going to another also-ran team if the car can't compete, even McLaren. What would be his motivation?

Everton beat Chelsea last time out, so that should mean they're capable of beating anyone (except Liverpool and Man City). Their last 5 games all look winnable, the toughest being Leciester, who might be sidetracked by the European endeavours, and then Arsenal on the last day of the season, when Arsenal may no longer have anything to play for - end of the season is often a good time to play top teams.

At least it's not London - the most heavily surveilled city outside of China, with a quite absurd 73.3 cameras per 1,000 people (as of May 2021). For interest, New York (7.1 ) and Los Angeles (8.8 ) are an order of magnitude lower. And Texas would need around 400,000 cameras to match London (if my maths is correct).


https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surveilled-cities/


https://www.statista.com/chart/19256/the-most-surveilled-cities-in-the-world/

They definitely deserve a lot of credit. No team in the world could be expected to pull back a two goal deficit against Liverpool... but Villareal did just that, and really pushed Liverpool a lot more than the aggregate scoreline suggests. In the end, I would say the Villareal goalkeeper in the second leg didn't help them particularly, but arguably Liverpool would have found a way to win whoever was in goal.

Yes, the match did vary in quality quite a lot, both players fluctuating. I thought when Raducanu nearly went a double break down in the final set at 15-40, but pulled it back and then went 4-3 up, that she would win... but then her level dropped a bit and her opponent came back.



I like the quote from Murray regarding the next match: "He's the world number one, and I've got a metal hip"
Difficult to believe, but the last time these two played, Murray was world number one and Djokovic number two.