Plissken

What makes you think Harry’s Garage has got stale? I mean, I’ve skipped a couple of the recent road trips but the rest seems fine enough.

This bloody got me.

Blackpool have sacked Michael Appleton after a 10 game winless streak. (Punctuated by a 4-1 win over Forest in the FA Cup.)

I'm thinking about al the games that have had an effect on me personally in terms of the storyline. Edith Finch probably wouldn't work, though there is an episode of the week type thing there. Deliver Us The Moon would definitely work. You could expand the background stuff and still keep the main plot, although the bit of the end would need careful writing. Forgotten City would be simpler to plot than Westworld. Call of the Sea?

Top four, alongside Black Sabbath, Slade and We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It.

It's clear that they were running out of ideas before Clarkson managed to get them kicked off Top Gear. The train carriage thing (not the one that got them fired, the caravan on a train line one) was desperately poor. The very best of the three of them was just watching three mates mucking about in cars that were relatable. The next best was when they were explaining why they love or hate a car. Instead we ended up with an endless series of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins that justified their screen time by having bits taken out of previously seen cars, calling them "Superlight" and costing more than their average viewer earned in a decade being taken to places to become beatifully shot backgrounds to three idiots cocking about. They took those worst excesses and took them to Amazon, where they had a huge budget that they had no idea to spend except on explosions and guns, only the lack of a 21 year old girlfriend stopping it becoming totally Middle Aged Crisis Gear. No sense of joy in their jobs, no sense of fun in being together on an adventure, instead a bunch of badly-acted surprise reactions to mean-spirited pranks and destroying stuff because they didn't have to pay for it You just ended up with the feeling that these three men were absolute morons, and how the hell did they ever get their jobs?

I think that if I had to watch Adama Traore on a football pitch every two weeks, I'd be inventing new swearwords by Christmas.

There are players wearing 58, 81, 62 and 43. Combined with the atrocious fonts on the shirts, they should both be kicked out of the competition for that.

A distinct lack of nodding and shrugging. He's got a lot more loquacious in recent outings.

Hate to break it to you, but I believe he was only wearing at a 1983 gig at Villa Park in order to curry favour.

Howe has done this his entire career, find the player in form and ride him for all he's worth. Almiron and Joelinton at Newcastle, Ryan Christie, David Brooks at Bournemouth, hell even Charlie Austin at Burnley. Somehow there is always one player who for a few months becomes the reincarnation of Pele and is absolutely unstoppable.

Pretty sure I've seen that before. One of the big clubs or players, maybe Man Utd, maybe... Beckham?

Going to put this here because I don't know where else to get it off my chest. Is there any way to bar football fans from social media? We tried to buy Callum O'Hare in the summer. It didn't happen. And since then, there has been this very weird plastic rivalry on Twitter which has - to be frank - gone too far. Yesterday there were a number of unsavoury incidents between dickheads who can't handle their first pint and think it's a good idea to accuse the other of throwing Molotov cocktails across the dividing fence. I mean, seriously. A Molotov cocktail. Seriously, if that had happened, you'd think that the world would know about it by now. None of it would have happened without Twitter. I quite like Coventry. Worked there for two years, living there during the week. Enjoyed it. Never had a problem with the city or the football club. But now it's almost as big a police operation as the Blackburn game, and - I'm definitely sounding like an old man here - it's all fuelled by young dickheads who have utterly no concept of, I dunno, moderation, or even cleverness. It's all "INSANE CARNAGE" and calling each other "vile scum" and seeking reasons to find offence and it's depressing as fuck.

Their punditry was "should the goal have stood?". The absolute black and white answer is "yes". The discussion should have been "does the rule need changing?" But they weren't interested in that bit, because they were clearly ignorant of the rules. Which is a bit of a problem for two ex-professional footballers, paid to talk about the game on a national broadcaster with all the resources behind them that entails. It's also deliberate ignorance. (I'm trying to think of the World Cup game where the pundits (on ITV, I think) were all railing against a decision, and they went to Peter Walton who explained why it was right with actual diagrams, and they just carried on anyway.)

I'm with @feltmonkey - the goal should have stood because that is the rule. Now I agree that the rule needs changing, but that's the rule. The problem I have is the ignorance of the rule from people paid to talk about the game on TV and radio, and I almost rang up 606 to point out to Chris Sutton and Robbie Savage that the goal was correct as per the rules, so they didn't need to get people on to debate whether it should have stood, and perhaps a better discussion should be how come a fan knows this and professional pundits don't but.. y'know... that would have involved phoning up 606 and talking to Chris Sutton and Robbie Savage.

Excellent game at Turf Moor. Can see why Coventry were on such a good run, probably the best visitors so far. Clarets got a rocket at half time and were just irresistible.

As the only person contributing to this thread, I have been lax in noting the new book, No Plan B, out like clockwork. Read it on the plane back from the States. It's pretty good. Either Andrew has got better at mimicking his brothers style or there a lot more Lee in the writing of this one. Though a few "that's for damn sure" came from characters other than Reacher, which feels like sacrilege. One thing this does have is something that he's done for the last few. The main mystery seems a bit meh, whereas a side plot could have been much more interesting. No Plan B has three threads running through it which all tie up nicely at the end, but the main reveal gave me an "oh, OK" and one of the side plots was "oh, that would have been good". However, it kind of feels like Child pulls his punches in order to avoid upsetting the audience, because these side plots are definitely "ew, gross". He even introduces and chucks away in a single page something that could have formed the basis for an entire Reacher book! I'll not spoil this one, I'll put spoilers around an earlier book - Make Me - the one about the town of Mothers Rest, which sort of does the same thing. The footballer references are getting far too obvious though.

Looking at that, I don't think it was intentional and as mentioned, the ref is moving sideways. (Actually, given that can be a red card offence, wouldn't VAR have checked it? But then maybe his colleagues just hate him.)

Qatar look at buying Spurs. Because of course they are. Will be interesting to see infinite money take on immovable Spursiness.

Also, the President in Buckaroo Banzai

If you want a picture of the future, imagine endless remakes and reboots stamping on a human face forever.

Rather than hide being the "per week" thing, £19.5m a season really puts it into perspective.

At his age, his number one priority is going to be his club.

He must give amazing interviews.