charlierc

Refs and the Man City empire are one thing but if you put your chances away and stop conceding the first goal, that would help. They've left so many points on the table through crap finishing, not least with Salah having looked out of form since his injury and Nunez being unreliable. Though have Liverpool been that f**ked over by the refs? That game at Spurs was one saturated in active incompetence, but they don't seem to have had as many problems as, say, Wolves, who seem to get one ridiculous call against them every week. I've seen it suggested losing that cup tie 4-3 at Old Trafford has kind of broken the Liverpool rhythm, and I'm guessing that mauling at home to Atalanta in the Europa League didn't help much either. But so too is that in bringing back all the players that recovered from injury, it meant suddenly half the team is trying to regain match fitness at the same time and is as a result a few steps off pace.

VAR did check but ruled the video evidence was inconclusive so couldn't give Barcelona the goal.

There are so many people who want Ferrari to recruit Newey, who has gone on record to say that his regrets include never working for Ferrari and with Lewis Hamilton, and next year, you can cross those two off in one. Though one rumour I heard was the Ferrari were looking with more intent as Pierre Wache, who is Red Bull's technical director. Aston seem meanwhile to be trying to basically buy Red Bull, having already signed Honda as engine provider and hired multiple Red Bull types. This isn't confirmed yet - another article today said the multiple sources splashing on Newey leaving Red Bull came as a surprise to Newey himself, let alone Red Bull, but it seems like the situation around the team is unstable. I still would be very surprise if it lead to Max deciding to bail and move to take Hamilton's vacant Merc chair though. Imo I think that's likeliest to be with Sainz, and with the kid Antonelli replacing the out-of-his-depth Sargeant at Williams if he can get the super-licence points.

Only 212 to go.

The Big Moon did a similar protest for their show at the Kentish Town Forum last year where they refused to sell merch in the venue and instead went to a pub over the road to avoid the venue taking a 25% cut. Which is certainly quite enormous.

Someone I was chatting with on Reddit was flying over for this and is pretty annoyed. It's certainly making me consider my option. I had been up for coming up to see The Killers there but this is making me doubt if it'll be ready by then. In theory, it should be ready for those show's June dates, but who f**king knows?

Pretty much. Man City's financial antics are one thing, but Liverpool's form in the last month or so has been pretty poor. Salah and Nunez have been much better going forward than in recent works. Also I see how little faith the poster had in Arsenal sticking the landing and keeping the Man City wolf from knocking down the door.

With La Liga, it's more that they didn't use goal-line technology. Something which, until the weekend, I didn't know as I assumed most big leagues have it, not least given the Premier League has been using that for over a decade, the Championship now uses it and it seems to work just fine when they remember to turn it on (the exception being Villa v Sheffield United in the first game back after lockdown).

Well I knew it was running at a reduced capacity anyway, but this isn't ideal.

I saw this earlier. Yeah it's pretty sobering to learn a dour 9-5 office job out-earns this by quite a margin. Quite remarkable we've done a lot to make the music industry what it is while also trying to close the pipeline.

It sounds like that might well have issues anyway given one of those gigs is on the same day as a Manchester City home game that Sky picked as a late (5:30pm) kick-off.

Well we can see that in two tranches, given on the one hand you have the fact some decisions seem to be handled by on-pitch and VAR officials leaving it to one another, and on the other offside becoming some hyper-scrutinised. Irony being a clear offside in the Middlesbrough v Leeds Championship game last night not being spotted by on-pitch linos has lead to people wanting it where it isn't. Talk about always wanting what you don't have.

Clearly Liverpool and Nottingham Forest aren't the only ones who have a problem with refereeing standards. Admittedly it is a surprise to learn La Liga does not use goal-line technology given the Premier League has had this since 2013.

Given Albarn's outspoken tendencies, it seemed like a particularly odd booking to me. Either that or they thought it was the same vibe that you would have seen at Coachella in 2013 when it still felt more like a festival and before it turned into more of a social media influencer parade.

If true, that's particularly damning and problematic. Not helping me decide if I'm up for coming up to Manchester for one of The Killers' Co-Op Arena dates in June.

Do we call the big one Bitey?

As I recall, it was a handful of shows in Brazil in 2022 with the official story being that for medical reasons, Alex wasn't cleared to take the vaccine. Clearly it's a contrast to 2011 when there was a rumour President Obama was enough of a fan that he brought all the tickets to a show they were doing in DC.

Hey Newcastle have scored and conceded more than Man United this season, so our games have been similarly fun for neutrals and chaotic for us who actually the support the damn bunch. Drawing 4-4 with Luton was particularly f**king wild.

I live the other side of Milton Keynes and that's not really the vibe I'm feeling with the fields round here. It hasn't been raining with the same frequency as it had done before Easter, but there's a lot of puddles still scattered around.

I mean, if you keep letting opposition have 15+ or even 20+ shots a game, it's one way to guarantee that games don't end 0-0.

I think part of it is how VAR was sold. It seemed to be that before VAR was introduced to the Premier League, it was being billed as a magic elixir that would fix everything, whereas in reality, new technology has just helped to magnify deficiencies with the existing system. It's basically like something out of Black Mirror, albeit significantly more mundane than any of the twisted visions that show has created. It is certainly curious as to how offside has been re-framed from being this subjective call to being something that requires hyper-precision to call, and even then, tweak the line one inch or two to the left or right and you totally flip the outcome, which makes even that more difficult. And like I said, I'm not sure pivoting to the Champions League's semi-automated offside system next season is going to smooth out all of the bumps.

I can guess as such. A few weeks later, Newcastle played Man City and had an equaliser chalked off due to questions about an offside player interfering with Hart's vision that most people at the time thought was a bullshit reason, and which I think of as still annoying. But then that's the nature of it. Referees are part of the football mythology, for better or worse.

Didn't think I'd see Hugh in this role again.

On the one hand, this is an older story, given I distinctly recall this being brought up at the time and while it did get some queries, it didn't seem to gain as much traction. If anything, their last US tour seemed to be their biggest so far and they're still getting decent crowds. On the other, it's a very odd past-time to being making MAGA Christmas music, and I've noted he doesn't seem to have given many if any interviews since then - most of the press for the last Two Door Cinema Club album was done by other members of the band.