Grapeviney

I'm tempted to open up a separate thread - a Jesse Hogan panic room - where those who have misunderstood this latest development can gather and stress each other out, leaving this thread for its intended purpose, which is to celebrate the great man and marvel at his feats.

I noticed that the soccer team I support is playing the soccer team you support at my team's home ground in a couple of weeks. Do you think Arsene will field his strongest side or are you guys just concentrating on the FA Cup again this year? On a serious note, Macca's point about the diminished status of that competition was on display over the weekend, with City sending out a bunch of kids to be thrashed by Chelsea, and Arsenal (who play Barca in the CL tomorrow morning) and Hull (focussed on promotion) also both fielding weakened teams.

A number of years ago, SBS put together a great 4-part series called Height of Passion which focussed on four rivalries - AC vs Inter, Real v Barca, River Plate v Boca and Vasco da Gama vs Flamengo. Was a bit odd they didn't include any of the English derbies, although at that time I think Serie A was still considered the best league in Europe. Anyway, it's a good doco hosted by Les Murray with plenty of highlights but also a lot of background and cultural info on how the rivalries developed and how they play out. You can watch it through YouTube. I've always had a fascination with big stadiums, large crowds and great atmosphere, and one day hope to travel through Europe and / or South America and go to the big games. Edit: I've been to Camp Nou, but it was just a stadium tour (still amazing). Even the lesser-light leagues have their great grudge matches, such as Olympiakos-Panathinaikos in Greece and Galatasaray-Fenerbahce in Turkey. Would be great to catch some Bundesliga action, too, as virtually all their games are sell-outs. These kinds of images give me goosebumps. River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires: 'La Bombonera' in Beunos Aires, home to Boca: Borussia Dortmund: This Youtube channel has lots of great 'atmosphere' clips from around the world under the 'stadium atmosphere' sub-heading: https://www.youtube.com/user/Partofthegametv/featured

Yep, I think they said last night that they've lined up with the same team and bench for the past 7 league games; the combination of a rested and stable team could be telling in the end. I know we're still a long way off, but Leicester play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the final round. Putting my allegiances to the side, wouldn't it be a fairytale ending to an already amazing story if they had to beat the reigning champions away on the last day of the season to win the title?

Cracking night of football, with both games delivering in spades and plenty of controversy surrounding the penalties in each match. Leicester have only themselves to blame, not just with Simpson's send-off but also the final, crude challenge which led to the winning goal. But for that, they would have had 3 away wins against their 3 challengers in the 7 weeks since Christmas, when they knocked off Spurs at WHL. It's hard to see the top 4 changing at this stage, even though United are only 2 wins behind City with 12 weeks to play, and one wonders what's going to happen to LVG, and when.

Only downside to that idea Macca is that you're effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it then becomes harder to qualify through the League (4th spot becomes Europa). Then again, the top EPL spots are usually occupied by the same clubs year after year, whereas the battlers tend to have more of a chance of making it through to the FA Cup final, so it would be a nice carrot for the lower-ranked EPL teams, a backdoor into Europe. But as you've pointed out on the previous page, the top clubs have such busy schedules that something has to give somewhere, in one of the comps. Spurs probably care little for their current Europa campaign, but City and Arsenal would definitely be prioritising Champions League ahead of FA Cup.

I've never understood why some supporters leave when they're down 1-0 with 5 minutes and stoppage time still to play. The game's not over! You can still score! Sure, if you're down 4-0 then you might want to get ahead of traffic or catch the early train, but some fans even leave when their side is up, and I don't understand this either. Relative to AFL, there are so few goals - wouldn't you want to see, and celebrate, every one of them? I never leave the footy early. The English are weird.

Sorry Doc, we're too busy chasing the title to be distracted by some petty north London rivalry with your second-rate side.

The home side never really got going, Macca, enabling Leicester to consolidate top spot with another convincing (and entertaining) win, and relegating City to third place behind a Spurs side that continues to make every post a winner. Chelsea host ManU tonight in what should be a good game, but it's next week that offers a tantalising top-of-the-table double-header with Leicester at Arsenal and Spurs visiting City.

So Arsenal were the only real losers overnight, being held to a scoreless draw at home against Southampton. The Foxes, Spurs and City all won as expected, with Jamie Vardy kicking an absolute gem to continue his and Leicester's fairytale season.

And many of them are easy shots. Jones, in contrast, has become very good at kicking clutch goals.

Barnstorming finish to a ripping game at Carrow Road, with Norwich levelling in the 92nd minute only to see Liverpool kick the winner in the 95th for a 5-4 victory. Dele Alli scored one of the goals of the year in Spurs 3-1 win against Palace.

Just finished Hack Attack, by Nick Davies. This is a cracking read about the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert's London Sun and News of the World newspapers, written by the Guardian journalist who first exposed the practice, and then continued to pursue it, despite the best efforts of NewsCorp, Scotland Yard, the prosecutor's office, Parliament, and the rest of the Fleet Street press to make it go away. The behaviour of NewsCorp is not surprising if you're familiar with the British tabloids, although I was astonished to learn that as the noose tightened around its neck and the cops were finally closing in, they deleted 300 million emails (!!) from their servers, of which only 90 million were able to be recovered by investigators. No, the shocking thing here is the way the other institutions - especially the cops and the prosecutors - boldly lied at every stage of the affair until, finally, they were forced kicking and screaming to bring News to account. It's a fascinating and worrying expose of corruption at the highest levels of British society, and the cynical ties that exist between powerful elites - police commissioners, newspaper editors, government ministers etc - who thought they were above the law. It reads like a detective novel at times, and even if you know the ending and how it all panned out, you can't help but secretly barack along the way that News will ultimately gets its comeuppance. It does, but as the author notes at the end, you have to wonder just how much of a difference it all made in the wash-up. Yes, the News of the World was forced to close, and a number of journalists and newspapers executives were convicted and even jailed, but the NOTW was quickly replaced by the Sun on Sunday, and Rebekah Brooks, Rupert's number 1 editorial gun in the UK, was restored to her position as CEO of the company's British operations after she was acquitted (luckily, in my opinion) of phone-hacking charges. If nothing else, Hack Attack is proof that good investigative journalism still exists, and it is possible, although difficult, to still hold powerful institutions to account. Very highly recommended. Edit: Just saw on Twitter that Andy Coulson, the former Murdoch editor jailed for hacking, has set up a new PR company. In response, former UK Deputy PM John Prescott, a phone-hacking victim, tweeted: "I left him a good luck message on my mobile." Haha!

Liverpool will be spewing after that; played the better football, created more chances, and looked more likely to score throughout. LVG will be pleased to get the points but United were far from impressive. I missed last week's draw with Newcastle but they've been bog ordinary every other time I've seen them this season. Results elsewhere, however, mean they remain very much in the race if they can regain their mojo.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjr9Y3oNW-4

Great story coming out of India where a school cricketer has knocked up an astonishing 1009 n.o. off just 323 balls, setting a new all-time batting record in all competitions of the game. Fifteen year-old Pranav Dhanawad hit 129 fours and 59 sixes, with one bowler conceding 142 runs off a mere 6 overs. The ground admittedly had short boundaries, but so did the ground which was home to the previous record, 628 n.o by Albert Edward Jeune Collins, who held the mantle for 117 years. It will be included in Wisden, so it's the real deal, despite being just a school game. There's a really sweet and serious interview - including questions such as what's it like to be in the nervous 900's - with the humble hero here.

Had to settle for a point, Macca, despite dominating much of the game and twice hitting the woodwork in the first half. Need to add some firepower up front during the transfer period if we're going to keep pace with City and Arsenal and be a genuine contender.

All of which made it a great weekend for Tottenham. Come on you Spurs!

Big news breaking in Europe with Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini both hit with 8-year bans by the FIFA Ethics Committee in the wake of the bribery scandal. Both are expected to appeal to CAS but Blatter's already indicated he's retiring and Platini's hopes of succeeding him are all but over.

It would take a comeback of epic proportions HT but a top-four finish is not out of the question by any stretch of the imagination. Was hard not to feel sorry for the Liverpool goalie last night - dropped an absolute sitter in the opening minutes on debut, and looked all at sea thereafter. Watford were probably lucky with the opening goal (which appeared to have been kicked out of the keeper's hands), but they definitely played the better football throughout the course of the game. And if Van Gaal was feeling the heat after United's loss on Saturday, it just got hotter with Pep Guardiola yesterday confirming he'll be leaving Bayern at the end of the season. Elsewhere, Barca won their 257th tournament for the year, hardly breaking into a sweat as they beat River Plate 3-0 in the FIFA Club World Cup Final in Japan. Edit: Just checking the scores from other leagues; Real Madrid were 2-1 down after 12 minutes at home to Rayo Vallecano, and came back to win 10-2 !

And it's goodbye to Jose Mourinho, with Guus Hiddink set to step in as caretaker. Given the increasingly fractured relationship between coach and players in recent weeks, and their abysmal record (Champions League aside), it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it would still be hard to pull the trigger on a coach with a record like Mourinho's. There were reports that he was in tears after being told, but if anyone in the sporting universe is likely to land on their feet following a sacking, then Jose's the man. Will be interesting to see where he goes next. Edit: some important fixtures this weekend, with Liverpool away at Watford and Arsenal hosting City.

..and damn you Spurs. Fourth spot there for the taking and they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Watched the Gunners-Villa match last night, a very dull affair. Highlight was probably the Arsenal fans chanting that Villa should be relegated - along with Chelsea. lol

Yep - it's time to take Leicester seriously as a contender, and to abandon the idea that Chelsea can somehow magically revive its fortunes. The two goals that Stoke put past City were both sensational - especially the second, set up by a sublime turn and pass from Shaqiri. They could easily have finished with 5 or 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpU3zsBJ24s

Bit annoyed that my boys (Spurs) couldn't get the win and further stake their claim at the top end of the table. Even more annoyed that I dozed off in the second half and missed Costa's bib-throwing petulance at Jose!