The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Friday, July 6

Hello, Hoddlers!

Did you want to read about Gareth Southgate? I’m sorry if you did not because that is what I’m rambling about today.

Ramble of the Day

I made up my mind a few hours before writing today’s ramble that I would look through #GarethSouthgateWould tweets, and then it took me an hour to actually get started after I had turned on my computer. This is a rushed collection of tweets that I liked and/or felt the need to comment on.

This is the formula to the best #GarethSouthgateWould tweet. It taps into the essence of Southgate’s image of an ordinary man who is also extremely kind in mostly small ways that add up to form an impressive human. Making noise while eating is hardly at the top of most people’s list of things they dislike about others, but naturally is something that irks people. It is a somewhat mundane thing to remark about, which is why Southgate being good about it makes sense with the prompt being presented.

This one is also pretty good. It’s the most clever way to tell the joke by touching on Southgate’s assumed nice nature, but makes a joke by tweaking one element to make it incredibly dramatic.

I liked this one because the situation in which Southgate is thrown into is very English. There were a few others that were definitely very English that I did not understand, like one about cheese straws. (After light Googling, it appears that cheese straws are like cheese churros, maybe? I don’t know. I could use clarification.)

This is the last one I’ll share, and this is the one I have a problem with. This is far too elaborate. People do not do that. We are just not that nice to each other, not even Southgate, a person assumed to be nicer than most. It is going above and beyond and then some, and is ultimately unrealistic. Southgate is supposed to be surprisingly, but realistically nice.

I’d like to cap things off with a real life #GarethSouthgateWould story before #GarethSouthgateWould was a thing. It’s a thread that you’ll have to click on to read because embedding all of it would be a formatting nightmare (for me, at least).

tl;dr: I guess I had to analyze Gareth Southgate jokes.

Links of the Day

Danilo will miss the rest of the World Cup with ligament damage in his left ankle.

MLS has reinstated Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Tyler Deric eight months after he was arrested on domestic violence charges.

Costa Rica has decided not to renew manager Óscar Ramírez’s contract following the team’s group stage exit.

Facebook is in talks to bring a reality show about Cristiano Ronaldo to Facebook Watch.

Transfer roundup: Brighton have signed defender Bernardo from RB Leipzig; Real Madrid added Álvaro Odriozola from Real Sociedad; Watford have signed goalkeeper Ben Foster and midfielder Ken Sema from West Brom and Östersunds, respectively; Napoli have signed goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis, Fabián Ruiz and Alex Meret

Today’s longer read: David Bunnell calculates which World Cup teams are most skilled at wasting time for FiveThirtyEight