The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Wednesday, September 4

Hey, everyone!

Mauro Icardi is officially a Paris Saint-Germain player (for a season, at least), so I figured now was the perfect time to recommend 50 minutes of story time on Icardi, courtesy of the Double Pivot Pod.

Ramble of the Day

Last night, I couldn’t help myself but stay awake longer than I needed to. It wasn’t going to be a big deal — it wasn’t dangerously late, and I had nowhere special to be in the morning. Taylor Townsend had won the second set over Bianca Andreescu, though, and I just had to tune into the third set of the U.S. Open fourth round match, even for a little while.

If tennis is on during the late hours of the day, I tend to live like this. It’s not just that I like staying up late, though; I forget that things can turn on a dime in tennis, and that conclusions aren’t always as close as they seem. Very frequently, I’ll tell myself that I’ll go to bed after someone wins the next set, with one player clearly in the lead. All of a sudden, the set gets competitive and I can’t leave. It’s not that I’d break a promise to myself or anything — the tennis is just too entertaining to leave behind.

I’ve been burned enough times to change my tone a bit. Instead of saying that I’ll leave at the end of a set, I’ll choose to leave at the end of a game. Even in the most dramatic of circumstances, I’m not going to delay my plans by more than 10 minutes. I decided to play things a bit fast and loose watching Townsend and Andreescu — as Andreescu went up a break to open the third, I’d decided that if she won the next game and went up 2-0, I’d go to sleep. It was a risk that paid off — she held, I went to bed, and Andreescu ended up winning the set and the match. It could’ve easily gone the other way, but my reading of the match was decent that time.

Still, it’s a way of life that I have no plans on quitting despite its risks. It is a bit of fun, after all.

tl;dr: I love pretending tennis matches will end on time.

Links of the Day

Charges of aggravated assault have been filed against Bayern’s Jérôme Boateng regarding an incident between him and his ex-fiancée.

Bury is being investigated for fraud by police following the club’s expulsion from the Football League.

Belgium and Bolivia have dropped out of the race to host the 2023 women’s World Cup. leaving eight countries in the running.

David Squires checks on the Premier League’s top teams in his latest cartoon.

Today’s longer read: Grant Wahl asks Alex Morgan about her opinions on her World Player of the Year nomination, Cristiano Ronaldo, the U.S. national team’s equal pay fight, and more for Sports Illustrated