The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Wednesday, January 27

Hello, all!

That’s captain Josie Green at the top today.

Ramble of the Day

During my morning routine of checking the internet to see what I missed while I slept, I saw the now viral video of UCLA gymnast Nia Dennis’ stellar floor routine. It includes the normal thrills of watching someone do something that most of us couldn’t, but it’s also one of the more entertaining gymnastics routines I’ve seen. (For what it’s worth — I don’t watch it much outside of the Olympics, but this is quite entertaining regardless.)

I only found out just before writing this Hoddle, though, that Dennis’ routine has quite a lot of meaning built into it. It honors a lot of Black Americans: per Slate, songs played were from the likes of Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Soulja Boy, Missy Elliott, Megan Thee Stallion, and Tupac and Dr. Dre. Additionally, “Dennis pays tribute to Colin Kaepernick (she kneels!), Tommie Smith and John Carlos (she raises a fist!),” among others. Per the Los Angeles Times, she also worked in some more personal tributes to her school and her father and his involvement in a Greek fraternity.

The LA Times quotes her as saying after the routine, “This routine definitely reflects everything I am today as a woman. Of course I had to incorporate a lot of parts of my culture.”

This is much cooler than I originally thought, and I’m glad it made the rounds outside of the gymnastics community because it was certainly worth watching.

Links of the Day

Former Aston Villa manager Dr. Jozef Vengloš died aged 84.

Chelsea hired Thomas Tuchel to replace Frank Lampard.

Aston Villa signed Morgan Sanson from Marseille.

David Squires recaps tough times at Liverpool and Chelsea in his latest cartoon.

A longer read: Rory Smith on Ecuadorian teen Moisés Caicedo, the ease of discovering young talent, and the difficulty in signing those players for The New York Times