The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, January 5

Hey, everyone!

Let’s kick off the day with a fun fact.

Ramble of the Day

A little while ago, I found out about I Can See Your Voice, a new reality show where the objective is to guess if people are good or bad singers based on their lip-syncing ability and their social media feeds. The first I heard of it, the show seemed like it had no structure, and that’s why I decided to watch it. It turns out I was wrong about that.

It’s enjoyable enough as the celebrity detectives and the contestant make their best guesses at guessing if someone is bad at singing. They don’t bog you down with a lot of details, and I found it to be a great show to leave on in the background while my attention bounced to and from the television. That’s not because you don’t miss crucial details when you don’t pay attention, but for me it was in part because I didn’t care enough, and also in part because you don’t need to pay too much attention for the payoff. You’re going to find out one way or another if these people are good singers.

The show, in some ways, sets up for the bad singer reveals to be the more fun ones, but when there’s $100,000 on the line for a given person, the bad singer reveals are only fun at certain times. Take this video of a ghost hunter and Donny Osmond performing Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life” as an example: the contestant needed a ghost hunter to be good in order to win that money, and watching every single face wear an expression of mortification is a sad experience.

It’s still a bit of a weird concept, but the production value is high and everyone there takes it pretty seriously, which I think keeps the show from going off the rails. As someone who doesn’t mind weird, though, the fact that I find it on the boring side is slightly disappointing.

tl;dr: I watched at least one episode of I Can See Your Voice (I genuinely do not remember if I’ve seen more), and it’s a reality show with a weird concept that is unfortunately a little boring.

Stay informed, read this: the FA is planning to spotlight mental health resources ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup matches, including a video featuring Prince William and Tottenham’s Dele and Son Heung-min that will play before each match

Links of the Day

Four Manchester City women players, two Barcelona staff members, several Derby players and staff, and multiple Sheffield Wednesday players and staff tested positive for COVID-19.

The women’s FA Cup, non-league football, and grassroots football will pause during the UK’s latest lockdown.

Manchester United hired Darren Fletcher as an assitant to Ole Gunnar Solskjær.

Nice signed William Saliba on loan from Arsenal.

A longer read: Kathleen McNamee on Deena Rahman on holding several football related world records and tackling gender inequalities in the sport for ESPN