The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Friday, April 30

Hey, everyone!

I had a dream the other night that I was the Tottenham manager for the Carabao Cup final, and we beat Manchester City 1-0. Dream me, by the way, is available for the vacant Spurs job.

Ramble of the Day

A couple of years ago, I rambled about the show I watch when nothing else is on, Shark Tank. It has been some time, though, and my tastes have changed because that show is now Beat Bobby Flay.

It started off as the perfect show to leave on my television as I prepared for bed on a Sunday night. It was perfectly inoffensive to leave in the background, but you’d be entertained enough if you bothered to pay attention. Suddenly, it became a favorite of my younger sister’s. One night, she was watching it by herself and saw a man incorporate cheddar cheese into his palak paneer and was desperate for the rest of the family to see it. She watched episode after episode waiting for it, and it slowly became a highlight of her week. (It took us Food Network about a year to re-air the episode.)

For a while, I wondered why Flay wanted to fight everyone. It wasn’t his first foray into competition cooking shows, and the concept of Beat Bobby Flay is creating a hostile environment for himself. He gives his opponent an advantage by asking them to make their signature dish, and each episode Flay’s friends arrive to heckle him and root on his opponent. That’s probably why I find it slightly humiliating when Flay wins; he affords the opponent many competitive advantages, and he wins very frequently. It ups the intrigue, in a way.

It’s not surprisingly more entertaining than I once thought. It’s just something that I warmed up to after accidentally watching a lot of it.

tl;dr: A few thoughts on Beat Bobby Flay, a show I randomly have watched a lot of over the last year.

Stay informed, listen to this: Dr. Maddy Orr talks climate change and sport on the Burn It All Down podcast

Links of the Day

The PFA says Twitter has not removed racist tweets directed at footballers despite those tweets being reported.

Former Germany international Christoph Metzelder was given a ten month suspended sentence for distributing child pornography.

RB Leipzig hired Jesse Marsch to succeed Julian Nagelsmann.

The Seattle Sounders will offer COVID-19 vaccines to eligible supporters at home matches.

A longer read: James Benge breaks down Daniel Ek’s bid to buy Arsenal and the complicated dynamics of owning one of Europe’s biggest clubs for CBS Sports