Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Jean-Claude Juncker sums up all that's rotten about the EU

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3667054/Still-sneering-Britain-boozy-bully-sums-s-rotten-EU.html

No doubt this is a very biased article, but you never see this sort of thing reported on BBC. Over the last two weeks you can hear absolutely nothing on the BBC about criticisms against Juncker, yet every hostile word he said towards Britain they reported all of it.

Saturday, June 04, 2016

What I experienced throughout this fairytale season (3)

The nervous weeks

What follows was a narrow defeat by Arsenal; despite that, the title is in sight. We are now clearly in the run-in: a long string of relatively weak opponents, with 3 difficult matches at the end of the season. Which for us was actually tricky, since the opponents would sit back which did not suit our counter-attacking style. The team also became very cautious, grinding out 1-0 wins game after game. In-between we drawn 2-2 at WBA, and everyone thought we dropped points, only to find out a bit later that every other title contender in fact lost, so we actually gained ground!

We also continued to receive a lot of luck on refereeing decisions. I lost count on the number of Robert Huth deliberately leaving an arm out at an awkward position, waiting for the ball to hit it; or swinging elbows at people; and so on.

I had been constantly thinking about the fixtures, trying to work out whether we are likely to have the points needed to win the title. After week 33, with 5 games to go and 7 points in lead, my plan was like this:

week LEI: 72 pts TOT: 65 pts
34 WHU: D, 73 pts STO: W, 68 pts
35 SWA: W, 76 pts WBA: W, 71 pts
36 MNU: ? CHE: ?
37 EVE: ? SOU: ?
38 CHE: ? NEW: ?

So we needed to protect a 5-point lead over the last 3 weeks. There were two scenarios at this point:

(1) If CHE-TOT was a draw then we only need 3 points, most likely a win against EVE. But it was important to get at least 1 at MNU, otherwise there would be enormous pressure and things could go horribly wrong:

week LEI: 76 pts TOT: 71 pts
36 MNU: L?, 76 CHE: D, 72
37 EVE: D?, 77 SOU: W, 75
38 CHE: L?, 77 NEW: W, 78

(2) If TOT beat CHE then we would need to need 5 points, i.e. D-W-D in the last 3 matches which is perfectly possible but we would be under extreme pressure.


Against WHU we indeed got a draw, although it was thanks again to some dodgy refereeing decisions. And the Vardy red card also throws everything in new light. And after I saw TOT beat STO 4-0, I feared the worst and thought they would not drop any more points, i.e. Scenario 2 applies. But then next week they could only draw WBA. The table (and what could go wrong) now looked like this:

week LEI: 76 pts TOT: 69 pts
36 MNU: L? 76 CHE:W 72
37 EVE: D? 77 SOU: W 75
38 CHE: D? 78 NEW: W 78


The weekend that completed the miracle

In the 1-1 draw against MNU, we were again lucky. But very importantly, Drinkwater took a foul for the team and got red-carded. Had we lost that match, TOT needed only a D-W-W to get to 76, which looked extremely likely, and our failure would be a very real possibility.

The next day, Monday 2nd May 2016, it was CHE v TOT. The day history will never forget. You all know what happened. I was watching snooker on TV while following live updates on BBC sport. When they were winning 2-0 I thought they were too good to be stopped. When I saw the 2-2 I could not believe my eyes. I switched to radio; the Internet was too slow!

Then there was the final whistle. The fairytale was complete. I actually waited a few minutes for the BBC website to confirm it for me. Couldn't just believe by hearing...

And even better, within 15 minutes Mark Selby won the snooker!

(The subsequent downfall of Spurs was of course ridiculous. We have a lot to thank Chelsea, though; have Spurs won that match, their downfall would not happen and it would look overwhelmingly likely that we would be the one to let it slip.)