The best part is that he's right. The bloke is an Arsenal fan! To be fair to him, he seems to have taken it pretty well. He has added (not bitter) to his profile, though.
As with all things BBC, they go to startling lengths to avoid saying the obvious: the ref was on the take.
Presumably, this was just one of many inexplicable decisions? It's a shocker but I've seen some worse.........
He has a history of extremely strange and dubious decisions and they found evidence that he'd been paid, apparently. He awarded this penalty in the 9th minute of 5 minutes of injury time, then blew up immediately after it had been scored, for example: Rumours suggest that City are in for him in the January window...
I had guessed that but it seems an odd way of influencing the result. It looked much more like incompetence than corruption.
Just looked at the latest aerial photos of the new stadium which show the very last vestiges of the old WHL. I had to swallow. Goodbye my old friend.
He let Contador go yesterday on the freak show that is the Angliru, and waited to see what Nibali had. When he had nothing, he put the knife in. Good to see a TdF winner then go on to compete in the Vuelta. Cannot recall the last time that has happened in the last 20 years (if it ever has) .
As we discussed before, it's only happened twice - and that was when the Vuelta came first in April. It's difficult to make comparisons, but Froome only had 26 days between the two races, both in the height of summer (although the Angilu was far from summery yesterday). That makes it really exceptional in my view. He doesn't blow the opposition away, but he rarely has a bad day - and when he does, he loses only a handful of seconds to a few rivals, which it is a given he can retrieve because of his superiority in the time trial. It obviously helps that he has the best team, but that's not the whole story.
That is winners. I am talking about any TdF winner since 1994 who has then gone on to ride the Vuelta. Since the date change, TdF winners do not usually go on to ride the Vuelta. OTOH those whose season got wrecked (bad TdF, did not ride the TdF due to injury etc) frequently do. "although the Angliru was far from summery yesterday" That was typical weather for that climb at that time of year.
There were plenty riding this year's Vuelta who were prominent in the Tour. Quintana won the Vuelta last year having been 3rd in the Tour (and was in contention to win). Whilst riders might prioritise one particular race because it is so difficult to win two (three including the Giro), there are plenty who are looking to win both. Valverde had top 12 finishes in all three Grand Tours in the same year recently. Phenomenal achievement by Froome whatever has gone before.
So this little nugget appeared in the New York Post's letters page... Dear John: When will the US understand that the universal sport of soccer cannot exist in our country? It is a poor man’s sport where no equipment is needed, only a ball and a field in which to kick it. It cannot survive in the US for three reasons: Boring, boring, boring. The most excitement is among the spectators who burn or stampede the stadiums or kill the goalie or referee — which is where the term “fan” was derived: “Fanatic.” Seriously, the reasons are: 1) There is not enough “scoring,” i.e., nil, nil. 2) The field is much too large, and even TV can’t cover all of the action. 3) The main reason is that there are no timeouts for commercials — and who wants to watch for three hours and the only goal scored was during a commercial break? So much for No Child Left Behind...
