Watching this play sent me down a memory hole that gave me goosebumps as well as a pang of guilt. Let me explain. A THREAD!

The Premier League schedule can just about handle the games that have been postponed... so far.

But the league is on the brink of a fixture crisis, and the failure to entertaining agreeing curtailment / abandonment options may come back and bite them hard.

From the initial fixture build there were three Premier Lague catchup dates built in - the midweeks of March 2, April 20 and May 19.

However, these placeholders were primarily for teams which reached the Carabao Cup final and/or the FA Cup final.

Added to that, even without COVID postponements, if a PL team were to get the semis of the Champions League or Europa League and the final of both domestic cups there aren't enough spare midweeks to fit those games in.

Looking at you, Man City, Man United and Tottenham.

Now it looks like we have the added complication of Tottenham v Fulham being postponed.

If at least one of those clubs remains in the FA Cup through to Round 5, the game can only be played on March 2.

But it could get even more complicated.

If Tottenham reach the Carabao Cup final, they also have to rearrange (coincidentally) Fulham v Tottenham which is due to be played April 24.

If Spurs go far in the UEL and to the FA Cup final, they will have nowhere to play TWO matches before the season deadline of May 23.

Ahead of Boca-River tonight, a LONG READ thread on River Plate's 2010/11 season: How did a massive club and institution like Club Atlético River Plate get relegated from Argentina's top tier in June 2011?

🇦🇷 #longread (3,000 words)

This thread is based on the fantastic When We Were Kings podcast with the blessing of its creators @ErikNiva & @andreassonhakan. Because the podcast is in Swedish, I wanted to translate the story and share it in English.

Disclaimer: this is NOT a dig at River Plate. My book's title/front cover overwhelmingly suggest that it's exclusively about Boca Juniors - that's not the case. I'm 100% neutral when it comes to Argentinian fútbol. This thread is not written to antagonise River fans!

June 2008. River Plate win the Clausura 2007/08 title (a 19-game half season) with Diego Cholo Simeone as manager. It's their 35th league title! River's attacking players: Radamel Falcao, Alexis Sánchez, Ariel Ortega, Sebastián Abreu, Diego Buonanotte, amongst others.

10/08/2008: The story of River Plate’s relegation in June 2011 starts on 10th August 2008! River Plate draw 1-1 away to Colón de Santa Fe on the opening day of the Apertura 2008/09 - it would be a bad campaign:
P19: W2/D8/L9. Cholo Simeone resigns after 1 win in first 14 games

The Gameweek 11 Preview {THREAD}

Covering:
⭐️ Ones To Watch
⭐️ Captaincy
⭐️ Match Ups

With help from @fpl_shaker

#FPLCommunity #FPL

1) ⭐️The Watchlist⭐️

First off let's update the watchlist, focusing on players that you should keep an eye on going forward.

Quick reminder of last week's additions:

DEF: Cancelo - A bit punty since he is not nailed. Now it seems like he's playing midweek UCL games while Mendy plays the PL ones

MID: Jota - Looked good once again, bargain!

FWD: Vardy - Should be good going forward

DF: Lamptey (£4.8m) - Brighton started the season looking like one of the worst defences in the league, but seemed to have figured things out somewhat, only conceding 6 goals in their last 6 games which included tough tests against Spurs and Liverpool.

Facing four favourable fixtures in their next 5, Lamptey could have a baseline of clean sheets to support his penchant for attacking returns.

Thread:

Highlighting a couple of improvements from United's Europa league R32 win over La Real. #MUFC

La Real 0 v 4 Man Utd — Buildup & Pressing. #RSOMUN

Pressing & traps:

Often #mufc are hasty & over-commit in their pressing, especially from players like Rashford and Bruno. Thus leading their press to be dis-jointed and by-passed easily. On Thursday, they nailed it. They formed a pressing cage around #RSO entire midfield.

Aim was to minimize #RSO creative players' involvement on the ball. In fact, Merino & Silva had the fewest touches of their teammates. Bruno & MG11 focused on cutting passing lanes to midfield instead of rushing the press. MG11 pressed nearside CB when ball went out-wide.

The trigger for United's press was when the ball is played to the FBs. This is where a ball nearside Winger pressed the FB, while the CF closes the ball nearside CB & the CM (Scott) & FB (AWB) pressed the dropping CM (Merino) & LW (Oyarzabal).+CB pressed dropping CF (Izak). #mufc

Buildup:

#MUFC built-up in a 2422 where the CF & CAM dropped to help the buildup. #RSO pressed in 4132 with Silva pushing up. Th improvement was how Fred and Scott communicated & opened up angles for their CBs to cut through the press.+ Bruno dragging Illarramendi OOP.

THREAD - HANUMA VIHARI'S INSPIRING JOURNEY.

Joined the St.Johns Cricket Academy at the age of 11. And after few days his father passed away. But the next day, Vihari scored 80 in the final and won a school tournament.

VVS was the first of five cricketers who came from St. John’s academy and went on to represent their country followed by Mithali Raj, MSK, Tarun Sai and Hanuma Vihari.

2012 - Picked as a last-minute replacement for the injured Manan Vohra for the 2012 U19 WC. India won the World Cup but he could only score 73 runs in 6 matches.

"That moment I told myself, I would be the first one to play for the national team from this U19 WC squad 2012."
- Hanuma Vihari in Spicy Pitch episode (cricbuzz)

2013 - SRH brought him in the IPL. Vihari opened the bowling as an off-spinner and removed Chris Gayle for just 1, also scored 46* in the same match while chasing and was awarded Man of the match in his 2nd IPL game.
Scored 241 runs in 17 games in IPL 2013, with two MOM.