The Haas / Force India argument is fascinating, and the decision of the stewards may still have consequences. The first key finding is that the stewards ruled Racing Point Force India to be a valid constructor. That means that it builds its own cars.

The Review: GW 18 - A thread

Hi everyone, welcome to the latest edition of “The Review” where I look at Bench Boost, Triple Captaincy and the upcoming double GW 19 in detail:

#FPL #FPLCommunity @OfficialFPL

(Data taken from @FFScout and @FFH_HQ with consent)

Before I start, I'd like to introduce you to this game called Fantasy5. It’s free to enter, with a £10k weekly prize. All you have to do is to pick 5 players that you think will beat their Fantasy points target. Link

At this point, I’d also like to mention that I post about FPL on my Instagram too, so if you have an Instagram account, follow up here!

Q: Who is the best captaincy option this week and why?

I jump straight away to what is the toughest question of the week. I first try and work out which one of the Liverpool midfielders to own:

(read below)

Salah (20/21) vs Mane (20/21)

Mins per shot inside the box: 33.73 vs 34.15
Mins per big chance: 96.4 vs 111
Mins per big chance created: 224.8 vs 333
Mins per chance created: 49.9 vs 57.9

Even though Mane’s numbers in comparison to his numbers in the yesteryears have...

The Melbourne Stars' 10 years of Big Bash history is genuinely some of the most hilarious sports in Australian history. Don't do this normally but, a thread:

BBL01: a somewhat conventional semi final loss to Perth, but look at the batting lineup they were rocking, they had Matty Wade at 8. 2/88 chasing 175 until Ben Edmondson (!) takes a double wicket maiden.

BBL02: The hilarity begins. Faulkner "captains" as Warne is risking a ban for slow over rates from the H&A stage. Scorchers need three off the last ball and Faulkner bowls a noey. Calamity. As an aside, Alex Keath on debut goes 1-0-27-0.

BBL03: Stars go 8-0 in the H&A with a NRR of 2.2. Utterly dominant. But it's a knockout 1 v 4 in the semi and you know what happens...Hobart restrict them to 141 and Paine makes 65 as they chase it down easily.

BBL04: Third time in four years, Stars lose a semi in Perth. Only chasing 145, with KP batting with Luke Wright, nine wickets in hand at halfway, all out 126.

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.

Is the reason that we keep on bottling semi-finals a mental thing, or is it just us finally encountering good teams in the tournament?

A factual thread looking at each competition we've gotten to the semi-finals of and lost under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Back in 2004, Ricky Williams, the American football player, left the Miami Dolphins after a third strike for smoking weed and disappeared. He’d had a notable career besides, but this was the capper: He said goodbye to his coach from Hawaii and vanished off the face of the Earth.

I was like, I want to be the guy who finds him. My memory is a little foggy here, but I think I got Ricky’s email address from the godfather of one of Esquire’s editors. It was an AOL account, I remember. I wrote Ricky and asked him if he’d talk to me if I found him.

He replied! And he said if I found him, he would tell me everything. AMAZING. But first—finding him. There were reports that he’d been in Italy, Fiji, Japan, and, most recently, Australia. A guy who’d felt trapped was now making the most of his freedom. Ricky was on THE MOVE.

I asked Peter, my editor, if I could go searching for Ricky. I didn’t really think I would find him. But I figured I’d get some crazy travel out of it, giving chase. That’s what I was calling the story in my head: “Chasing Ricky.” I imagined I’d always be one step behind.

Peter asked me what I thought my chances were. My brain calculated, “Less than one tenth of one percent.” My mouth said, “50-50.” I don’t like to think I was lying so much as my brain and mouth had been in disagreement. Anyway, a coin toss was good enough for Peter: Go.