Cartilage Free Captain

One of the greatest things in the history of television was announced last week.

Conan O’Brien, professional podcaster, former basic cable television host, former prime-time funnyman, former Saturday Night Live writer and former Simpsons accomplice, will host the Oscars next year.

Rejoice! Rejoice, I say!

For the kingdom of Conan has descended upon thee! The red-haired maestro from Brookline, Massachussetts, will descend upon the people in Hollywood, California, to officiate a ceremony celebrating the truest fruits of their collective labours.

Rejoice! Rejoice! For the hours is near and the Oscars come to us all. Rejoice, I say! For Conan O’Brien will be appearing once more on television screens across millions of households. Millions!

Bend the knee, I say! Bend the knee and place thy buttocks on the couch. For the dawning of a new and late-night era is upon us, just as it has never left us. Glad tidings to us all, with the lanky SNL alum filling the silence in our lives with his ramblings and Richard Nixon impressions on our airwaves.

How lucky are we, creatures of the world, to feast at the table of Conan O’Brien.

Our gingerly cherub will be descending from the heavens onto us lowly earhly scum to share us the good news of this year’s finest in television and screening. And we will thank him for it.

Oh glory days. What a marvelous renaissance this is for our hero Conan O’Brien. Nay, we shall call it - a Conaissance! The hour is nigh! The time has come to pay your pennace to the Great Bridge between America and the Emerald Isle.

What a day - what a glorious day!

What glorious times we all live in. To be participants in the world operated by the quiffed former-late-night show host. How he has brought so much joy into all our lives. We bow down before thee Conan. We at hoddle headquarters bow down before thee!

How beautiful, so beautiful. The days are short. The nights are long. Darkness envelopes us all. But we all live under the watchful beady eyes of late-night television’s greatest, most distinct host.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

For Conan is hear. Let the heaven and earth sing for all to hear!

Fitzie’s track of the day: Lucifer/ Song for Rufus/ Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, by Bob Seger

And now for your links:

Dan KP asks if Angeball is working at Spurs

Oh, ya wanna now how former Spurs players are doing? Look no further, per Alasdair Gold

The Athletic ($$): Spurs appeal over Bentancur does ‘more harm than good’

And now for your Conan links:

Conan O’Brien recalls how Robin Williams reached out to him after late night gig

NYT story on Conan hosting the Oscars

I know everything seems like it sucks right now and, y’know, fair enough if that’s your opinion, but if you’d like a bright spark in a sea of Tottenham Hotspur murk, I have one for you. According to the Korea Times, incoming South Korean signing Yang Min-hyeok is now officially the youngest MVP finalist in K-League history.

Yang will vie for the award of best K-League player in the 2024 season along with veteran keeper Jo Hyeon-woo of three-time defending league champions Ulsan HD, and Suwon FC’s Brazilian forward Anderson Oliveira.

Yang, who was a semi-pro footballer at the start of the season, has had a meteoric rise in Korean football and according to the Times is a shoo-in for the K-League Young Player of the year after tallying 11 goals and 6 assists for Gangwon FC this season. Jo, meanwhile, is attempting to become just the second keeper to win the K-League MVP award, while Anderson has 7 goals and 13 assists. Interestingly, the Golden Boot winner, Montenegran forward Stefan Mugosa of Incheon United, was not a MVP finalist.

I have absolutely no sense how likely or not it is that Yang would win the MVP award. If I had to guess I’d say not very likely, but that’s just a gut feeling considering he’s going up against a veteran keeper who has conceded 38 goals in 37 matches, but what do I know?

At any rate, it’s a pretty cool achievement for a kid who only just turned 18. With the K-League season over, Yang will report to North London soon so he can begin training with his new team. He is not eligible to play for Tottenham until the January transfer window opens and the transfer paperwork goes through.

The K-League awards will be announced in a ceremony on November 29.

NOTE: This article has been edited from its original version based on new information posted by the club. See the bottom for the update.

In a decision that has raised eyebrows across the fanbase, Tottenham Hotspur has decided to appeal the FA disciplinary board’s decision to ban Rodrigo Bentancur for seven matches for racist comments on a YouTube video in June.

Bentancur was banned and fined £100k for making a comment about Son Heung-Min and other South Koreans looking “about the same” on a video posted to an Uruguayan football channel on YouTube. You can read about the seven match punishment, Bentancur’s argument, and the disciplinary panel’s ultimate ruling here. In appealing the ruling, the club is accepting the FA disciplinary panel’s conclusion that Bentancur knowingly made racially insensitive comments, but objecting to the length of the sanction.

Interestingly, the minimum sanction for breaches of FA Rule E3.1 and E3.2 is six matches; Bentancur’s violation was deemed to be on the lower end of the severity scale, but was given a one match increase due to the “aggravating factor” that he is a famous international footballer and the remarks were made on a YouTube channel with broad and wide-ranging reach.

Tottenham are supposedly appealing to reduce the length of the ban by one match from seven to six games, which in theory would mean Bentancur could return in time to feature in Spurs’ match vs. Liverpool on December 22 if the match ban starts immediately.

However, there are suggestions that Tottenham’s appeal could have as much to do with the timing of the suspension as the number of games Bentancur is suspended. According to The Athletic, Tottenham have the right to request that Bentancur’s ban be lifted during the appeals process, which would not only mean he could play in this weekend’s match at Manchester City, but also in any match that would take place during the appeals process. It’s unclear how long the appeals process would take, but if it’s a number of weeks, that shifts Bentancur’s ban forward and would potentially mean he would be available to play in more matches over the busy holiday fixture period. Bentancur is already available to play in Tottenham’s Europa League fixtures as the ban is domestic rather than European.

Spurs play a string of matches in December that are potentially season-defining and come very close together — vs. Fulham (Dec. 1), at Bournemouth (Dec. 5), vs. Chelsea (Dec. 8), at Southampton (Dec. 15), vs. United in the EFL Cup quarterfinal (Dec. 19), vs. Liverpool (Dec. 22), at Nottingham Forest (Dec. 26), and vs. Wolves (Dec. 29). Tottenham are struggling with injuries to their midfield and being additionally short a player during the busy holiday fixture period could be significant. If Bentancur is forced to miss the bulk of the December fixtures and something happens to Yves Bissouma, Spurs could be in deep trouble, forced to play 19-year-old midfielders Archie Gray and/or Lucas Bergvall in important matches that they may not be ready for. The thought is that by shifting Bentancur’s ban forward, Tottenham may be able to better weather his absence.

I do not know if this is actually Tottenham’s thinking in deciding to appeal the sanctions, nor whether a failed appeal would mean tacking on additional length to Bentancur’s match ban. On the surface, the optics of appealing a ban for racist conduct is pretty gross, whether or not you believe the length of sanctions is unreasonable or not.

But considering the circumstances if the above theory is true — and it should be pointed out that it is only a theory — it does provide at least a plausible, if cynical, reason for doing so. The original incident happened in June, and Spurs are only now getting the final decision, five months later, at a time when they will be significantly impacted on the field by Bentancur’s absence. By accepting the decision but appealing the sentence, and asking to have the implementation of the ban delayed during the appeals process, Spurs could play the system enough to get them through a tricky and condensed period. The optics of the appeal may be bad — and fans do not need to accept this reasoning as valid or even plausible — but the end result could play in the club’s favor.

UPDATE: Tottenham just released a statement on its website that clearly indicates that Bentancur’s ban will remain in place throughout the appeals process.

We can confirm that the Club has appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur’s FA suspension, issued earlier this week.

While we accept the guilty finding against Rodrigo by the independent regulatory commission, we believe the subsequent sanction is severe.

Rodrigo will remain suspended from domestic competitions while the appeal is heard and the Club will make no further comment during this time.

So, basically you can ignore everything about the theory I posted about deferring the timing of Bentancur’s sanctions. The best case scenario now is a one-match reduction in his sanction from seven matches to six, meaning he’d be available to return in time for the Liverpool match.

I’m now more confused about this appeal than ever. The optics of appealing a ban for racist comments remains gross and awful, and the appeal would have a minimal benefit to the club. It’s also not clear whether failure in the appeal would have any material impact (i.e. lengthening) of Bentancur’s sanctions, but I guess we just need to trust that the club is acting in its own best interest at this point.

Good morning and welcome to another episode of Fitzie’s Film and TV Reviews, where your hoddler-in-chief reviews things he’s recently seen on film and tv.

I’ve got a long list today. That’s because I forgot to get to some of these in previous sessions. Nevertheless, I think it’s a pretty intriguing list! Let’s get started:

Kaos:

A unique retelling of Greek mythology. It’s a bit of a slog to get through, but got more watchable in the final two or three episodes. Jeff Goldblum of course steals the show as Zeus. It’s a shame it got cancelled because I think things finally clicked after the final episode, pitting Zeus against the rest of the gods and likely humanity.

James Acaster’s Repetoire:

Absolutely loved this comedy special from James Acaster. Split into four parts, Acaster plays a ficionalised version of himself as a lollipop man, undercover cop posing as a stand-up comic thrown into witness protection. Best enjoyed bingeing.

Great British Bakeoff series 15:

It’s all a bit tedious now, isn’t it? The cast changes every season but they all look the same. Used to enjoy this but now it’s mostly background noise.

Only Murders in the Building series 4:

The series began very compelling and very dark. I was hooked, but the punchline failed to deliver. Having said that, Zack Galifinakis, Eva Longoria and Eugene Levy were a delight playing themselves as our core three - Martin Short, Selena Gomez and Steve Martin. Stll love the show, but let down by the final two episodes.

Taskmaster series 18:

Loved loved loved this season, especially not knowing any of the contestants (“Fitzie, you don’t know Jack Dee?!”) Well I do now! This was also one of the closest seasons I’ve seen on the series. Andy Zaltzmann, Rosie Jones, and Babatunde Aleshe were also hilarious throghout the series.

Goon:

Took me a whle to watch this one, and I’m glad I did. This movie is about a simple bouncer who becames one of those ice hockey players known for beating other ice hocey players up. A sweet, funny and easy-to-watch film.

The Worst Person in the World:

This one took a bit more effort to get into. The Norwegian comedy/drama/love film follows Renate Reinsve as Julie who is still trying to discover herself as she enters her 30s. Feels like something that’s been done before, but at least it was done well.

Conclave:

This is supposed to be one of the Best Picture nominations at the Oscars this year (hosted by Conan O’Brien!).

Starring Ralph Fiennes, the film dramatices the politics of the Roman Catholic Church during the selection of its next pope. It would be pretty easy to lampoon the selection process (kind of like in City of Angels), but this film takes the process seriously while also fully committing to some of the church’s campier tendencies. Plus Fiennes is a true delight as the priest guiding the ceremony along.

Best picture though? I’m not sure. Think we’ll have to wait for The Brutalist.

His Three Daughters:

Oh boy, here come the waterworks. I clicked on this to watch Natasha Lyonne, not cry my eyes out. Lyonne plays one of three sisters caring for their father, who is in hospice care. A truly suffocating drama that doesn’t reveal its patriarch until the final act. A gripping watch, but prepare to cry.

Obvious Child:

I was hoping for a more unhinged performance from Jenny Slate, didn’t get it. But I was pleasantly surprised with this one which I took a flyer on.

Fitzie’s track of the day: New Sensation, by INXS

And now for your links:

Jack P-B ($$) on five years after Mauricio Pochettino was sacked

Ben Davies, Brennan Johnson and Wales promoted in Nations League

Welcome to another episode of “Where are they now?” where I take a look at what former Tottenham players are up to these days. I was going to do a post about someone else, but then I saw a tweet that claimed Toby Alderweireld was retiring from club football at the end of the season.

While I couldn’t find anything on his retirement plans (non not retirement plans), it did have me going down a Belgian/Dutch rabbithole on his current whereabouts. After some digging I found a recent interview he did.

The Spurs legend told Belgian media outlet VRT that he left the national team after an episode where he suffered a panic attack. He told VRT the incident occurred the morning after a cup defeat to Union.

“When I was in the car, my heart suddenly started beating at a rate of a thousand an hour. I thought: I’m going to have a heart attack. I’m done for, I’m never going to see my children again. I pulled over, walked into a furniture store and asked if they could call 911.

“It turned out that all the stress made my heart pound. That gave me a panic attack, which made my heart beat even faster. You actually drive yourself crazy. And at a certain point you think you’re going to have a heart attack and die.”

I don’t know what’s next for Alderweireld, but he was honoured by Belgium during their most recent international fixture period:

Alderweireld still captains Royal Antwerp, his hometown club, which sits second in the table behind Genk.

He’s also got a really cool tattoo of the Antwerp cathedral on his forearm.

This hoddle completes the sequel to the Belgian-themed “Where are they now?” hoddles after looking at Jan Vertonghen in June.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Stepping Through Shadow, by Menahan Street Band

And now for your links:

Harry Kane statue revealed five years after it was commissioned

For the first time since 2006, Tottenham Hotspur are updating the club’s branding. Spurs announced on their website and social media channels that the club is updating and refreshing the official club font, tweaking the cockerel-on-ball club crest, and reintroducing the THFC historic monogram as it attempts to freshen up its overall marketing look and feel after nearly 20 years.

Streamlined Club Crest

Tottenham was one of the first clubs in the early 2000s to make a radical and modern adjustment to its team branding, resulting in the modern-looking and revamped cockerel-on-ball club crest. To its credit, the crest looks as fresh and modern today as it did back in 2006. The tweaks to the crest itself are minimal and unlikely to be noticed by many fans if attention was not called to it — the club is removing the “Tottenham Hotspur” wordmark below the crest, making it just the cock-on-ball, which will, as the release says, “increase its scale across different environments and stand proud as a true icon for the Club.”

In addition, the club also released a silhouette version of the crest as a “supporting design” that is even more minimalist, and which will no doubt see ubiquitous use on various branding platforms and merchandise. This also includes a new palate of colorways, as seen in the image below.

Welcome back, club monogram

As depicted in the header photo of this article, the club is also revitalizing and bringing back the old THFC monogram which hasn’t been in use since the last branding refresh in 2006. You can see the old monogram, which featured in previous versions of the club crest, in old promotional photos. To my designer’s eye, the new version on the monogram has kept the basic shape of past versions, but has also been streamlined, reducing the intensity of the old font’s serifs and making it look cleaner and more modern. It’s a nice nod to the club’s past.

New graphical “Hallmarks”

In addition to the streamlined club crest, Spurs have also released a new set of graphics, titled “Hallmarks,” which were designed to “celebrate key heritage features, including the Seven Sisters Trees, Bruce Castle and 1882 – the Club’s founding year - to support our brand storytelling.” I expect we’ll see these Hallmarks used in various locations when the club wants to reference certain parts of the club heritage or defining features of the Tottenham area. The “H” Hallmark I think will probably see ubiquitous use in future club training gear and merchandise geared towards supporters.

Updated font

Tottenham have their own font, titled “Spurs,” created by Dalton Maag in 2006. The refresh seems to lean into widening the font and using more emphatic tilts and italics, though it appears there are again some minor tweaks to the ligatures and serifs in the new version as well, making it a bit rounder in some applications. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of just “fattening up” the old font a little, but to each their own, I guess.

None of the changes in this brand refresh are dramatic. In fact, if the club had decided to just quietly roll this out instead of making a big production of it, I suspect only the keen-eyed would notice, at least at first. If you want to be cynical, you can make an argument that the timing of this branding release is made today to offset the news of Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven match ban and fine for racial comments made in a June YouTube video. The club would probably dispute that; I will absolutely not.

As someone who does typesetting and design in my day job, I have to say that I have some quibbles with some of the decisions made here, but none of them are egregious or even mildly upsetting. The return of the monogram is a welcome addition to the club branding, the silhouetted crest is kind of whatever, and I can’t really do more than shrug at the new Hallmarks. They’re fine. They’re all fine to good. I am curious as to how the club will use some of the new dayglo colorways in its marketing materials and merchandise; blue and white will always be the club’s colors, but you do wonder if these new swatches will start to appear in future training gear or even away/third kits.

What do you think of the new branding? Have your say in the comments.

Rodrigo Bentancur’s sanctions have been made official. This morning, the Football Association officially banned the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder seven matches and fined him £100k for a racist comment directed at Son Heung-Min and the East Asian community on a YouTube video this past June.

The committee determined that Bentancur’s comments were in breach of the FA’s rule E3.1 and E3.2:

E3.1 A Participant shall at all times act in the best interests of the gameand shall not act in any manner which is improper or brings the game into disrepute or use any one, or any combination of, violent conduct,serious foul play, threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting words or behaviour.

E3.2 A breach of Rule E3.1 is an “Aggravated Breach” where it includes a reference whether express or implied, to any one or more ofthe following: ethnic origin, colour, race, nationality, religion or belief, gender, gender assignment, sexual orientation or disability.

Details about the sanctions were leaked last week and have proved to be accurate, though the inclusion of the fine is new information.

Bentancur appeared in a YouTube video with Uruguayan football journalist Rafa Cotello in which he made a disparaging remark about Son Heung-Min, his teammate and Tottenham club captain, and about how all Koreans “look more or less the same.”

In the written rationale of the decision, provided by the FA on their website, the association appeal board charged with investigating the incident noted that Bentancur’s comments did not reflect an egregious violation of Rule E3.2 (i.e. stated with “clear hostile, racist intent,” but did meet the minimum standards of the violation as stated in the rulebook. In effect, Bentancur did not sufficiently prove that he was not aware that his comment might be offensive, but his comments were subjectively deemed to be “objectively insulting and/or abusive,” but not overtly “hostile.”

Bentancur’s defense hinged on an earlier reference by Cotelo in the video to Son in general terms as “the Korean,” and implied that Bentancur’s comments were a sarcastic response to that “regrettable” comment, a light-hearted mocking of Cotelo using a racial generalization about his friend and teammate. In this context, it was argued, Bentancur’s comments were a “gentle rebuke” of Cotelo’s generalization. Bentancur’s team also noted that none of the press reaction in the wake of the video mentioned Cotelo’s comments, which, it was argued, omitted this necessary context, and that Bentancur, who had no editorial control over the video, was “shocked” that Cotelo decided not to omit the exchange.

The appeals board rejected this argument in their decision.

The appeals board also considered Bentancur’s immediate reaction to the controversy, issuing initially what was considered a half-hearted apology, and referring to his comments as “a very bad joke.” The panel seemed to indicate that this was tacit admission that Bentancur knew his comments were offensive both to Son and to Koreans whose racial identity was generalized. The panel also rejected Bentancur’s assertion that the comments were made in private with a “reasonable expectation” of privacy, considering he knew he was being filmed for a YouTube video by Cotelo.

That said, the FA’s sanctions of seven matches falls very close to the “standard minimum” for breaches of E3.1 and E3.2, suggesting the panel did not feel Bentancur’s comments were egregious or delivered with hostile, racist intent. Also mentioned were “mitigating factors” — it was Bentancur’s first offense, it was not premeditated, recognition that the video in question was not posted by Bentancur or any member of his circle, and he did voluntarily display genuine remorse for his actions. It does suggest that the FA is now at least attempting to take violations of these policies more seriously than it has in the past.

good morning - It’s been too many days without Tottenham Hotspur football.

Your hoddler-in-chief is spending the day scraping the bottom of the barrel to deliver the commentariat the content it deserves.

Today’s hoddle actually was inspired by a commenter, who posited during a recent Tottenham Hotspur Player Rankings that there is no such thing as a bad red panda.

We won’t revisit the player rankings (who needs to be reminded of that?) but we will revisit the red panda. Because, truth is, there is no such thing as a bad red panda.

Red pandas are great.

Take a look at these ones:

Look at them! So adorable. Especially the one on the arm swings.

Those red pandas are all a 10/10.

Here’s another couple of red pandas:

That precious video is of a mama red panda with her new red panda cub at the San Diego Zoo.

Freaking adorable.

Mondays are tough. Mondays without a Tottenham win are tougher. Least we got the red pandas.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Pandas Unite / Nobody Like You (Reprise), by Ludwig Goransson

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold on Ange Postecoglou’s January decisions

Dan KP: Harry Kane sends timely reminder to incoming England manager Thomas Tuchel

Joe Rodon to win his 50th cap for Wales

More great Tottenham news! Remember how Cuti Romero was substituted in the second half of Argentina’s most recent CONMEBOL World Cup qualifier a couple days ago? Well, just in case you were holding out hope that it wasn’t a significant injury, we now have this from Gaston Edul.

Cuti Romero was released from the Argentina national time. He will not play against Peru. He is returning to Europe.

Well... shit. Returning to London doesn’t mean that it’s a SERIOUS serious injury, but it’s significant enough that he can’t play for Argentina again in this international cycle, which makes it less likely that Cuti will be fit to play against City next weekend.

I hate it here, this is the worst timeline.

If Cuti can’t go then we’re looking at another central defensive pairing of Radu Dragusin and Ben Davies. And while Davies has been actually pretty okay as a defensive sub, it’s not exactly the pairing you’d want against the preseason presumptive Premier League champions, is it?

Remember Wilson Odobert? Yeah, I hardly do too. He came in as a late Tottenham Hotspur signing this summer, played a couple of games, got injured, recovered, reinjured himself in training, and has been out ever since. Ange Postecoglou called the re-injury “a pretty serious one” after it happened in a press conference, so you know it’d be a while before he was back.

But now we have something of an update on his situation from the man himself, and unfortunately it’s an Instagram story taken from his hospital bed.

So, uh, hospital bed almost certainly means surgery, and considering Odobert was nursing what seemed like a hamstring injury, I’m going to go out on a limb and flex the medical degree I got from the University of Holiday Inn Express–Indianapolis and suggest we might not see him suit up for us for another 3-4 months.

Me, right now:

Now, I could be wrong about this (it was an associate’s degree from UHIE-INDY), and I sincerely hope I am. Maybe it was a minor procedure and not hamstring or knee surgery. But no matter what, it’s not the update we wanted over this international break. The only positive thing we can hang our hat on is that surgery was clearly needed and now that he’s had it he can start to heal and hopefully make a full recovery.

Whether his recovery is this season or next season remains to be seen. Rest well, Wilson.