In this week's edition of “Will’s Thoughts” we will be looking into the happenings of the English Premier League, the NBA, and MLB spring training.
In the Premier League, the Tottenham Hotspurs came off of the newly-introduced winter break with a thrilling 3-2 win over Aston Villa. Tottenham are currently without their leading man, Harry Kane, who is out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. However, the Spurs somehow managed to pull off an extra-time winner against a struggling Villa team. Villa featured a scintillating attack led by starman, and future Rolling Stones cover artist, Jack Grealish. They jumped out to a quick lead over the Spurs with a Toby Alderweireld own goal. The Belgian quickly redeemed himself with a hammering strike at the other end to level the score at one to one. The Spurs then jumped into the lead with a goal by South Korean dynamo Heung-Min Son right before the half, to make the score two goals to one. Villa defender Bjorn Engels thumped home a header in the 52nd minute to level the score, but that feat was overshadowed by Son’s stoppage-time heroics. Son’s second goal of the night saw him redeem a through ball of which Engels had made a hash in the build-up, ending the game at three goals to two. This result saw the Spurs jump into fifth place, only one point behind their London rivals, Chelsea. The Spurs will get a chance to jump the Blues of Chelsea in the upcoming week with the two London giants clashing on the 22nd of February. Of course, Tottenham will thrash the Blues back into the nothingness that they were before 2003.
The only thing I will say about the NBA is that the all-star game was awesome. The fourth quarter had “get out of your seat” levels of excitement, but it could have done with a whole lot more Nikola Jokic. It's certainly a questionable decision by Frank Vogel to leave the greatest basketball player since…well ever…on the bench in crunch time.
Baseball is getting back into the swing of things with pitchers and catchers reporting to camps early last week, but all of this is overshadowed by the league’s ineptitude in handling the Houston Astros cheating scandal. The scandal has been the only talking point among teams and news reports throughout the country, who have been bemoaning the lenient punishment doled out by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. In other news, the Atlanta Braves are freaking stacked. They are going to win 100 games and destroy the New York Yankees in the World Series four games to zilch. That’s my take, come back to it in October and marvel in its majesty.
