Dick

Today saw the not particularly surprising news that Sunderland manager Gus Poyet had parted company with the club. The defeat to Aston Villa at the weekend was the straw that broke the camel's back for many people, myself included. A total of 4 wins from 29 matches tells its own story about Sunderland's season and the Uruguayan had lost the fans with his persistence in using negative defensive tactics. The news that Dick Advocaat (who has managed something like 400 clubs in the past 20 years) was being sought as a short term replacement has led to a number of groan worthy jokes among Sunderland fans. Whether or not Dick will be able to stimulate Sunderland remains to be seen. But he's only got 9 matches left to save them from the drop and this change feels like it's too little too late.

I also finished House of Cards today in something of a binge watching session. It's been another compelling season with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright continuing to excel. There's been a few credulity stretching moments (the idea that the President would invite his Russian counterpart and Pussy Riot to a state banquet is pretty preposterous), but largely the drama has remained at a high standard. A theory doing the rounds is that House of Cards will end after another 13 episode season, bringing the count to 52, the number of cards in a deck. With the story presumably heading into the 2016 election campaign next time round, I feel there could conceivably be another 2 or 3 seasons covering the election year, Francis Underwood's second term and his eventual downfall. But we shall see.