It’s a slow, slow Sunday. The kind of Sunday that makes you wish that during the summer – aside from the World Cup – we had robot football, or something. Maybe we’re not as technologically advanced as we need to be, but if I were a billionaire the first thing I’d do is take over that Boston Dynamics company (whether they liked it or not).
You know the one, they make terrifying dog robots that can’t be knocked off balance, they can go up and down stairs and open doors and stuff, and you know that sooner or later they’re going to make one that they can no longer control and which figures out how to replicate itself and will thus take over the world, devouring humans for fun.
But why not make it more interesting than that? Why not create football robots who can entertain us instead of scare us at their ability to do things which prevent us being properly able to escape from them? A kind of world-wide league in which they have at each other with complete abandon?
And I’m not talking about these prototype things we see now. All we need to do is invent an energy efficient toaster or unsuitable submarine or something, launch one into space for the PR, and we’d get such a huge amount of government money we could develop them into lifelike android types, like *spoiler alert* John Hurt Bishop in Alien or *spoiler alert* everyone in Westworld.
Then, during the off-season, instead of sitting around trying to pretend to be interested in the actual nothing that’s going on, there could be a ROBOT PREMIER LEAGUE. The normal rules of football would apply but also some fun ones too:
- Any tackle apart from a two-footed tackle is banned
- Each player must commit at least five off-the-ball assaults during each game
- Each goalkeeper is an exact replica of Harald Schumacher and only knows how to do that thing where he smashed Patrick Battiston.
- The ball is imbued with the sentience of whoever is enemy of the people that day and they feel each brutal kick like ball to to the ear on a cold, wet day. No more Adidas Tango, it’d be the Adidas Phil Collins, the Nike John Terry, the Mitre Maroon 5, and so on.
- The referee has both a whistle and an implement for both electrocuting and stabbing the players. So if they answer back, a quick zap then a good skewering will put them right.
- The pitch would be some kind of metal surface rather than grass because they’d hurt themselves more when they fell, and there’d be flashy neon bits on it too because it’s FUTURE MADNESS.
- Robot Fan TV would be a thing but *PLOT TWIST* the robots would get to have a go back at some of the people who appear on it and give them a hard time about their performances.
And all the robots, instead of having that milky goop inside them as lubricant or whatever, have red stuff so it looks like real blood when the ultra-violence begins. I can’t believe we’re here in 2018 and this is not an actual thing. We, as a race, spend far too much time bickering between ourselves and destroying the planet to the point where it can’t support life as we know it, when we could be working together to make ROBOT PREMIER LEAGUE.
I hope you’re all happy with yourselves this morning. Shame on you. Shame on all of us.
Alex Iwobi has been linked with a move to Lazio and David Ospina could go to Fulham. To play football. Not for a nice meal with his family.
Finally, competition winners for one of three fantastic Arsenal prints. Well done to: Kane Lawrence, Sebastian Dutrieu, and Joshua Moon. I’ll be in touch with you guys to get your details, and if you want one of those prints to hang on your wall, they are available to buy from Matthew’s shop right here.
Have yourselves a lovely Sunday.
