I know from experience there are certain games where, if you are the player who makes the difference, the fans never forget it.
I had been a Liverpool player for more than three years when I scored my first winner for them against Manchester United in 2000. I was used to being asked for autographs and people talking to me, but that goal against our biggest rivals suddenly elevated everything to a different level.
I was now the player who had scored that goal for us, and against them. It was like people saw me in a different way, and certainly thought more highly of me, because I had given them this joy in a fixture that meant so much to them.
It will be the same for Eze now and the immediate effect of his hat-trick is that, in the next few games, he will be so full of confidence he will feel like he can try anything because he cannot do anything wrong.
Whenever he next walks out on the pitch, whether it’s against Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday or Chelsea in the Premier League next weekend, he will feel he has the fans 100% behind him, because they adore him now more than ever.
It will be the same whenever he gets on the ball, too. You know the fans love you and that transfers to your game. You are thinking “give me the ball, what am I going to do next?” The feeling is amazing, and he will want to express himself and show the world how good he is.
That’s the buzz you get and it applies to any player scoring a hat-trick in a game of this size, but it always means a bit more when you are a fan of the team you do it for – it really does.
You feel a warmth from the supporters it is very hard to get if you’ve not grown up knowing it yourself.
I’d been at Old Trafford as a Liverpool fan watching them play there, so I understood what beating United meant to our supporters, the same as Eze will know what beating Spurs means to Arsenal fans.
What he did on Sunday will live with him forever, and the supporters will know he gets it too.
Shaun Murphy claimed his first victory over Ronnie O’Sullivan since 2017, with a 4-0 whitewash, as he moved into the quarter-finals of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship.
It was the first occasion since 2023 that seven-time world champion O’Sullivan had failed to win a frame in any contest of seven frames or more.
Murphy, who had also earlier defeated 15-year-old Ziyad Al-Qabbani 4-0, produced several stunning pots and registered breaks of 53 and 93 against O’Sullivan, who had very little time to find his rhythm.
“I don’t know what the statistics are, but it is a long time since I have tasted victory against Ronnie and they are special any time they come up even in short match like this,” Murphy told TNT Sports.
“It is such a prestigious event and you know everyone is trying 100% so despite it only being a best-of-seven I was pleased with how I played and delighted to get through.
“I just tried to go out and play like I have all season and thankfully for me most of those long reds went in.”
Murphy will now face current Crucible champion Zhao Xintong in the last eight on Thursday (20:00 GMT) in an event that has attracted huge publicity for offering a reward of $1m (£760,000) for potting the golden ball after making a maximum 147.
Meanwhile, John Higgins delivered a withering assessment of the table conditions in the Saudi Arabian capital despite compiling consecutive breaks of 106 to seal a 4-0 success over Ding Junhui.
“There are so many…like beer mats underneath the table and it’s raised up,” said the Scot.
“Somebody really needs to get told. I don’t know who has passed that but it’s pathetic for a million-pound tournament. It really is bad.”
Stephen Hendry, who was working as a studio pundit for TNT Sports, added: “It’s incredible how much it’s been built up.
“I can only assume the floor is so uneven they have had to build the table up, but as a player you can really feel the difference.”
Higgins, 50, will now meet last year’s winner Mark Allen on Thursday, aiming for a place in the semi-finals.
Eddie Murphy has solidly been established as Hollywood royalty after a decades-long career stretching from “Saturday Night Live” to “The Nutty Professor” to “Dreamgirls” and beyond.
A key hallmark of Murphy’s status is his voluminous gallery of offbeat characters — an impeccably attired prison convict, a clumsy professor, a wisecracking donkey, an elderly Jewish man and even an obese, abusive wife.
In Netflix’s “Being Eddie,” now streaming, Murphy lifts the veil on the persona he feels the closest to — Eddie Murphy.
Directed by Angus Wall (an executive producer of “The Greatest Night in Pop”), the documentary traces the meteoric rise and triumphs of Murphy, who seldom grants interviews and is fiercely private about his creative process and personal life.
With his trademark humor and probing insight, the entertainer offers candid perspective of his trajectory from a kid in New Jersey performing stand-up to joining “Saturday Night Live” right out of high school, his string of hit films (“48 Hrs.,” “Trading Places,” “Eddie Murphy Raw”) and his transition from foul-mouthed provocateur to family-friendly films.
Eddie Murphy, left, with his brothers Vernon Lynch and Charlie Murphy.
(Photo from Eddie Murphy / Netflix)
He also addresses some of his misfires (“Vampire in Brooklyn”), and throws more than a little shade at “Saturday Night Live” and the Academy Awards (“I haven’t gotten an Oscar, and I’ve done everything”).
The film is largely set at Murphy’s castle-like estate, where he’s seen hanging out with his 10 children and second wife, Paige Butcher. (“My legacy is my children, not what I did at work,” he says. “My kids are the center of my life. It’s all about them… If you put your family first, you will never make a bad decision.”) Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart and Pete Davidson are among the numerous entertainers who comment on Murphy’s influence on popular culture.
The following are some of the more fascinating takeaways from “Being Eddie.”
“For me to be thrown out first is nothing short of despicable, and I think they have covered themselves in a huge embarrassment by treating me with such disrespect,” Murphy told ITV.
“I always pride myself on conducting myself as professionally as I can, try to treat the game with an incredible amount of respect.
“There are three other players in this tournament who weren’t even in China last week. The way I have been treated by Matchroom in this tournament is nothing short of despicable.”
In response, Matchroom said it spoke to Murphy afterwards and “share his frustrations”.
A statement read: “Our priorities are the players, we take pride in the fact they consider this event prestigious and want to prepare for it.
“For transparency and fairness, the groups [for the draw] are based on seeding. Scheduling is always a challenge every year, but we take on board the points and always strive to improve for next year and the future.”
Lei, ranked 31st in the world, opened up a two-frame lead before Murphy reduced the deficit.
However, Lei responded with a break of 61 to take the fourth frame with Murphy unable to respond in the fifth.
Meanwhile, England’s Judd Trump booked his place in the quarter-finals with a 4-1 win over Bai Yulu of China.
Reigning women’s world champion Bai, 22, won the opening frame of the first meeting between the players.
But men’s world number one Trump held his nerve to win the next two frames with breaks of 84 and 71, to secure a quarter-final meeting with Murphy’s conquerer Lei.
Sarah Paulson appears to be having a blast in Ryan Murphy’s new Hulu “legal” drama “All’s Fair,” and that’s about the only good thing about the show.
The New York Times recently ran a piece extolling it’s reimagining of the power suit (down to at least one visible thong) and I suppose that’s one way of avoiding the obvious. Still, I’m going to stick with Paulson’s obvious glee in playing a villain. Her Carrington Lane was left behind to fester in the comic-book sexism of a male-dominated divorce law firm when two of her colleagues stalked away to form an all-female team and Carrington is not one to surrender a grudge.
It’s impossible not to like Paulson and she is clearly enjoying the opportunity to glare and hiss and indulge in the kind of gross but creative profanity Melissa McCarthy likes to unleash when her characters hit the brink.
As for the rest … well, let’s just say with “All’s Fair,” American culture is getting exactly what it deserves: A series that wallows in the shiny, knockoff-ready trappings of new money (immaculate and soulless homes, private jets, diamonds the size of a Rubik’s Cube), defines “sisterhood” as the belief that any personal crisis can be alleviated by vaginal rejuvenation combined with a girls’ trip to a jewelry auction and gauges power by the ability to plot and take revenge. Preferably in the form of huge amounts of money.
“All’s Fair” may or may not be, as some have said, the worst show of the year (or possibly of all time), but with its celebration of the 1%, personal feuds and financial vengeance, it is certainly the first to truly embody the culture of the Trump presidency.
Down to the reality star at its center. “All’s Fair” gives top billing not to any of the fine and seasoned actors that star — Paulson, Niecy Nash, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close — but to Kim Kardashian, who plays Allura Grant, head of the law firm Grant, Ronson and Greene.
Niecy Nash, from left, Glenn Close and Kim Kardashian are among the stars of Ryan Murphy’s new Hulu drama “All’s Fair.”
(Ser Baffo / Disney)
That Kardashian (and Kris Jenner, who serves as a producer) were able to summon such forces of the galaxy to showcase her, shall we say, limited thespian abilities could be justifiably viewed as yet another “you go girl” testament to her seemingly limitless business acumen.
On the other hand, “All’s Fair” makes the dismal final season of “And Just Like That” look like Chekhov.
Murphy, and the forces at Disney, which owns Hulu, the home of “The Kardashians,” understand Kardashian’s cult-like following and are operating under the assumption that viewers will be so entranced by her and the fashions (which include an alarming amount of hats, capes and gloves) that they won’t notice that the main player is relying on her eyelash extensions to do her acting for her.
To be fair to Kardashian, few nonprofessional actors would shine beside scene partners like Close, Watts and Nash, and the writing of the series, which flirts with camp but never fully commits, does no one any favors.
Not since “Charlie’s Angels” has there been a “feminist fantasy” with such a male gaze. (Apologies to “Charlie’s Angels,” which was in many ways a groundbreaking show.)
After suffering on the sidelines of a mostly male law firm, Allura and Liberty Ronson (Watts) decide to branch out on their own. They do so with the blessing of Dina Standish (Close), that firm’s only female partner, and take with them ace investigator Emerald Greene (Nash). When we meet them again, 10 years later, Allura also has an assistant/mentee in Milan (Teyana Taylor), who later provides a predictable plot twist.
The names alone suggest a level of parody, and, in the first episode, a send-up quality flits in and out of the proceedings, but the show chooses cynicism over satire every time.
Instead of sexist jokes, the partners of Grant, Ronson and Greene spend much of their time discussing how awful men are, with the possible exception of Liberty’s beau, Reggie (“The Handmaid’s Tale’s” O-T Fagbenle), and Standish’s ailing husband, Doug (Ed O’Neill).
That is, after all, the raison d’etre of the firm: Grant, Ronson and Greene are intent on protecting rich women from the perils of the prenup and generally making the bastards pay, sometimes through their “superior” knowledge of the law (in one storyline, this involves explaining that gifts are the sole property of the recipient, which even I knew), but more often blackmail (if you have chosen to live your life without ever seeing a butt plug the size of a traffic cone, keep your eyes shut when Emerald starts her slideshow).
A brief, and seemingly contractually required, mention of the firm raising money to help the underprivileged is laughable — “All’s Fair” is 100% après-moi television, in which extreme wealth is presented as too normal to even be aspirational, and any work not done by Emerald consists of sashaying in super slick shades from one successful throwdown to the next. With brief interludes in sumptuous cars and, as previously mentioned, overbidding on hideous brooches at a high-end jewelry auction (held by a firm client, which honestly seems potentially unethical, but whatevs).
If the dialogue were sharp, funny or even self-aware, Murphy and his team might get away with it, but it’s not — “It’s a shame your mother didn’t swallow,” Dina tells Carrington in what passes as proof that women can be as tough as men. Or that older women can talk trash. Or that Close will do her best to give a decent reading of any line. Or something.
There are brief nods to the women’s personal lives — as a divorce lawyer, Liberty is reluctant to marry Reggie, Dina is struggling with Doug’s decline, Emerald is a super-single mom — but it all feels very box-ticky. Including Allura’s disintegrating marriage, which becomes a major plot point as the gals gather round to make that bastard pay as well, and her realization that if she wants to become a mother, she’s running out of time.
Reading the zeitgeist, the creators of “All’s Fair” were clearly not looking for raves or awards, just viewers.
(Disney)
In many ways, “All’s Fair” is an American version of the excellent British series “The Split,” which follows a matriarchal family of female divorce lawyers. Early on, one of the daughters (played by Nicola Walker) leaves the family firm and, in her own way, attempts to right the wrongs often done to women facing divorce from rich and powerful men while dealing with her own marital breakdown and a family with actual children.
But “American version” doesn’t really cut it. This is Trump’s-America version, in which ethics, morals and virtually all human feeling are secondary to winning, and winning is defined by who ends up making their opponent pay.
Between Kardashian’s conspicuous nonacting and dialogue that often seems lifted from the all-caps regions of X, “All’s Fair” has, not surprisingly, received a critical drubbing. Which seems almost intentional.
Critics, after all, have long been routinely, and often viciously, disparaged (after the reviews were in, Close felt moved to post a sketch of the cast gathered around a “Fatal Attraction”-like “critic bunny stew”). More important, reviews, bad or good, do not (nor should they) predict audience reaction (see early theater reviews of “Wicked”). As Trump has proved again and again, bad press is still press and the worse it is, the more easily it can be cast as proof that the cultural elites (i.e. critics) are out to get … somebody.
So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that, despite a 5% score on Rotten Tomatoes, “All’s Fair” was Hulu’s most successful scripted series premiere in three years.
Reading the zeitgeist, the creators of “All’s Fair” were clearly not looking for raves or awards, just viewers. In this American moment, bad is good and shrewd operators know that if you throw in enough high-profile ingredients — Kardashian, Murphy, a bevy of fine actors — you needn’t take the trouble to ensure the mix will rise to the occasion.
As the president builds a ballroom while food banks are overrun, why wouldn’t TV audiences want to feast on fallen cake?
