Dr. Gonzo

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202410101144 Head of the IRGC Quds Force reportedly detained by the IRGC and being questioned under suspicion of working for Mossad.

@LFCMike do you think Trent’s leaving for Madrid in the summer. I’ll be gutted tbh

Fuck, that's so sad. 31 is so young. And it's made all the more sad by the fact his daughter's going to associate her birthday with the death of her dad. RIP.

Yeah, I'm gutted tbh

I think there's a big drop in quality between Alisson & Kelleher. But honestly, I think there's a big drop in quality between Alisson and most other keepers in the league. As far as a number 2 goes, Kelleher's been pretty solid when called upon. I'm not too concerned, but maybe Alisson's regular injury absences are why we've spent a lot on that Georgian fella at Valencia. They've got to be, right? Weirdly though, I feel more comfortable with Kelleher as this new keeper we'll be bringing in next year's meant to be a bit shit on the ball despite being a reportedly brilliant shot stopper. So I think there will be a steep learning curve for him to get used to our system. At this point though, I feel like we should come to expect at least one lengthy injury absence from Alisson a season - unfortunately. It's been the case for a while now.

Imagine what kind of sick bastard you have to be to want to listen to Boris Johnson shitting

Jesus fucking Christ, are you made of plastic?

I forgot about Rangnick. I do think he’s worse than Solskjaer, Moyes, & Van Gaal though. I don’t think Moyes really got a fair shake with them - although he was an idiot for tearing up Ferguson’s back room staff. Solskjaer was limited tactically but United had some identity at least. Mourinho’s a football terrorist but I genuinely think he wasn’t joking when he said one of his biggest achievements in management was getting that shit squad to 2nd place. Van Gaal you could at least take more seriously than Ten Hag. Ultimately the biggest problem at United is probably not the manager - it’s the players. 10 years of bad recruitment, being shit at moving on deadwood, and too many players with shit attitudes (idk how Bruno Fernandes can captain them with his dogshit attitude) are the biggest problems. You couple that with Ten Hag being seemingly useless at recruitment, looks like a poor man manager, and having shit tactics… and I genuinely think he’s been the worst - or one of the worst - managers United have had in their banter era.

I think he’s their worst manager in the post-Ferguson era of United. So I hope he stays for a very long time.

the hand holding incident? If that’s a clear penalty the games well and truly gone. You give that and you’ve got to give a penalty for pretty much every grab and pull in the box for set pieces. If Palace wanted that to be given they should have tried being Man City, because they’re just about the only team that gets gifted penalties like that in our league.

Alisson must be the world’s most injury prone keeper

I think the US is always ready for a war to start... but they've had a pretty poor go of things since the Korean War (and even the way that ended wasn't great because it's technically still not over). Vietnam, the Bush era Iraq invasion, the pointless Afghanistan 20 year adventure. Honestly the Afghanistan one is kind of cruel, the US and allies came in looking to find Bin Laden - who had fucked off to Pakistan lol- then settled on removing the Taliban. Afghanistan, especially their women, then got 2 decades of improved human rights and a taste of a more normal life. Then the US fucked off and the Taliban came back and rolled back human rights for a shitload of people. The Iraq invasion really ended up shaping the modern Middle East though. The US coming in and toppling Iraq's government and trying to make Iraq the sandbox for wahabis to run wild ultimately led to the creation of ISIS and similar groups. That ended up spilling into Syria and then we got the Syrian civil war and Syria turning into a sandbox for the US, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Israel to fuck around with warfare they don't want to call warfare and nobody really gives too many shits about it. And this led to the Islamic Republic of Iran gaining a huge amount of influence in both Syria and Iraq - a situation they'd dreamed of since 1979. The US's problem is that since WW2, they've gone into wars with big lofty and general goals - but I think not too much thought's put into smaller short term goals to get to that end result. That ultimately leads to their wars being pointless despite their military superiority and their ability to land big wins on the battlefield. But the Vietcong and the Taliban ultimately just had to wait out the US. ISIS was made into a much smaller and less threatening group - but that took an international effort from... the US, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria weirdly. I think if the US truly wants to beat Iran too... like I said earlier, a ground invasion's probably not going to get them much success. It could be like Iraq where they can quickly defeat the opposition military and depose the government - but it's a lot harder of a country to occupy than Iraq because of the geography. So then they'd be in that same position they were in with Iraq where they've taken out a government but won't truly have a plan for what's next. If the US and Israel did strike Iran's weapon facilities... I wonder what that would mean for Russia's war in Ukraine where they've been using Iranian drones, missiles and rockets.

I'm not so sure about this. Iran's got a larger population and a larger military. But I think there's a lot to consider other than just the manpower both countries have to throw at war. First, Iran's air force is incredibly outdated. They're still flying US planes and helicopters from the 70s when Iran and the US were close allies. They've been cut off from being able to service these aircraft with the proper parts since 1979 - they've had to reverse engineer their own. Iran's air force, as a result, has had an increasingly poor safety record with each decade since the revolution. They did have buy a couple of Russia's latest and greatest fighter jets - but the evidence in the Ukraine war is that these aren't so great compared to even older western counterparts. Second, the military of Iran is very fragmented between the traditional 3 branches of the army and the IRGC. Artesh (the army) is deliberately kept weak compared to Sepah (the IRGC) - this is by design, to prevent military coups (it is why the IRGC was founded in the first place during the Iran-Iraq war). You can think of the IRGC's relationship to Artesh as very similar to Nazi Germany's Waffen SS v. the Wehrmacht. Diehard believers in the IR's ideology vs. soldiers who were just conscripted. Third, I think due to Iran's government's support of Palestinian a lot of people assume Iranians are fully aboard with the idea of going to war with Israel. I think doing so seriously underestimates the general feeling of resentment many Iranians have towards Palestinians due to their government spending so much of their tax money on the Palestinian's conflict while Iran is in absolute disrepair and the economy is in terrible condition. In the past years we have seen Iranians more willing to take to the streets to risk their lives, safety, and their freedom (and the freedom of their families) to demand better from their government. Are these people going to be more willing to go to war with Israel or take advantage of the chaos of war to fight back against their government while it looks at it's weakest. Fourth, Israel's got the military tech advantage... by far. Fifth, Israel's clearly got a pretty deep network of spies within Iran. In the past 10 years there's two high profile assassinations in Iran that we know Mossad was responsible for. We know they've got spies/double agents within the IRGC to relay information about when only IRGC members are going to be in a particular building of Syria so they are the only ones who are killed by an Israeli strike. So aside from the tech advantage, they've likely also got the military intelligence advantage over Iran. Sixth, if the US (or other western countries) won't get involved in an actual invasion with Israel... Israel is still allies with the US/UK/France/Germany and many others. These countries, while both Iran and Israel are not "officially" at war have already acted to defend Israel. I don't think anything indicates that this would stop should official war break out. Ultimately though, I doubt Israel or the US actually invade Iran. I could see them bombing Iran, but I can't see an actual invasion happening. Especially if Israel is alone in this war. Just look at the geography of Iran. It's not Iraq, it's not Afghanistan... it's got features of both. Big mountain ranges, large deserts... and it's also got terrain completely unlike both countries. In the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran up in the north of the country by the Caspian Sea - an invasion would have to consider jungle warfare as well. And Tehran's a far bigger city than Baghdad, Fallujah, Kabul, or Gaza City. Urban warfare is hell, now imagine urban warfare in a massive city with a metropolitan population of over 16 million. I think Iran's geography make it incredibly difficult for any sort of invasion generally. You've got to be prepared for: mountain warfare, desert warfare, jungle warfare, and urban warfare. I think if Israel is going to hit Iran back after this attack, they're more likely to use airstrikes and covert-ops/assassinations of IRGC officers. Maybe some members of their higher up leadership too. Not really tbh. It's not like the JCPOA removed sanctions from Iran and let them be normal participants in a global economy. It simply marginally improved relations between the US and Iran, giving Iran mild sanctions relief and giving the US (and the international community) more transparency with what was going on with Iran's nuclear project. Subsequently, we've seen the JCPOA ripped up by the US... which directly led to the collapse of the so called "reformists" who seek improved relations with the west (though they're still horrible theocratic cunts). This ushered in the worst sanctions and a total collapse of Iran's economy (for ordinary people, mullahs and the IRGC still make money through black market dealings) - as well as pulling the Iran's government towards the ultra-extremist hardliners. Subsequently, Iran's still under all the Trump-era sanctions. More sanctions were imposed due to Iran providing aid to Russia with the Ukraine war. They were meant to get $6B USD after a prisoner exchange, but their involvement with the October 7 attacks on Israel had those funds frozen. US relations with Iran are probably at the lowest point they've been since 1979.

Rodgers is an absolute dickhead tbh

Yeah that's one of those things where I have no idea how you can't laugh tbh.