Dr. Gonzo

Minamino's done well this pre-season in terms of getting on the scoresheet. I don't really watch friendlies, cos I can't be arsed caring about them... so I have no idea how his performances have looked (although his goal today takes a deflection, so he's a bit fortunate... but still done well enough to get on the scoresheet). Is this something we should be encouraged by while so many of us are wanting us to have a bit more depth up front. Because when he played us while he was at Salzburg, I thought he was their best player over two legs (which is saying something because Haaland was playing, and I believe scored at least one goal)... but in England he's just looked too lightweight to be effective (which gave me doubts he'd ever really come good here). But an attacking player scoring fairly regularly in pre-season is definitely encouraging. And I hope he does kick on a bit this season because he looked brilliant in those two matches against us (and like he'd fit in really nicely here). Would be cool to see him perform for us the way he did those matches at Salzburg.

There really has to be more regulation. Having that much "space junk" floating around is definitely going to come back around and bite us in the arse one day.

Yeah, even though we didn't see much of him last season - he was really highly rated by Olympiakos fans and so far he's never put in any performance where you'd think "holy shit this lad looks like he forgot how to play after being sat on the bench for so long" (even though he's not had many appearances).

I mean, I'm generally worried about how much crap is just sent into orbit generally. How many satellites are flying around in space? I assume not all of the ones up in space work - I dunno if that's true or not. I'm very much in the group of people that think space is very cool and I appreciate space exploration... but I really am concerned about what the hell unregulated billionaire meddling into space will mean for the world. But with the idea of orbital ads, I just read a bit of that article and felt disgusted. Yeah, it's not something we'll see when we look at the sky, right now... but like you said... you know that's exactly what the intent is. The idea of ads in space is fucking sickening tbh.

I mean, are we sure about that? Fires can spread with fast winds if not enough is done to contain those fires - which often requires a shitload of manpower. One criticism of the Turkish government has been how slow they've been to respond to fires that were already large and spreading rapidly, compared to how other similar sized fires have been dealt with in other countries. And even if work is being done to contain a fire, the wind can undo a lot of that work and the spread can continue to grow.

https://screenshot-media.com/the-future/business/spacex-digital-billboard/ One day my great-grandkids will go look up at the night sky, they won't see any stars but they'll see an advert from Cola-Cola. And I fear that's the best case scenario...

I think we've got 4 senior CBs again, unlike 3 with last year. Although tbf we still don't know how VVD will be post-injury in competitive games and everyone else also has a bad injury record so...

I don’t think a buffer zone in Afghanistan is possible, the Taliban won’t respect the buffer zone

I am so very, very surprised. Lol jk, knew that would happen. Looks like a new round of refugees for a shitload of the neighboring countries for Afghanistan. Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Jordan routinely take in refugees as a result of western invasions yet it is constantly western countries who have a national crisis over refugees. And most of those countries listed are significantly poorer than the western invading countries. The US just fucking off back home without a care about what their 20 year adventure in Afghanistan means for the region is really just par for the course with their (and their allies) morally bankrupt foreign policy.

He walked off but I don’t think that really means anything in terms of severity. Hope he’s ok, looks bad though

Yeah that’s fair enough. Just like me and @Rick being pessimists is fair enough

Do you think that’s likely or do you think it’s just things Erdogan’s saying to blame a hated group while public opinion over the government response to the fires has been getting more critical. If it is true, I’m not sure eco-terrorism is a great way to convince anyone to support them.

Tbf I’m on a football forum, I’m not camped up outside John Henry’s house calling him a cunt and trying to fuck his wife. I’m allowed to have fucking opinions. You’re allowed to disagree with them. We don’t always have to agree mate But people did foresee a possible injury crisis… even on here, before Lovren was even sold. I think other than last season and this season, I’ve been pretty happy with our recruitment. But I don’t understand not investing in the side after winning the league. And I think last season exposed a few issues with depth in the squad that we’re being very slow to address… while we’ve lost the midfielder who played the most for us last season and has been a key part of the spine of a very good Liverpool for several seasons. And I think FSG deserve every ounce of criticism they get for the foreseeable future.

Tbh I don’t know how much of that was really our front 3 burning out. The biggest problem we had at that point was our best midfielders were playing at CB or getting injured, or both. And we absolutely ran Gini Wijnaldum into the ground by December - but couldn’t afford to give him a rest because we needed people on the pitch. It left us with a midfield that was unable to create or defend.

Tbh I think our business is sort of at a standstill until we can remove one or two non-homegrown players from our books at the prices we want for them. But Origi’s stock is so low right now, Shaqiri’s got suitors but they’re skint Serie A clubs, so I don’t think we’ll get them sold at a price we’re looking for. Maybe Southampton come back for Minamino? But I think we’re having our hardest summer under Michael Edwards in terms of clearing out deadwood… and I think it’s definitely affected our “squad building”

Yeah it’s not like people said “hmm it’s a bit weird we’ve let Lovren go without bringing a replacement in, we’re one VVD injury from relying on some seriously injury prone CBs.” And that absolute fucking cunt Pickford probably saw that somewhere on the internet and thought “oh shit that’s a good point” and went through VVD’s ACL.

I dunno if I agree with that. Were you here for the last season?

I think you’ve got me confused with someone else. But any time FSG are to be criticised, I’ll be there. They’re bad for us and bad for football.

Fuck FSG, I was a lot more tolerant of them being greedy dickheads up until they tried to fuck up European football with the Super League. They’ve got a long way to go before they’re forgiven and that’s forgotten.

The Taliban have reclaimed their first provincial capital since the US's withdraw from Afghanistan - Zaranj, on the border with Iran.

If you like Among Us... the next time we've got a new mafia game going in the games part of the forum, you should definitely give that a try. It's a bit like "old school Among Us" - it's very fun though.

If anyone ever teamkilled me to take a tank, there's a good chance I flew over them with a helicopter, picked their tank up, and dropped them into some water or onto somewhere that made it a pain in the arse to be in a tank. But there's also a good chance that I did that to anyone for no good reason other than me being an idiot that thought doing that to people was the funniest fucking thing ever. Also spawn camping the other team, putting mines inside their helicopters, running out and hiding to watch them get into the helicopters was a lot of fun.

Those 2 were the best ones. My brother and I were such awful trolls in Battlefield Vietnam, I bet people hated playing with us - hilarious times though, especially with that one helicopter that could pick up tanks & boats.

That games' weird because there's barely any trench warfare in it - it's a good game, but it's not the best at making a "faithful" WW1 setting. It feels like a WW2 game with WW1 skins. I do remember the story mode being very enjoyable, even though it's really short... but tbh, Battlefield you mostly play for multiplayer and sometimes singleplayer's been sort of an afterthought for them. I think I prefer the little stories. I never played the Battlefield that came out after it, that was a return to WW2... but my friends I play Battlefield games with played it and said it was pretty bad. So going into Battlefield 1 for that sort of gameplay isn't the worst option. I played the shit out of that game and I loved it. I'm still playing The Ascent with a few of my friends, and I've got to say it's a very enjoyable co-op game. It feels a lot like Diablo, because there's loot and because of the top-down view - but it's got it's own feel to it (and it's very pretty). Speaking of Diablo, I'm looking forward to Diablo 2's remaster coming out - that was probably one of my favourite games of all time. I dunno if I have the time to play it like I used to (I'm not sure I ever beat Diablo 3 actually because that was when I was sort of getting my career started and I remember buying the game and playing it for a few months... but I can't say that I remember too much about it).

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-understood-agreed-fee-newcastle-21244306 Liverpool agree fee with Newcastle for youngster Bobby Clark. Liverpool fans: we need a signing that can play up front, but someone like Bobby FSG: Bobby you say?