Dr. Gonzo

Bad times ahead for the free world. Trump looked far better in the debate. Sure he lied with every answer, but on TV he looked a lot better than Biden who just looked lost and old. I couldn't even understand Biden most of the time he was speaking because he was so mumbly. I think it's pretty likely Trump wins again and it's not going to be great. All the chaos of his first term will be back, but with him now hungry for revenge. It'll be a shitshow. Gotta be worrying for all the NATO allies if Trump comes back in power too. Putin's desperate for Trump to win because the way he'll negotiate will be to pressure Ukraine to capitulate. Granted, if Putin sees victory in Ukraine... I think it's likely Hamas will start to take a ceasefire seriously. I don't think it's coincidental the media stopped giving a shit about the war in Ukraine once Hamas kicked off, which takes a lot of international pressure off Putin. Probably a phone call was made to Khamenei and Hamas, a lower value proxy to Iran than Hezbollah, kicks off this war in the Middle East.

Honestly this is believable

"It is the history of the Man City" - Chiellini: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/26/manchester-city-falling-foul-of-ffp-in-1906-forgotten-story lmao.. they were found guilty in 1906. They lost their case over the disclosure of their finances to the premier league investigators in 2021 which led to the current charges. How many years between these incidents? 115

Trent played well in a hybrid midfield role for us. But it's an inverted fullback role not him actually playing in midfield. Imo it's just evidence of Southgate's ineptitude, the way he's managing Trent and Foden. Foden starts on the left wing for City, but if you look at his heat map he's basically always central - expecting him to play in a more rigidly out-wide position is taking away from his natural game. Trying to force Trent in at #6 is similar but different, he's seen Trent operate similar to a midfielder... he's not really using him in any way near the same way Klopp has. The reason it doesn't work with this current England setup is because there's no width and movement. Trippier stays wide but can't really take players on from the left, Foden cuts in centrally from the left - so that only really leaves Saka providing width. Foden, Kane, and Bellingham all occupying the same space and not really doing much running in behind means there isn't good movement in front of Trent. So it's not really even copying Klopp, because tactically it's just shoving a square peg in a round hole and hoping it'll come out round shaped. I think there's a similar, yet different reason Gallagher was so poor yesterday as well - Gallagher in a side where he's the only one pressing is just going to have him looking like a headless chicken. Low and behold yesterday we see England not pressing other than through Gallagher and Gallagher was basically useless. I think that was worse than the two matches Trent started because... even with England on the whole looking terrible, he's still the most creative player in this England squad. He's just been scapegoated for England being poor while he's not playing in his natural position - there have been far worse performers for England this tournament.

He lived in England for a while, hangs around on a forum and discord talking to mostly people from England, and he finds me only to be just slightly a cunt. I think he likes us more than you think.

Every song of hers I've heard is the most generic pop song I've ever heard in my life.

And he's got a season's worth of experience performing when his side has been underperforming and unbalanced, might be just what we need tbh.

Palmer, easy

Nah that's very much how journos like Paul Joyce stay connected - get too unfriendly or hostile with a club and those connections dry up. He's not going to risk losing those connections putting out a story in a light that Everton don't want the story coming out - he's a very safe journo & that's why he's reliable.

I can't wait to watch him, Bellingham, and Kane all occupy the same space while we rely on just Saka to stretch defenses.

Pretty sure Chelsea, Villa, and Everton have all done that with the journos that actually have connections with the clubs. Paul Joyce is certainly a journo with good connections at both Merseyside clubs - and he's been covering this. Typically he's not reporting on bullshit, but rather something he's been told he can go public with by either club. So when he's saying something, he's basically an unofficial club mouthpiece for both of our clubs.

I think it's funny that it does seem certain clubs leaked "we're exploiting a loophole! fuck PSR!" to journos they're friendly with... and now they've got fans acting a little surprised the loophole is coming under quick scrutiny. Maybe loudly announcing you've found a loophole after being publicly against the PSR rules isn't the smartest strategy at avoiding scrutiny for these sorts of deals... I dunno what the league can do, in all honesty. If you look at historical player valuations they're all over the place. How're they supposed to regulate something so subjective? I don't think they can.

Dropping Trent makes sense if Southgate‘s going to play a team with no runners except Saka. But I don’t think it does much to stop the dour tactics. At least it’ll stop him from being scapegoated for these shit performances are, even though he’s still managed to statistically be England’s most creative player in a system that wastes him. The squad’s got the players to fit in Foden and Alexander-Arnold, Bellingham and Kane into it in a way that’s less “hey lads fuck playing to your strengths” … I’m also wondering if Kane is dropping deeper than a titanic submersible because of managers instructions or out of frustration from the lack of creation. But I think after a few decent tournaments, you’d have hoped Southgate would have learned from watching players like Kane, Foden, Alexander-Arnold, and Bellingham that one of those 4 has a distinct problem with turning up in big games in knockout tournaments and the other 3 have had standout matches in some of the biggest matches of their lives. That’s 3 players that should have the team built around them for years to come tbh.

Good point. So I just think we’ll lose lol

I have this weird feeling like we’ll lose this and not go through. Dunno why and hopefully I’m wrong.

Spain were so good. I think them and Germany have been the two standout teams.

Thinking's not his strong suit

Shit tactics and some pretty poor performances from several players made that a rough watch

Cowardice, honestly.

Foden's been so poor in both games - he's a very talented player, but he's just not going to work out in this style of football really.

I'd take Foden and Trent off tbh. They're not going to work in this system, regardless of how good they are.

Is it good? I still need to finish season 3. I think it's so funny it's getting review bombed because a certain group of people have only now just realised the show is making fun of them, though.

His second paragraph is also wild tbh. "Globalism which is the leftist utopia is the destruction of nationhood and the establishment of a one over all. Rejecting it is not bigoted, its just rejecting the move back to empires and monarchs." Let's break it down. First is the term "globalism" - which the alt right and far right love to rally against. The alt-right and far right also use "globalist" as a politically correct slur for Jews https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/the-origins-of-the-globalist-slur/555479/ - so it's interesting to see a passionate zionist use the term lol. But secondly, "globalism is a leftist utopia" - but often when the right criticises globalism, I'm not sure what the fuck they're actually talking about. Do they mean the modern global economy? The modern global economy which is... dominated by the US? Because the US government is pretty far from leftist. Joe Biden, this so called left leaning socialist, would be a tory in UK politics... So if we take him to mean "globalism" as "the US global hegemony" - I think by definition, globalism isn't a leftist utopia. If anything it's a pretty right-leaning ideal. Next, let's dissect the claim that "globalism [...] is the destruction of nationhood and the establishment of one over all." As far as I can tell, nationhood still exists. There are different countries all around the world still, we've been watching an international football tournament where nations are represented by their national teams. Has the US been able to assert it's will over every country in the world? Well right now we've got Russia having invaded Ukraine and continuing their long war, against the US wishes. We've got Israel's government in an open rift with the US government. So I think it's fair to state that the claim that this globalist world we're living in has not led to the destruction of nationhood, nor have we seen the establishment of one over all. Next, we see a claim that a rejection of globalism is a rejection of the move back to empires and monarchs. Let's disregard the monarch claim because: 1.) there's several countries in the world that still have absolute monarchies, 2.) lol... if we're breaking his statement down at face value we're talking about US global hegemony - who exactly is the monarch of the United States? So let's just discuss the empire claim. The country that's most openly stated they reject US global hegemony is Russia. Russia is currently engaged in an expansionist war, trying to take away sovereignty from its neighbor in a move that can best be described as Putin desperately wishing he was ruling Imperial Russia. So the country most openly rejecting what most far-right people would call globalism is in fact... acting imperialistically. And returning back to that "establishment of a one over all" claim is so funny when someone who's a believer in BRICS makes the claim. BRICS is an attempt to challenge US economic hegemony... but because China is by far and away the biggest economic player in BRICS, they dominate BRICS (this is very much reflected by BRICS's New Development Bank's loans and funding). A believer in BRICS is a believer in China's economic rule over the other member states. And that's ignoring the fact that BRICS is a joke - they'll never be an effective economic union so long as the member states aren't anywhere close to having the same economic goals. It's just a paragraph of word salad put together with various buzzwords... but without much thought into what those words actually mean. It's bizarre. I think it's wild he can demonstrate so little knowledge about what he seems to so passionately hold as his political beliefs. In one sentence we've got a zionist using anti-semetic rhetoric... and then following it up with a hypocritical and nonsense statement. It's bizarre isn't it?

That's a good point. So I don't think Scotland should feel too bad about this - losing to Germany, getting a point of Switzerland, and beating Hungary is probably something they'd have found both realistic and optimistic for their chances to get through. But yeah, obviously they'd much rather have preferred to beat Switzerland and had an easier go of getting through lol.