Dr. Gonzo

I'm not - that would probably open UEFA up to legal challenges. Also it punishes the club collectively rather than just punishing targeting the individual - the effect could be he just gets a free transfer (and the wage & signing bonuses that come with not having to have a transfer fee for your signing) to another club and his club gets fucked over. And I think while the Czech Republic is pretty behind the times in a lot of regards to race relations - it's unfair to brand a whole club or a whole country as racist. I do think it should be treated probably as as serious, if not more serious, than footballer gambling restrictions. Seems a bit weird Sturridge got banned for longer for telling his cousin to bet on him going to Inter, when he didn't even go to Inter, than this twat gets for racial abuse. But at the end of the day, at least he's punished... none of that bullshit La Liga just pulled with the "well... we couldn't PROVE it 100%" - but yeah, the punishment should be made more severe, so as to look like football is taking it more seriously. People can get charged for racist abuse, so at the end of the day... his punishment is pretty light.

Iran's retaliation for the cyberattack is to increase uranium enrichment to 60% ...it's a predictable response, which begs the question - if people are opposed to this government having nukes... why the opposition to the JCPOA that gives the West a ridiculous amount of access to Iran's nuclear sites and ensures that Iran won't be working closer to the 90% enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon? And it seems like this attack was done to make it more difficult for Iran and the US to re-enter the JCPOA, tbh, to keep the status quo of an Iran that is pushing towards nuclear weapon & ends up giving Iranian hardliners a LOT more political capital for the upcoming election in Iran. And I don't see how that helps keep Iran from pushing towards developing a nuclear weapon. The hardliners are the ones less inclined to engage with the West and have been the loudest advocates for gaining nukes. The people that want the status quo and the US to keep up this "maximum pressure" on Iran are pretty fucked up, imo. These sanctions impact ordinary people far more than they impact the Iranian government - who just turn to the black market to continue to make oil exports. I understand the goal is to make people so frustrated with their current conditions that they rise up against the government. But at the end of the day, won't it be likely any government that comes next will still have this population of people angry about the country that put on sanctions that made people choose between paying rent or buying, food, or prevented insulin shipments coming in so diabetics died, or prevented PPP shipments during a global pandemic? Western policy in the Middle East is so fucking shortsighted and ridiculous, it's no wonder why the region is so absolutely fucked up. The inability to think about anything in the long term, refusal to understand how blowback works - I just don't understand how they think any of their actions bring any stability to the region. And in other news... The US is leaving Afghanistan (on September 11, 2021 - probably symbolically)... let's see how that goes. I'm not sure what the US really achieved in it's 20 year war with Afghanistan. There's serious doubts as to whether the current government can last without the US military presence. So if the Taliban come back, it was just 20 years of suffering for nothing? If anything, I hope it means to mark a change for US foreign policy in the region. But history tells me: lol nah they're not going to change their foreign policy very much.

Oh shit @Tommy I’m very late but happy birthday!

I thought this was a pretty interesting video - especially considering it was one of the hardest hit countries early on... and the reality of the situation in Iran is it's not really gotten better, like other places around the world have.

Those are shocking stats. You can back negative football when it brings results - when it keeps failing to produce results because you try to hang onto a lead but just can’t, it’s hard to defend.

Looks like another STUXNET cyber attack on the Natanz nuclear site in Iran. Hmmm.... wonder who was behind it, lol

I played the shit out of this game as a kid

Do you think this means the club will try to cut costs by getting in a manager/staff that’ll accept less money? Do you still have Dr. Zaf? If so, can we have him back?

Yeah, I thought it was a pretty astute signing until I saw him look like total dogshite every time he played for Leicester. Credit to him, and probably a lesson in why clubs should be patient with players at times, because he's truly turned it around and looks nothing like the hopeless fucker he looked for a few seasons.

I think what I want us to do in the summer, other than sign someone who can fill in if we ever have horrific injury problems at the back (and I'm sure we will - because Matip's got a year left and I can't see anyone signing him with his injury history... and Gomez is due for at least one big injury a year... given his own injury history... and unfortunately, I think Virgil's much more likely to have future injury problems now that he's got a wonky knee), where we can still play a high line and don't have to worry about playing championship quality at the back like Phillips, Kabak, etc... ... I think we need 2 CMs. Fabinho's class, Thiago had a really ugly start to his LFC career but he's looking alright alongside Fabinho, Gini's head is elsewhere... so I'm 99.9999999% sure he's on his way out, Milner is old, Henderson's class but injury prone, Keita and the Ox are sicknotes. Curtis Jones' development is probably one of the only real plus sides for us this season, though. But with Gini on his way out (at least, seeming very likely like he's on his way out) and me thinking we can't rely on throwing in Keita and the Ox and expecting our midfield to not fall apart... I do think we probably need to look at bringing in at least one very class CM and giving Jones more appearances... or we keep developing Jones the way we have done & we sign 2 new CMs. It's a bit shit because I think Klopp was hoping Thiago would be that new dimension that our midfield needed, but he's needed time to get used to our football at a time where so many of our players have simply forgotten how to play football, while other players have made serious regression this season. Which is also a bit shit for us because I'm finding Firmino & Mane's form this season to be seriously concerning (although I think this proves me right in previous debates on who's better: Mane or Salah... which I always thought was a silly fucking debate because I think Salah's clearly our best attacker - and it's nice to feel right; although feeling right while also feeling shit at how bad we've become is shit). And I do think we need to be able to call on better players when they're in this dogshit sort of form than Origi & Shaqiri. But I don't think we've got the money for retooling the squad in a way that I think we probably need to in order to properly be ready for next season. So we're a bit fucked in that regard

Got the perfect sticker for my guitar case today

Oh, they definitely haven’t. Neither economically, nor in terms of how the world perceive them - because anti-Chinese sentiment has risen a lot after covid. A lot of political leaders in many countries around the world have pretty successfully managed to blame China being the source of the virus on their own slow response to the virus. It’s pretty dangerous because fomenting racism can lead to bad things. But it’s effective at deflecting.

Their economy is recovering from the covid slowdown, but it was impacted pretty significantly from covid.

Mate if we debate and I don’t agree with you, I’m not criticising you I’m just debating. Shite would be so boring if we agreed on everything

Trust us, none of us want you to kill yourself or feel like you want to kill yourself. But we’re also not equipped at all to help anyone through serious mental health issues like that at all. You need to see a professional pal

Autism can’t be cured but I know with 100% certainty you’re not the only person on the spectrum on here. And plenty of autistic people live normal, healthy and happy lives. Being autistic doesn’t mean you can’t work through mental health issues.

Ok I’ll say one last thing. I think it’s offensive equating racism to mental health. Mental health issues can be worked through and cured. Whereas you are born with your race, it’s not something to “cure” and it’s offensive to people who aren’t white to insinuate that their race needs to be cured.

Yeah, I tried... but I’m also giving up. Absolutely ridiculous discussion here. I’m not angry, just disappointed

He posted an eye roll reaction gif because a thread that was started under the guise of being a mental health thread (which we have already) looked like it was being started so it could be a pity party thread (which, by the way that sort of state of mind is not going to help with your mental state or anyone else’s). It’s not rocket science. that second paragraph is so fucking stupid I don’t know how to address it other than saying: Seriously, just admit you are all wrong and walk away. You're literally twisting arguments now to have your way.

He didn’t mock your mental health though, you’re just grasping at straws because you don’t want to admit you’re wrong for some reason.

How were you not being a dick? You made a thread called “we need to talk” and when people genuinely tried to talk with you... you closed them out - requested the thread closed, then came on here to accuse the staff of being your enemies! That’s a dick move, imo. How am I your enemy? I was working when all of this happened and logged on to see it after the fact. How is the mod that locked your thread, per your request an enemy? That doesn’t seem very enemy-y. You’ve even been able to use this thread as a platform to get your say in. If we were enemies we’d just ban you and never have to deal with this shite again. And yes, I do consider @Tommy a friend even though I’ve never met him in real life. And as I’ve said many times here on the forum, I genuinely think he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met on the internet. But I wouldn’t be his friend if he was racist. Fortunately, he isn’t a racist so I don’t have to worry about that. Similarly if he mocked people for struggling through depression or anything like that, I wouldn’t be friends with him. And similarly, we don’t have to worry about that in this instance because he did not do that. I don’t know what to tell you, tbh. Tommy’s a nice guy that I feel could get on with ANYBODY. It absolutely blows my mind you seem to have a massive vendetta against him.

I don’t understand your position. You’ve taken me saying mental health is NOT an excuse for behaving like a dick. Then taken offense to that saying I’m saying mental health is just an excuse... ... and then saying some behaviors are excused because they’re a symptom of mental health. So what, now you expect us to walk on eggshells when we post on here because you might be having a bad day?

Behavior can be impacted by mental health, but saying “oh I’m going through a rough time” doesn’t excuse shitty behavior. The last analogy doesn’t really work out because in the real world it’s more like using a racial slur... then blaming mental health issues. Again, to my knowledge none of us are mental health professionals. We’re just people on a football forum. As someone separated from my entire family, most of my closest friends... and as a human being living through a pandemic and me not wanting to accidentally kill anyone... I truly do understand and empathise with feeling lonely. As someone who’s struggled with anxiety, addiction and a whole lot of other internal demons I also can relate to feeling depressed from time to time. It is hard to open up, I get that. And that whole sentiment of “we need to talk” is clearly a fairly popular one, as we’ve got a pretty long lasting thread where people have “talked about it” ... ... but if you react badly to being asked to look introspectively, I guess I really just don’t understand what the hell you were expecting to happen. For instance @Cicero’s initial response is a good question to get you to look at it from the other perspective and you just brushed that off as though it was a complete waste of your time to, well, talk about it. And I get it’s hard to keep opening up. But you have to realise it comes off as a bit disingenuous (at best) to sort of dismiss a decent follow up question about mental health. TL;DR - here’s how that thread comes off as: You: We need to talk Other posters: Alright let’s talk You: No, we don’t need to talk like this @Tommy: lol and here’s how this thread comes off as now: You: you are my enemies, grow up! Staff: don’t use mental health as an excuse for shit behavior You: I don’t Staff: It looks like you did You: well my mental health excuses my behavior!

Tbf you made a thread about how it’s very important we talk about mental health and how we need to treat each other better... ... when we have a mental health thread on here. So that’s probably the best place to discuss that without having a thread with a clickbaity title & have the issue more seriously discussed. I don’t think anyone on here has mocked anyone else on here for having mental health issues. Mocking people’s behavior is a different thing entirely, imo. And, to reiterate... none of us in the staff think any of you are our enemies - it’s bizarrely hilarious I’ve even had to type that. I truly sympathise with anyone suffering from mental health issues. Particularly when the issues have become debilitating - which I think a lot of people, myself included, have felt from time to time. Even if I haven’t opened up about them on here really. I’m sure all of us have had to deal with at least one big issue in their life where they’ve felt their mental health get seriously impacted for the worse. And honestly, it’s statistically unlikely that anyone just has to deal with “just the one” mental health issue. It’s good to open up, and people tried to ask you questions to elaborate more... you know, to talk and to help... and (to me at least) it looks you didn’t hear really what you were looking for and got a bit pissed off about that. Then @Tommy posted a reaction gif and low and behold another thread locked. As far as I know, none of us are mental health professionals (but I could be wrong), so if you’ve got serious on the verge of being on a breakdown issues right now... I don’t know how much our good natured but also not the most serious bunch will actually help you at the end of the day. Especially if you’re not willing to open up to the point where when asked by other members of the community to ask difficult introspective questions that make you take a look at your own actions. Because that’s where all of the change is made - in your mind while looking at the issues from different angles. It’s good your comfortable enough to open up. That’s always the first step in wanting to address whatever mental issue you might be facing. But the next step is being ready to be able to look at things from other perspectives, even ones you might not agree with or want to agree with. Especially in the situation you described in that thread. That’s just my opinion though, and how I interpreted what happened there.

People that get really rich often grow out of touch, regardless of their backgrounds. A lot of people from more humble beginnings "forget where they came from" once they've got a lot of money - Ferdinand's had a lot of money for a very long time. And he's got his own interest in Mike Ashley, as CEO of SportsDirect, not coming across as a horrible person who's businesses shouldn't be avoided like the plague because he's got an exclusive deal to sell his shite at SportsDirect. So not only is he out of touch, he's got a vested interest in doing a bit of PR for Ashley here.