Dr. Gonzo

I just feel bad for him. It’s been a rough season already, I have no idea what losing a parent is like but I imagine it is the absolute worst. This has been a hard year for so many people. And it has to be so much worse for anyone who’s suffered a loss in the family, especially if you’re abroad and there’s travel restrictions. RIP, very sad news

Alisson’s father has gone missing after diving into a river. That’s not good - hope he’s alright

Surely, at least one silver lining to Brexit has to be we've done a much better job than the EU at the vaccine rollout. I've always been staunchly against Brexit, but that seems to be the one clear benefit we've received from no longer being a member. I'm not sure if there have been other advantages at all (and I feel like those who were staunchy pro-Brexit should be trying to sell people on the short and long term benefits... because so far we've seen lots of short term negatives. But the UK's managed to do a pretty incredible job with the vaccine rollout compared to a lot of other countries. Which tbh is pretty fucking impressive considering we've seen nothing but incompetence in government for about 5 years (minimum).

Looks like he lost his place on the telepromter and he lost his place and started stuttering. He's pretty famously struggled with stuttering his whole life, especially in his political career. Considering we've come from a US President that was incapable of forming complete sentences, I'll take an old man with a stutter any day. I get that he's old (but so was his predecessor), but it seems a bit fucked up that so many people hammer on Biden for "senility" when he's got a stutter. If you want to hammer on Biden - he's got a long track record in politics that isn't always the best reading. Troubling history on race issues, which has been fucking with the United States... probably since it existed as a country tbh... and troubling history with American imperialism in the Middle East, which has been fucking with the world since the US became a global superpower. I'd hammer on actual policy issues with Biden than his mental state, which is certainly in a much better state than the last guy... who also had horrific policy positions I think had the last president been a "normal republican" President... Biden probably wouldn't be the president. He tried and failed several times before this to be the president but was seen as too "gaffe prone" because of things like his policies (because he's so moderate as a democrat, some of his policies look like modern day republican policies) and his stuttering. But America's pulled pretty far to the right and he's probably appealing for anyone still undecided or feeling moderate... and the American left I think had long decided they were for "anyone but Trump." And I think anyone that wanted to see an American president be able to speak publicly without mistakes or without gaffes... probably won't get that for a very long time. The bar's been lowered in so many regards.

I think he would have been a decent England manager tbh. His tactics aren't the most appealing to watch, but tbh I don't think many international sides are that great to watch and it seems by being well organized, good at hitting other sides on the break, and being decent at set pieces can take you pretty far in international football. That's sort of his specialty. Not that Southgate's done bad, though. Turned out better than I expected, at least, even if I don't really like the fucker very much. I'd never want to put him in charge of a club with serious money to spend and with serious expectation to perform, not just with results, but also in terms of being appealing to watch - because look how he did at Everton and Newcastle. Might have saved you from a tough time... but it was grim to watch and basically every Evertonian I knew wanted to gouge their eyes out in the middle of matches.

Everything Rafa said in the facts rant was true though

They’re moving faster, expected to cover more ground (in pretty much every position nowadays) than they used to, and playing more matches. There’s a pretty high risk for wear and tear

It’s not like matches from the olden days can’t be pretty easily pulled up on the internet - it’s not a really a debate that players are much more athletic nowadays. It’s a pretty easily verifiable fact. Aside from that, the days of players coming out to matches drunk and coked the fuck out wasn’t that far away from now tbh - and I don’t think you see that much at the top level anymore.

Nah I grew up with Sky telling me everything Ferguson ever did is what every manager should aspire to. That should make it fine tbh

Worst thing about this news is... I just want to see Thiago and Wijnaldum dropped at this point. But that’s not likely. Better odds on them getting injured and missing the rest of the season at this point.

How many weeks til the Euros? If its more than 12 that big nose is gonna try to call him up to the England squad...

Tbf I sort of insinuated it... wasn’t really serious though

It's absolutely not the best way to handle this - it's totally inhumane tbh. It definitely extends into the Pakistan side of Balochistan too - that's where many of the Balochistan nationalist separatist leaders live, that both Iran & Pakistan governments are pretty fucking hostile too (because they want to separate and form their own nation, even though they're a minority of the Baloch population). They've had insurgencies in Pakistan multiple times since Pakistan's independence.

Do we still have that ex-Arsenal physio that presided over their injury crises? Because if we do... sack him now. But first break every bone in his body for the awful job he’s done at two clubs. And then get fucking rid. Gotta be the worst fucking physio in the world

I've got faith Klopp will figure out how to get us playing better sooner or later... I just hope it's sooner rather than later because it is pretty disheartening going from last year to seeing this injured, out of form side that just looks out of confidence and every 2-3 games we have to worry about how whoever is playing at CB is going to get injured.

See this is what separates me, a natural pessimist, from you, a natural optimist It might be a measurement of success, but if you're only as good as your last game (and if we pull that out over the course of a month) - most weeks you'd probably have to call us shit over that last month. So yeah you can measure the success, but I'd argue it doesn't measure too highly.

Aside from this, which I fully agree with... ... we don't really even have the depth to be playing 3 at the back but yeah, I can remember about 10-15 minutes of us playing with a back 5 last season, and other than that... I don't really remember any us trying that at all. Honestly, and it's easy to say this with hindsight now that he's scored two goals on loan at Southampton, but I'd rather have kept Minamino over Origi for the tactical flexibility to try to salvage things this season. Origi's a cult hero, but he's pretty far removed from the Barca heroics or the hilarious derby winner. With the poor form of the front 3 though, I could really use some Origi in good form to help us out again. Unfornately, even including his heroics against Barca and scoring in a CL final, he's never really been quite the same player since his first bad injury. Which is a shame because it looked like he was developing into quite a good striker. I feel bad for Klopp, tbh, it's a pretty shit situation. He's got to change things up, but with all of the injuries his options on how to change things up are really limited. I'm hoping that lad we've signed from Preston is actually fairly decent, because he's here permanently and we can soon be playing a back 4 of defenders and get Fabinho back into the midfield when he's healthy. Without him or Henderson in the midfield, our midfield has really lacked intensity and we've really struggled. Having this many players either injured or woefully out of form is pretty fucking shit for sure.

I’d argue injuries have brought about these wholesale changes because the pressing game just isn’t working against low blocks anymore. Like @Rick says, we are so easy to play against now. With 2 of our front 3 way out of form... I do think maybe we need to have Salah up top alongside one of them (probably dropping Bobby because I’d argue he’s been worse, but they’ve both been very bad this season tbh). I’m sure Klopp just wants to play our normal game and play our way back into form. And he’s probably right. But I can’t help but think we’ve got to be trying something new. But I concede that Klopp knows more about football and this Liverpool side than me and I trust him.

I think one of the big issues this season is we’ve had so many injuries, and we’re a broken side, but we still keep trying to stick to our plan A. And it just hasn’t been working at all.

That prick Southgate will probably try to call him up and play him for Euro qualifiers

I don’t think playing 3 at the back is a good idea when we have just a few CBs and none of them are very good tbh

Seeing Roy Hodgson warn about the dangers of over ambition is incredibly disheartening. Ambition is good. It gives fans hope.

I think realistically top 4 is gone. CL has to be the priority, but given how we just did against Everton... can you imagine how PSG or Bayern Munich would demolish us? So odds are very high that we’re going to have a VERY unsuccessful season. Things are very bad if we’re not confident of getting all 3 points from Sheffield United. And I’m not confident of even getting a point, unfortunately. In fact, Brewster will probably score on us. Who knows? Top half of the table... maybe?

Yeah I can’t believe some of the idiots on twitter... ...I hate the man, because he was the villain of my childhood. At the same time I respect the hell out of him because look what he built at United. He’s undoubtedly one of the best managers EVER. A very personal and in depth documentary is going to be fascinating. I wish we had similar things for other past greats. Imagine Don Revie, Shankly, Paisley, Clough, etc... going over their great careers. It’d be incredible. I hope it’s good so Wenger does one too. I’d watch a Fat Sam one though too, so maybe I’m easy to please

Anyone heard about this?