Dr. Gonzo

Tbh I think International football and even the CL/EL this season are reckless and stupid decisions. But we knew FIFA/UEFA aren’t going to give up their money spinners. Especially not in a pandemic where they’ve lost money too. So the fact they pushed for the reckless and stupid decisions should be a surprise to nobody. 5 subs might not have been the only answer on paper. But when faced with UEFA and FIFA insisting they don’t give a fuck about whether players get covid, it was probably the really only realistic option to help managers manage this situation. But we said no to that and made the job harder for all the managers. We all can assume more players will get injured, and injuries will happen more frequently this season... so it’s just something Rodgers and every other manager in England needs to deal with. Doesn’t really matter if their squads are equipped for it - but bigger (and richer) clubs still have an advantage. I think a bigger advantage tbh, but there’s no way we’ll ever prove it.

Good thing my wife voted early! Yesterday our local polling place was blocked off by Trump supporters! And judging by the national news... it looks like this was a coordinated attempt at voter suppression all along the country in areas that solidly vote democrat. It looks like domestic terrorism to me, but what do I know I’m just a foreigner. Never in a million years would I think American politics would be anything like what it currently is. I hope back home we manage to hold Tories accountable, because for a while looking at Republicans was a bit like looking at the future of British conservatives. Hopefully enough people see this future and say “nope, this can’t happen here” because the state of American politics is shocking.

If you want to be upset with anyone @Stan & @Dan with these injuries... is Rodgers rotating players right now? I ask because Klopp’s already done quite a bit of chopping and changing to the side (even without injuries) to try to give players because this season should be expected to be particularly brutal. Every manager knew the rules going into the season. And really they’re the ones in charge of protecting their players, and they can’t even expect referees to help them in that regard. Any manager not rotating players this season is going to see loads of injuries. I think every side this season is going to see loads of injuries tbh, so it’s something managers need to... manage. ... and obviously managers at big clubs and rich clubs are going to have the advantage with rotation as well.

They’ve got a bigger advantage in a season with 3 subs and a shitload more injuries than normal. I wouldn’t get too upset about burnout, the clubs took a calculated risk and decided that they’d risk burning players out this season. The people that should be upset are the players. Not the fans who supported their clubs decision to take that risk

Weird how in Germany only the massive club there voted against it, though? Tbh more clubs having more injuries is a bigger advantage to big clubs than smaller clubs. If City lose a player, they’ve already got a second first team that could come in the top 10 as backups. Meanwhile if Villa lose Grealish they probably just get relegated.

I think muscular injuries among English players are way up at this point in the season. Interestingly enough, leagues with 5 substitutions have had less muscular injuries. I don’t think clubs in England can complain too much about injuries that haven’t been caused by dangerous/violent opposition players. They knew there was a short pre-season, with not enough of a rest, they saw FIFA’s plans for internationals, and then they voted to keep 3 subs. Simple truth is the league should do more to protect its players. But they really aren’t too interested in that (maybe if a key England international gets badly hurt or burns out early this season and is outspoken about it).

Take pictures plz

How come the world never gave a fuck about the Armenian genocide compared to shit like the holocaust?

Jesus it took that long for the swelling to go down? He's probably going to be out for over a year if it was that bad...

Weird it's taken so long to get news of a successful operation tbh.

Yep, that's exactly how I see it as well.

I think this is likely, unfortunately. The problem with Labour is there's a big divide between those on the left and the moderates - and a divided party is always weaker. I don't think there's a bridge that can be built that moderates would be willing to cross to go more to the left for the sake of party unity. I do think there are more on the left that would cross a bridge over to supporting to something a bit more moderate so that Tories wouldn't win. So I think the party is likely to shift more to the right, be more appealing to centrists, and they're confident that more on the left will stick with them in a partisan contest than will fuck off to green (or elsewhere). As repugnant as I may find that, I think it's the political reality.

I liked Corbyn's politics, but not so much as a party leader. I can understand why he'd feel compelled to defend himself (even if the report didn't expressly say he was an anti-semite, just that his leadership was shit at dealing with it) - but I don't think Starmer really had a choice but to suspend him after he tweeted. And a part of me does think the party are better off without him, politically, at least - because he's sort of tainted goods in UK politics. His party leadership was pretty disastrous for Labour and it's hard to say he's not tainted goods in UK politics. He's hated by the media (and has been for a long time). But anecdotally, a lot of my friends from back home who were Labour voters last election and big Corbyn supporters had already dropped their support for Labour and gone in with the Greens... that doesn't really mean much, tbh, but that does say something about how some longtime Labour voters on the left side of the party feel (just not enough to draw any real conclusions about how labour voters feel). But I feel like the polls you've quoted, particularly that most people in Labour feel better off without Corbyn sort of is an indication of why Labour did so poorly in the last election. It's something like 40% of the party think they're better off without him... that's fairly telling imo.

So then you'd agree with me on the idea that France (and all Western countries) should be looking to close down Mosques & Islamic Centres that are known to push insane extremist views? Because I think that's one big step France/the West could take to say that extremists aren't welcome, but the Muslims and their communities that don't push this shit are fine. I think we're on the same page here tbh. I actually think this is one of the most commendable things in French society & I think the fact Muslims are disproportionately affected (again, only at schools and hospitals) - it's an important and commendable part of their culture and it should be respected by people who've come to France to make it their homes. My only issue with France's stance in all of this was the projection of the offensive cartoons - which seems to be tacit support in content that has a high likelihood it'll piss off loads of Muslims, moderate or otherwise. I understand the idea of wanting to convey an image of solidarity with the victim of a horrific murder & a strong unified stance against extremism... I just don't think the way they went about it was very productive.

I don't think you can separate Islamic Extremism from the spread of Islamic Extremism. One is a byproduct of the other and to seriously address the problem of these terror attacks in the West... the root of the problem needs to be tackled as well or the problem never really goes away. You just end up kicking the can down the road, but when you keep walking the can's still there and you can either keep kicking it along the road... or you can eventually try to pick the can up. Samuel Paty should not have been murdered for showing comics (that he didn't even draw) in a class on free speech, that is obvious. His murder is especially more tragic as he actually considered the feelings of his Muslim students and warned them they might be offended/disturbed by his class and gave them the opportunity to remove themselves. He was an educator who was doing his job, yet was considerate enough to consider the offensiveness of his content. He did not deserve to die, and honestly what little I know about him (basically what I've just said here) indicates to me he was probably a good die. Again, it's an absolute tragedy he was murdered. Similarly, the 3 victims of terror attacks in France yesterday should not have been murdered and I agree with you - it is ridiculous that some people take offense to these comics in such an extreme way. I really cannot make it more clear, I fully agree with you on the meat of your argument here. But I also think this is a hugely complicated issue that's going to take a lot of communities around the world taking serious steps to ever really stop these things that should absolutely not be happening in any society from happening. But I don't think this is an issue that's really solvable by just Muslims on their own in their own communities. But yeah, we obviously need to see moderates in Muslim communities in the West step up and be louder voices against Islamic extremism. But by the same token, the West needs to do things to meaningfully stop the spread of extremism when our governments have played a prominent role - for decades - in the spread of this extremism. Salafists were a fringe sect not that long ago, but decades of Western support and serious financial backing in spreading that ideology have played a huge part in making it more mainstream in Islam. I believe fostering an "us vs. them" mentality hurts everyone involved in this situation - it pushes the idea of the culture war and it'll further radicalise people on all sides. I don't think Charlie Hebdo should be forced to censor themselves, they've been offensive to everyone they feature on their cover for as long as they've existed. But I do think that municipalities taking the opportunity to project these cartoons on government in the aftermath of Paty's murder didn't do anyone any favours and, tbh, is a pretty inflammatory way to commemorate the man's death and show "solidarity" & I can see how it comes off as tacit government support of this bullshit idea of a "culture war." It's certainly not an action that promotes unity amongst France of people of all religions, as it has the high likelihood of irritating even moderate Muslims (because now it's not a media outlet doing what it's always done, it's a city in France's local government showing support with Charlie Hebdo). I think there's got to be a way to balance taking a strong stand against Islamic extremism that doesn't involve promoting Islamophobia and the idea of a culture war. But I think the most effective step at tackling Islamic extremism in Europe is ending our support of the spread of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. It is the most serious and direct action we (we as in our Western governments, tbh) can take to slow the rate at which Muslims around the world are radicalised. We can't ferment the ideology in one part of the world and then be surprised when it spreads around the world. But honestly, I'm not hopeful things will change very much in my lifetime. Seriously addressing the issue would require a real shift in the status quo of Western foreign policy (because Saudi Arabia are longtime "partners" and Turkey's an important member of NATO due to it's geographic location) and would likely cause a huge spike in global oil prices & further increase Europe's dependency on Russian oil... as well as cede a lot of influence the US/EU has over the Middle East to geopolitical rivals in Russia & China.

And if the West wants to seriously tackle Islamic Extremism... they should stop funding countries that export Salafist terror groups. And they've got to seriously re-examine the support provided to salafist jihadists in Syria - because the support thrown behind some of these groups is going to backfire and end up being a thorn in their side for the future (much like the US early support for Bin Laden led to a thorn in their side with Al Qaeda decades later). Cut the funding, stop the flow of arms to these groups, stop training them. These would be massive steps to seriously address the issue. It might mean a recalculation of Western foreign policy, but it's worth it - it'll slow and eventually stop these sorts of attacks from these sorts of people. Because we won't be directly involved in the spread of Salafist extremism and providing it with the financial wealth necessary to make a fringe radical ideology spread the way it has. The West also know which Mosques and Islamic centres promote this sort of extremism - people should be free to practice whatever religion they want. But the West shouldn't be knowingly allowing people in the West to be going to these places where they know extremism is born - imo, it would be justifiable to crack down on these places and shut them down. Even though that might cause some backlash and cries of Islamophobia, it's a drastic step that can be taken to reduce the spread of extremism while keeping the many places that don't spread this bullshit to Muslims in the West open. The message that sends is: you're free to practice your religion, you're not free to be a religious extremist.

Personally, I think there's truth to what both @Danny and @Rucksackfranzose have said about the situation of France, Muslims, Islamophobia, and extremist terrorism. I think a free press is an important part of society - even if that means that you can have some horribly offensive things printed. I think there should be limits, like a newspaper that calls for genocide should probably be not be able to do that... but that's not really what Charlie Hebdo have done. They've got a long tradition of having some pretty offensive images. But the thing about offensive images is... they're just images. And you can feel offended by things and have the right to be legitimately offended. So I understand why devout Muslims would be offended by depictions of Mohammed and they have a right to be offended. But they don't have the right to expect people who aren't practicing Islam to be offended or felt compelled to never show any depictions of Mohammed. And they certainly don't have the right to murder people over fucking cartoons. I do think Islamophobia is pretty rife throughout a lot of Europe and, in my eyes, especially in France. If we even ignore the debate over whether the laws banning head coverings in schools/hospitals is meant to disproportionately affect Muslim women and just stick to the recent terror incidents... I don't see why the local government had to take the official stance of "we will project these cartoons onto government buildings." There are a lot of Muslims in France, and in large part that's due to French colonialism - but that being a part of the local government's response is that municipality tacitly saying "we support the message of these cartoons that offend a lot of our citizens." And when we know that there are segments of Islamic society in Europe that have been radicalised... and we know things like Charlie Hebdo's depictions of Muslims/Mohammed are used as propaganda to radicalise young people and make them potential terrorists. The narrative these extremists push is that the West wages a culture war against Muslims and that Muslims will never be accepted into society, and what that city ended up doing sort of played right into that sort of propaganda. I think a city's got a different sort of responsibility to a private newspaper and they could have commemorated Paty's murder and stood up for terrorism in a way that was less divisive and provocative. Not that it justifies terrorism and murder, because it absolutely doesn't and there should be widespread condemnation of all terror attacks from all people.

I can't believe I'm saying this... because honestly, I think it's stupid there's international football during a pandemic... but with the Fabinho injury and it not being clear when he's back... thank god there's an international break coming up.

I don't like using "Middle East" tbh and prefer West Asia.

It's also a team from a northern port city... and as someone from a northern port city that found out I've got other family from another northern port city in Iran... I guess there's a feeling of solidarity or something plus that fucking logo is so cool

True! But really Mahdavikia is my Iran national team hero and he only played 15 games for Damash... Persepolis was his side. Bandar e Anzali's team is Malavan and they have a club logo that I actually find to be quite amusing, so I'm pretty open to them being my "official" Iranian side, even over Persepolis (if they ever get back into the top flight and I can see their matches ). I don't know why I like this logo so much (I mean, yeah I do... it's the swan)... but I think it's great maybe a stupid reason to pick a football team to support? Or maybe the best reason. and their stadium only holds 8,000. Compared to Persepolis/Esteghal who play at Azadi stadium that's absolutely massive. I think I'd prefer to support a tiny Iranian side with an amusing logo, so hopefully they get back up ASAP so I can see their matches more.

Apparently Azerbaijan expected their offensive into the contested territory to only last 5 days. We're now at 31 days and there's no end in sight, with 3 "humanitarian ceasefires" negotiated... and all immediately broken within minutes. Imo, the longer this goes on the more likely it seems the conflict will escalate. And really it seems to just be a proxy war between Turkey and Russia - with Russia's latest response of bombing Turkish back Jihadists in Syria yesterday. But now Turkey is threatening to send more support to these Jihadis in Syria as well as sending troops to help with this Azeri-Armenia conflict. We probably need to be seeing more involvement from the other nations in the Minsk group (Russia, France, and the US) to bring about some sort of peaceful resolution before the war escalates into something worse.

There was an explosion at a school in Pakistan: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/pakistan-blast-at-seminary-in-peshawar-kills-injured ...meanwhile, the Pakistani government is joining much of the Islamic world's governments in being outraged about cartoons being projected onto buildings in France. And don't get me wrong, I think trolling Islamic extremists is giving into their idea that there is a culture war between Muslims & non-Muslims - which sort of serves to prove their propaganda right. And maybe resorting to an official government stance of trolling isn't the smartest thing to do - but I do think that France has been dealing with this bullshit for long enough and it's understandable that so many citizens and the government would have a really emotional response to this happening AGAIN in France - but this time in a pandemic. Sort of boggles my mind how many official government statements have denounced how France has reacted as though the biggest victim out of recent events isn't the man who very literally lost his head.

Are there still plans in the work to mix Belgian & Dutch football? I remember asking this many months ago... but I don't remember the answer

My cousins have made fun of me for choosing a team from Rasht because apparently our family in Gilan is actually from Bandar e-Anzali... so maybe I should choose a team from there? Not like it really matters tbh, those teams are all in Iran's second division which means I'll probably never get to see them unless they get promoted. And even then... probably only if they play a big enough team where the Iranian diaspora cares enough to have a big enough demand to stream it.