Dr. Gonzo

I'm hoping this means they've been given a massive budget by Microsoft to make a new engine for Elder Scrolls/Fallout games. Because I love those series and (most) of those games, but the engines are so shite and dated. I think it's a bit shit though if you're a console gamer and you had a PS4 or plans of a PS5. Are Bethesda games now going to be Xbox Exclusives? Maybe not, because Microsoft isn't so much for console exclusivity. For Fallout New Vegas fans... @Batard ... this now means that Bethesda and Obsidian are sister studios (both owned by Microsoft now)... does this mean we might get a Fallout New Vegas 2? Because that's really what I want. In December, apparently EA Access (or whatever it's called now) is going to be bundled in with Gamepass as well... which is pretty crazy.

I'm watching Ratched on Netflix. It's pretty interesting... a weirdly, it's sort of a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

Probably not

His system against us over the weekend was very strange. I'm not quite sure what the plan was for Havertz, but it looks like he's not even really sure on how to use his club's brand new record signing. With Werner it looked like they knew how to play to his strengths... but weirdly, that kind of striker leading the line against Fabinho sort of played right into our makeshift defender's defensive style. And I thought their midfield was... pretty shit tbh. And it's weird because on paper they're good players, but yeah the way they set up just doesn't get the most out of those players. But trying to counter through him sort of just led to a stalemate where they were succeeding in limiting our chances, but they also weren't really getting chances of their own. Maybe that was the plan, hold out for a point? Red card + Thiago's introduction sort of fucked that up for them though. Yeah last season when we played you early on, his side looked like it had far more identity. When we faced you around the end of the last season, you were better in terms of scoring goals (Pulisic was brilliant that match) but that match was a bit weird on the Chelsea side of things because Chelsea would go in between looking really good and really bad all in the same match. I guess that match was sort of a microcosm of Chelsea's season though.

Xbox just bought Bethesda!?!? Holy shit https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/09/21/welcoming-bethesda-to-the-xbox-family/

Lol, you’re comparing paying the Werner fee up 100% up front, with his very high wages (when he wouldn’t be a starter for us), to us paying less than £10m up front (offset by the fee for Hoever as well). If we had the same financial power as a sportswashing nation or money laundering for the Russian oligarchy, we’d probably have your expensive star new striker sat on our bench right now. You should be happy we had to go with Diego Jota because we can’t spend that much up front this year tbh

I’ll take that to mean he’s still there

Is Lingard still at United or are they finally rid of him?

I’m pretty excited about Thiago & Diego Jota. Thiago’s just bossed every midfield he played against in the CL. World class, looking forward to seeing him at work with us. Diego Jota’s a player that 2 seasons ago I thought “ah, shame he’s at Wolves, I think he’d make a good signing for us.” Idk why I didn’t consider that we might sign him from Wolves , but it’s always cool when a player you like is on the cusp of joining your club.

I agree with that take too

I think I'd be REALLY conflicted. I've now just spent about 5 minutes thinking about how I'd answer this question. Right now, I think the government rules on when it's okay to have more than 6 people and when it isn't are... just absurd, they don't really make sense. Why is it alright to be in a group of people bigger than 6 in some instances... but not others? They're arbitrary rules. On the other hand, if you're worried about community spread of the virus... what's more a part of your community than your neighbors? I don't think I'd tell the police though, for a couple of reasons. I just don't really agree with the government guidance anymore; I don't think it helps people stay safe or healthy. It's just security theatre at this point, with the arbitrary limits on when you can/cant have however many people together. I also don't really like dealing with police. I think those 2 things would probably outweigh my concern.

I'd also like to point out that it says something about how much of a shitshow it is where I'm located that I am fucking desperate to come back to the UK as soon as possible (provided I can get compensation that's at least as close as what I'm making here). I doubt that's going to fucking happen though, at least any time in the near future. But please bring me back home, please.

1. City are sportswashing to get people to change their opinions on the UAE. So that's the end goal there. I think that's a bit different to pretty much every other club in England, I don't even think Roman Abramovich gives a shit if Chelsea rehabilitates oligarch mobsters like himself. 2. Didn't know Danish & Swedish people were just Scottish 3. "England won't win an international tournament because the talent pool is neglected." Mate, that's bollocks and Greece proves that because they won an international tournament despite not having much talent. Now you've just shifted goalposts to make it about the cultural state of English football. Also yeah, our media is beyond fucked up - I blame everyone associated with any sort of tabloid journalism, but a special mention to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Is there anything in the world that man and his company haven't fucked up? Hope he dies painfully tbh. 4. Not sure what not having a "logical career path" means re: players feeling like they've represented the local fans where they've played for tbh.

That's some pretty good business. He's been owned by Arsenal for a while, right? But never really got his chance until Leno went down last season - then took it, and took that chance really well. Good amount of money and good work selling him at probably the highest point his value's been at for his whole Arsenal career.

I doubt you're that stupid.

I'm not sure I agree with any of this. 1.) Yeah there's a huge difference in terms of the financing between Leeds and Manchester City. Both in the scale of the financing and with the end-goal of what both owners are doing with their clubs. 2.) I think in the 70s plenty of South Americans were playing in Italy/Spain. In the 80s, Liverpool had signed Danish and Swedish players. Juve signed foreign players as early as the 30s. Yes, players like Virgil would likely be staying at big clubs in their home land... but maybe not (Cruyff joined Barca, didn't he?). It's just players moving about was more rare. 3.) England were just in the semi-finals of the World Cup? And didn't we do pretty decently in that bullshit "tournament" UEFA's created? And I've seen Greece win an international tournament in my lifetime. Plus international football is largely a load of shite. 4.) Idk, but plenty of club legends at clubs all around England didn't come from their local communities and still managed to feel like they represented the people that supported the clubs they played for. But I do think the club having a connection with it's local fans is important, certainly much more important with a club having a connection with it's other fans that aren't local. And certainly much more important than having a good relationship with foreign broadcasters. But it's a business filled with billionaires. And billionaires are mostly sociopaths who don't give a shit about anything other than themselves. I don't think that makes it wrong for people to complain about the vultures that own football clubs and the greedy fuckers that have put football in this place.

Weird how not all of these foreign billionaire cunts act the same way though. I think the Blackburn/Newcastle/Chelsea/Man City/PSG comparison for these clubs is apt because they've all sort of just built on the blueprint of Blackburn's "LETS THROW MILLIONS AT GOOD PLAYERS AND GOOD MANAGERS AND WIN WIN WIN" with varying degrees of success (I feel like I only had to say that because of Newcastle lol). I don't think people are wrong when they say money and foreign ownership have damaged the soul of the game in England, very few of these owners actually care about the local fans and community that originally built those clubs into what they are - and the ones that do are pretty rare, tbh. There's a fair bit of resentment when you've got a league where clubs could get promoted up in the 70s and 80s and immediately start challenging for the title... that's now so loaded with cash that you'd literally never expect that from a promoted club ever. And when/if it happens (but more realistically, if they do what Sheffield United have done this season) it's treated as some huge success story... even though in British history, those sort of "achievements" aren't really much compared to what some other promoted clubs have done (not to take away from what Sheffield United have done; it's a different era so you've got to take that into consideration). I think hearing stories of how there was so much parity in British/English football back in the day and comparing it to how it is now... it's easy to have that sort of resentment. Then you account for the many billionaire owners that "care" about the local fans/community for PR purposes, but we've seen numerous times loads of shit owners that really couldn't give a fuck about the local communities. Mike Ashley's an easy example, also the dickheads that bought Blackburn and took them straight down to league one. I don't necessarily expect the foreign fans to care too much, but if local fans are alienated too much... I think the league loses a lot of marketabilty.

I remember Newcastle's Keegan spending a lot of money. But I'm not sure it was quite as obvious as the Blackburn/Chealsea/City sugar daddy approach? I honestly couldn't tell you though. Maybe I remember Blackburn better because it was more successful & Newcastle's attempt at buying the league is easier to forget since they lost? I think a part of it, to me at least, is that I've always viewed Blackburn as a pretty small club - even when they were rich. Newcastle I've always felt of as a pretty big club, even though they've not won things in years (same with Chelsea pre-Roman tbh, but Newcastle have the advantage of being a one club city whereas in London there's quite a few decent sized clubs) . Especially in the 90s though, I remember them playing sexy football and having some of the best fans in England (in terms of atmosphere). I was only a kid though so my brain wasn't developed I should probably take your word for it. Respecting elders and all of that jazz.

The GFA issue is also apparently going to make an impact on post-Brexit UK-US trade deals. Biden's saying if he wins, the US and UK can't have a trade deal if Brexit means a violation of the GFA. So option A is still on the table. But it would mean trading with the US on WTO rules rather than having as close to a similar trade deal that the EU has with the US (we likely would be unable to get a deal as good as the EU, like we enjoy now). Option B would be a bit funny because of how DUP would feel betrayed. It kind of smacks every Brexiteers "WE WANT TO CONTROL OUR BORDERS" argument in the face, though. It's more likely Option C is impossible, like you say. The other option is that the EU allows for an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. But similarly, that's impossible... they're not going to allow for the ROI to have free movement into NI, while also allowing NI to have free movement into the EU. It's essentially a backdoor into the EU where products that don't meet EU regulations could flood an EU market. Like any complicated and nuanced part of Brexit, it's been sort of glossed over by Brexiteers and now in the hysteria of the abjectly terrible government response to a global pandemic. Once the Brexit vote happened, the country needed leadership and guidance from the government - these were uncertain times and people and businesses need a sense of stability and need to know where they stand to plan and prepare for the future. They barely got any under May's government. But now we've got BoJo, a man nobody in the UK should trust because he's an opportunist that only looks out for himself. The government he's cobbled together are incompetent, at best. And to make matters worse, we've got a global pandemic that's drowning out so much other noise of all of the other serious issues that Britain faces under this kakistocracy. We've got incompetent people leading us through what is easily the biggest national crisis the UK has faced in my lifetime. And probably in everyone's lifetime that was too young to catch any of WW2.

Didn't Blackburn do the City/Chelsea/PSG thing first though? I think a big part of the soul in English football died when clubs broke the league off from the Football League. It opened the door to over commercialisation of the sport and globalism made the league and the clubs in it rich as fuck. I don't think there's any stop to the soul further dying in European football unless there's some sort of global salary cap imposed in football. But then how do you enforce a global salary cap? If it's a universal cap... rich clubs are going to hate that idea. If the cap accounts for different leagues and the revenue coming in and out of those leagues... maybe it does something, but chances are that will further stratify European leagues where the gaps between the "big leagues" and the rest of Europe just grows. At this point, I'm not sure there is any saving the soul of football. We just have to hope that there's enough outrage against the idea of things like a super league. But even if there is outrage, I doubt it stops people like UEFA and FIFA... because I think the UEFA Nations League and FIFA's expansion of the Club World Cup are two things that nobody asked for and I'm not really sure anyone wants (although... sure some people like the Nations League as it's basically just dressed up those pointless mid-season international friendlies into something that appears more palatable). So I'm sure if those at the top say "it's time for a super league" we might be shit out of luck.

Bold call. But if I remember right, you've made some bold calls before and been right before... so I hope you're right again pal! I think Thiago's going to be one hell of a signing in our midfield though.

Yeah but never like this. And these new ones are the worst.

The worst thing about winning the league is the huge number of plastics that have flooded our subreddit.

I honestly can't explain how much I'm enjoying the re-mastered Tony Hawks 1 + 2. The nostalgia kick is unbelievable.

The original soundtrack is a part of the game. They added a lot of songs, which tbh... I don't really care for but all that shite from 20 years ago is still there. I played so much of it way back in the day - I've been feeling some insane nostalgia seeing all of the levels again. It definitely makes me feel like a very old man though.