Dr. Gonzo

I doubt Wenger was happy about constantly coming 4th and then clubs moving passed him, I just don’t think he wanted to be seen as moaning about his bosses in the media and he didn’t think throwing players he signed under the bus was good management. You don’t get to be a successful top flight manager without being very competitive and normally very competitive people are hurt the most by their failures. And while I think he was a legend, he left around the right time. Things under him had clearly rotted away and his methods weren’t successful. But I don’t think there was ever a solid plan for post-Arsene Arsenal. And @shut up is right that Arsene had a more old-school hands on approach with bringing players in, negotiating with them over contracts, and doing stuff that nowadays we see more and more clubs delegate that power to a Director of Football and let the manager focus more on the results. I wonder how much of that power Wenger had as a manager was also available to Emery. Because I don’t think Emery is really suited to that sort of stuff. It’s always a tough ask though, to fill the shoes of a legend. Even one who’s last years at the club he was a legend at didn’t go so great. But I do think the rebuild becomes a lot harder after a season where a club’s spent a lot and the squad looks even more unbalanced than it did the season prior.

Idk I think Henderson HAS been our best player this season. He’s consistently put in top performances when he’s played. And when he’s not playing we never look anywhere near as good

The same thing happened to my neighbor. Big fat guy who just got home from several weeks on a ventilator, but was deemed “cured.” Heart attack is what killed him, they say.

It's interesting to me that Microsoft bought Obsidian, but they're completely fine allowing it (and other games made by some developers that were bought out by Microsoft Studios) making games like Outer Worlds (which is, imo, a fantastic game btw - highly recommend to anyone that was a fan of Fallout New Vegas) that are available on PS4 and the Switch. I've never played an Obsidian game I didn't enjoy, so I'm excited to see what they've got coming out. Although that game where you're ant-sized looks like it might be totally shite, but if it's like Sea of Thieves... I'll probably have a surprising amount of fun on it with my friends. Maybe it's because Microsoft originated as a software company, so they see the value in allowing as many devices as possible to be able to play as many games as possible. It's more money for Microsoft Studios (and therefore Microsoft generally) in the long run. Cuphead also made it onto the Switch (which I'd hoped would mean Game Pass would be coming to the Switch soon... because that would be absolutely brilliant for me - I'd have so many more games on my Switch in an instant). The first Stalker sort of a cult classic game and I'd not heard anything about a second game at all. The Metro series is, I believe, the spiritual successor to the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. I've never actually played it, I've only heard about it. I might watch someone play it on YouTube (or a synposis) before I give the sequel a try. But it's cool to see a sequel to a game that is really highly regarded and very popular with people who played it. In other news (and keep in mind, I never played Fallout 76 before the Wastelanders update that came out recently)... I'm very pleasantly surprised with Fallout 76. It was panned at launch for not feeling very much like a Fallout game... but so far (and I've only done a few quests, I'm only level 6) - it feels like a genuine Fallout game that for the first time I can play with my friends (which you can do as soon as you're at level 5). And with the promise of new content in the coming months, including 2 new questlines... it seems a far cry from the many reviews that said "there's not enough fallout content." I've heard the game feels a bit stale after you finish the main Wastelanders questline and you only have the original quests/daily quests (which I don't have yet lol) to do. The only thing that annoys me about the game, so far, is the C.A.M.P. system and the whole "base building" (which was by far the part of Fallout 4 I hated the most). I hope Bethesda learned a fucking lesson about releasing a complete game the next time they're going to bring out a big name Franchise. Because if all of this content was in FO76 in the first place, and they'd had a roadmap of what they were doing to the game in the coming months like they do now, I'd probably have bought this game in the first place... not waited to try it out after it's been "fixed" after two years because it was on Gamepass. Just like I hope the Fallout 4 Far Harbor DLC questlines & the main FO76 questline are evidence they've learned from the issues of the main story quest for Fallout/Skyrim.

I don’t think Emery as a successor did Arsenal any favours. And tbh at first I thought he was great because his Sevilla were so annoying to play against... but his time in England quickly proved me wrong. But then I looked at the league positions of his Sevilla... and I thought “maybe that makes sense then.” I think he was picked mostly for his Europa League cup runs... which were definitely impressive... and I think maybe his time at PSG made him look better than he was (big fish in a small pond situation). Wenger definitely went stale, but I don’t think the stability he provided was necessarily a bad thing and he probably should have been a bit involved in picking a successor before fucking off. It’s not like he’d fully fallen off like Clough did with his last years at Forest. I think the bigger issues at Arsenal are above the manager’s head at this point. But Arteta’s got a massive job on his hands (and as his first job as a manager). It’s a big club so there’s pressure to do much better than they did (and tbf they should be doing better). But the squad is very unbalanced and there’s a lot of deadwood on decent wages. But I think a lot of how successful Arteta can be is only in his hands so much. He’s at a club that’s been mismanaged above the manager for a while, his bosses above him need to steady the ship and give him the resources to build a squad that’s the quality everyone would expect from Arsenal. I don’t envy Arteta, even though I don’t like him very much, because I think his job would be hard even for an experienced manager. This is a really really hard job for a novice.

Tbf, Citeh have massively underperformed this season given the players they have and the resources they’ve spent. They won one domestic cup after all that... and it’s the one that nobody really gives a shit about unless they win it. Obviously it’s not over for them, and if they win the CL I think it’ll be a successful season for them. But domestically, I think they’ve massively underperformed by the standards that were set over the previous two seasons.

Didn’t Sterling also win young player of the year too? Guardiola should stick to giving the sheik lapdances, the sportswashing cunt.

I’m gonna play the shit out of Halo & the game that looks like Mario but on LSD with Jack Black. Also the DLC for Outer World’s is intriguing. I think there’s also another Obsidian RPG they barely showed us anything of. But they make really good RPGs. What surprised me most tbh was that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 looks like it’s a console exclusive. But Outer World’s isn’t... even though MS bought Obsidian out recently.

Idk if she needed 10 minutes to say all that It’s definitely changed how I buy games (although tbh I’m like much less inclined to buy games now unless it’s something like Doom - where I know it’ll probably be on gamepass later but I just can’t help myself). Now I’ll only really pay money for a game if it’s something I like on Gamepass and I see that it’s leaving the service.

James Milner has some trophy haul, doesn’t he? Premier league legend for sure when he retires.

Part of what made Torres so brilliant was his fantastic change of pace with the ball. He could go from pretty quick, slow down a bit, and then put the afterburners on and leave defenders left for dead. Couple that with some incredible finishing and he was absolutely brilliant. I think injuries took that change of pace away, I’m not sure he’d ever look the same as his best ever again. But yeah, I imagine a player like Suarez alongside him would have been a better way for him to wind down his career with grace. Although he can’t really argue against the medal haul he had at Chelsea - or blame him for wanting to get the fuck out of Hodgson’s Liverpool. But imo, for as brilliant as Torres was, I’m with @LFCMike on this... Suarez was just something special. As complete of an attacker as I’ve ever seen and the whole side was built around him to get the most out of him. I would have loved to see him in his peak in this Klopp side.

Mine (in my lifetime) would be: Alisson TAA VVD Hyypia Robertson Mascherano Alonso Gerrard Salah Suarez Mane A lot of players from present day make my squad. It was tough for me to pick between Hyypia and Carragher, but in all honesty... I genuinely think Hyypia was the best CB we had at the club in my life until we signed Virgil. Alisson v Reina was tough, but I went with the man who won a CL and PL with us. That Rafa-era midfield is 100% the best midfield we've had in my lifetime. Then our current wide forwards playing alongside Suarez, who's probably the most brilliant player I've seen at Liverpool other than Gerrard... that would be a dream attack. Not a bad side, imo.

Imo that's where the game takes a bit of a downturn... so I understand that tbh. It's still a very good game, or at least... I really enjoyed it.

Brilliant game, although the second half of it isn't quite as good as the first. The first half is great though, it was really immersive.

I started playing Fallout 76 because it's on Game Pass. I know it had horrible horrible reviews when it launched, but apparently as of April it's been made into a pretty good game. As someone playing now, I have no idea what's new and what's original... but it's seeming pretty fun so far.

That's the way to do it, my friend.

Teachers, doctors and nurses all deserve a big pay rise before everyone else in the public sector tbh.

Looks like Havertz is imminent. Wonder if Chelsea are going to sign anyone for their defense in the window, because I certainly think a CB (and goalkeeper) would go a long way for them, especially with those 3 new attackers on the way.

Tbf Arsenal need a lot more changes to their midfield (and squad generally) than we did after we sold Coutinho.

Coutinho’s a very good player if your attack is built around him. He’s a “traditional” playmaker, when the play runs through him he looks fantastic (and why he’s infinitely better in a central role than out on the left wing. He was only an issue in the dressing room once Barca turned his head and he decided to fake injury to leave. Now that he’s had his “dream move” and it’s been a bit of a nightmare, he might be less inclined to leave a club rather than spend season after season on loan. Tbh though, it seems modern football has sort of left his position behind. We improved after he left for Barca where he was never going to be the main man because Messi isn’t just the best goal scorer in the world - he’s also the best playmaker in the world. Bayern don’t really play a system that uses a traditional #10 and he’s just been “okay” there - but poor overall for the wages he’s on.

That’s because so many people don’t give a shit about politics so you get in people that are only really in it to enrich themselves. People who don’t give a shit about politics are easy to manipulate and that’s how you end up with governments that are incompetent in every regard except for being corrupt.

One plus Ancelotti has over Silva is he’s managed to shift tactics around and win Everton points with this pretty poorly assembled Everton side. That midfield is shit, you improve that over the summer and you’ve got a much better midfield. I don’t know how much can really be expected of Ancelotti to transform this side without making any changes to the squad. There’s too much deadwood and not enough leadership in the side. It makes them dull and mentally weak when the going gets tough (which is why they were in the relegation places before Ancelotti came in). He needs at least 2 windows before we can judge him as a blueshite fully imo. Hard to make changes to a squad when it’s that imbalanced of a side without actually changing players around.

Do you have a fever?

Azerbaijan is using a global pandemic as an excuse to start shit with Armenia over contested territory, which is pretty fucked up because it’s a global pandemic.

Sadly, I think there are too many people in the world that are just fucking idiots to not have it legally imposed on everyone. You might be reasonable about when you wear a mask and when you don't. Sadly, many people won't be reasonable about it at all.