Dr. Gonzo

Well I remember one match, forget who they were playing though, but I assumed he'd be excellent with the basic stuff you'd expect from someone with hype in that position. Shite like his positioning and his passing (if not making spectacular passing, at least being able to make simple passes that meant West Ham can recycle possession - and being generally good at finding his man with his passes). He was rubbish in that match. Leaving gaps in the centre of the pitch to be exploited and having a hard time finding any of his teammates. And I remember he made an England appearance shortly after that and was similarly crap. He's got to be better than he is in my mind to have the reputation he's got. But I've not really seen where the reputation comes from at all tbh. Shame Delph's been a bit crap since joining you tbh, otherwise I think he'd be in consideration But he has been a bit shite tbh. I think if I was leaning to pick an English midfielder to play alongside Henderson this summer... I'd probably go with Winks.

I think Rice is crap tbh. Never understood the hype around him at all. Maybe he's good when I'm not watching, but whenever I see him play he never looks anywhere near good.

Everyone: Who would you rather have start for England, Grealish, Maddison, or Mount? Me: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain? Either way, no matter how you slice it you could have Henderson + one of those 4 and you'd need another central midfielder in there. And you'd probably have to pick between: Declan Rice, Harry Winks, or Eric Dier… or playing one of those 4 a bit deeper than they'd be most comfortable playing. And that 3rd and final midfield spot, no matter how you slice it, is going to be a bit underwhelming imo. Shame about Ward-Prowse getting injured yesterday. Hopefully it's not too bad, because I think he's earned a callup and would be the best midfielder to put alongside Henderson.

I think violent criminals should be treated more harshly than nonviolent ones tbh. And I’d treat sex crimes the same as violent crimes

I think that weird place we're in stems from the fact that politics has become so tribal and moderates have been pushed to extreme ends. It does point to the horseshoe theory being accurate - how if you go far enough left or right, to the extremes you end up with roughly the same views just on opposite ends of the spectrum. You see it with populists on the left and right in the US & Europe... you even see it with Islamists in the Middle East compared to the religious right in the US. Most people have a wide array of political views that doesn't neatly fit them inside of any party's manifesto. And most people are fairly moderate and not on those ends of the horseshoe. But we live in the age of the 24/7 info streams and the internet's made it easier than ever to communicate with each other - and that's led it to be pretty easy to push people towards the extremes imo. You see something political online you agree with or disagree with, and if you look into it long enough you'll find enough shite out there pushing you to one side and away from another. I don't think the political realm is going to move away from the extremes and back to the moderates anytime soon, at least not without something getting much worse than it does. Until then, I think we'll just keep seeing people treat politics as though you're the fan of a football club and your biggest rival club is everyone who happens to disagree with you. You see it all the time online, where people don't actually debate politics based on policy - but just resort to insults and saying shite that amounts to "haha, get fucked we won"

Apparently Messi and Abidal are publicly feuding over Abidal's criticism of certain players not putting in the effort under Valverde.

Giroud must be looking like total shite in training then. Unless you think Lampard’s just got certain biases against players

Why doesn’t Lampard play Giroud ever?

He did say “and beyond”. Think he’s just calling out football fans at large for faux outrage more than getting a specific dig in at members tbh

Think that proves his point tbh. The media coverage on this is next to nothing, therefore the public outcry against it is next to nothing. So you don’t have those about drunk idiots being drunk idiots being blown into “this whole fan base are drunk yobs”. I shudder to think what the press would say about us if a group of fans threw flares at Ian Ayre’s house in the Gillett and Hicks days, considering how many in the media seemed to think our protests against their ownership were “over the top” and that Liverpool fans should pipe down about their shit owners. The sun showed them all stories about Scousers behaving badly sells papers/gets clicks - the media’s always been quick to criticise our fans anytime they’re given an excuse to. We get a lot of positive media in a footballing sense as one of the biggest clubs in the country and a lot of our ex-players becoming pundits and/or commentators. We also get a lot of negative stories that take up sports news cycles more than they’d do if it was another club.

Understandable, the Chinese government has started taking serious restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus now. This is quoted from the notices we've been sending out at work: 1. Free traveling not possible in big cities and certain areas; 2. Prolongation of the Chinese New Year Holiday (which is already a really weird time to be in China as places that are usually busy as fuck end up being quiet as fuck instead) 3. Prohibiting groups of more than 40 people at work (which has to be so strange for Chinese companies) 4. Inspection of all employees at the beginning of a work day. 5. Transportation restrictions. Pretty massive restrictions that are going to massively impact Chinese businesses from operating normally and will make obvious impacts on people that work with Chinese businesses.

Nah I don't have much faith in the voting public at large tbh. We've had a decade of austerity (while the tories have managed to keep public spending at around the same levels as pre-austerity days) and our reward is more Tory rule and further cuts. I can't imagine too many people will direct blame at the right places. The new narrative for misdirected blame now remain at the EU - they'll say the EU has been vindictive with us after Brexit and that's why x y and z have happened.

Yeah I think it's only people flying out of Hubei that are getting quarantined. And while BA may have stopped all flights to and from China, I know other airlines... notably Air China, haven't. At my work, we've just sent out some formal Force Majeure Event notices regarding delays on consulting contracts - because of new restrictions the Chinese government have put in place.

19 minutes per goal, holy shit

Rehabilitating religious extremists basically requires cult deprogramming. And even if the attacker starts rejecting their religious extremist bullshit, they should still be held fully responsible for their crimes. Particularly violent knife crime, as is being reported here. But overall, yeah - I agree with you that prison should be focused on rehabilitation (although that doesn't play well to voters, because a lot of people don't care about the effects of how we treat criminals as their view is "fuck em, they're criminals.") - but I do think the policies we put in place to "rehabilitate" should reflect the nature of the type of criminal they're trying to rehabilitate. Because dealing with religious extremism isn't exactly the same as rehabilitating the average criminal.

I'm not an Arsenal fan (obviously) but I do think Arteta's done well to implement a style - and yeah, it's pretty similar to how Pep would set up Arsenal. I think the problem with Arsenal compared to Manchester City is that the Arsenal squad's got a lot less quality for this kind of football than City does - and there's other issues like the players not being able to maintain a high press for 90 minutes. Some shite like conditioning players for more intense football or clearing out deadwood that's not helping Arsenal be at the level they want to be at... that's not going to happen overnight. And that's not even going to happen after a transfer window (especially a January transfer window). But I think the biggest issue with Emery, bar taking an unbalanced side and somehow building an even more unbalanced side, was the lack of identity on the pitch at Arsenal. The results might not be too different from the previous manager, but I think Arsenal have a shitload of problems that Arteta's job is to clear up. I do think he's setting the foundation by establishing a style he wants to play in and he's got the rest of the season to implement his tactics and see which of his current players fit in with his vision and which ones don't. I think after years of Arsenal fans saying they've been mismanaged, they're taking baby steps in the right direction. I do think they'll need to be patient, as it's a novice manager - but you can see what he's trying to implement on the pitch. Just because Arsenal's current crop of players might not be the best fit, doesn't mean it's not worth backing this manager. I think both Everton & Arsenal made the right decisions regarding Ancelotti/Arteta - even though at the time many people were questioning why Arsenal went with the rookie (which ultimately I think is because of his style/vision) over the man with pedigree (which I think Everton need more because they've got this self-defeatist culture at Everton and proven winner can help them beat that). I think Arsenal will be looking a lot different after the summer - I think a lot of players will come and go. And I also suspect Arsenal will be looking a lot healthier.

I'm sure if it were you or me, we'd rather be quarantined in whatever country we're living for two weeks than being stuck in Wuhan for however long.

I think it's good news tbh. Being from Wuhan doesn't mean you're sick with the disease, being sick with the disease isn't really a death sentence even though it's killed people, and I think everyone would rather get their treatment at the place they call home - rather than feeling like they're trapped with their kids thousands of miles away from where they want to be in a quarantined city where the likelihood of getting infected is much higher.

Tbf it looks like she's just following the news story and tbh the updates she's given us have been better than any of the news reporting I've seen on the spread of the virus. And I don't think posting graphs that demonstrate it's got a lower mortality rate than SARS indicate she's desperate for it to some global pandemic wiping us out

Still blows my mind how much he's played for you this season (granted your midfield injuries are pretty bad so I guess it's not that surprising). He's a player that's really good at looking busy without actually doing anything. If he had an English name, like Andrew Pearson, he'd be at a midtable championship club or some shite like that. No idea how he's at Man Utd tbh. Whichever manager was responsible for bringing him in should feel a bit bad that they're a football manager.

Alisson’s done more baptisms in the last 3 months than he’s conceded goals

Does anyone remember when Jermaine Defoe bit Javier Mascherano while Mascherano was playing for West Ham. Defoe only got a yellow card for the bite. When you compare him to Suarez, do you think there was a bit of “racism” (more like xenophobia) in terms of how the FA treated the two incidents?

I think we might be the best side in the world, but yeah I think it’s possible any of the sides left in the CL can beat us or anyone else in the CL out over two legs. It’s the CL ffs we’ve seen favourites fail all the time, basically every year. I don’t even think league form has anything to do with how you do in the CL. It’s a mixture of the quality of the sides, the tactics of the manager; and the mentalities of the players. Idk how anyone could write off Real Madrid, genuine European royalty, when they’ve also got a manager that’s won the tournament 3 years in a row back at the helm.

So do I have to apply for a new passport now?

I started watching The Expanse last night. First episode was pretty confusing, but I'm interested to see what's going on. I imagine more of it will make more sense as I watch more of it.