Dr. Gonzo

Letting him see out his contract is the cheaper thing to do & it gives them the rest of the season to sound out new managers and get an immediate replacement when the time has come. Rather than sacking him now and then dealing with an interim situation that ultimately may not pan out in the long term.

Probably because he first started his career at City and then wasn't considered good enough for them. And it wasn't until after United already had De Gea that he started looking like a top flight keeper tbh. And while Schmeichel is good, De Gea's pedigree is just that of a much better keeper.

Good job not every league fixture Chelsea have to play is against United then? That's like saying Matthew Longstaff is better than McTominay because when Man Utd played Newcastle, Longstaff scored once and McTominay didn't do anything. A bit ridiculous you're trying to shit on Tammy Abraham, who's got a pretty fantastic goal record this season at a very young age, and Firmino (btw: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/jose-mourinho-roberto-firmino-liverpool-16963050) because of that stat you've come up with. It is good, though, for United that they've got strikers that are as efficient in front of goal - it's certainly needed considering how little creativity is in the side.

Did they have a mid season trip to Qatar when they won the treble? If we’d been dumped out of the league cup early like we’d been trying to I’d say go for it. But Unai Emery fucked that up for us.

Yeah I’d bin the FA cup off as well. Do we get fined if we don’t even turn up? Tbh that’s what we should have done with the league cup

He's always been a media golden boy - I doubt they ever turn on him.

Climate change denial stems from the fact that there are more businesses that stand to make a lot more money if we bury our heads in the sand about what we're doing to the planet than otherwise. Rich people have money, they're the ones who own newspapers/TV channels and pay for the ads on them - so they can peddle their bullshit. If you're ever having a hard time understanding a right wing position, even if it's not extreme, just ask yourself "do a group of extremely wealthy people stand to be more wealthy if these policies are followed?" - the answer is almost universally: "yes." And that's really as simple as it'll get for many of their positions. I think racism is more of a far right feature, but as right wing parties around the world get more radicalised… I suppose it becomes more of the norm. I don't have anything good to say about the far right at all though. The people who are intelligent on the far right are monsters that are radicalising people and turning them into true believers. The rest are impressionable morons.

For the far right, anyone left of centre is a "Marxist" or a "socialist." Fear is a rallying cry for them and the fear of socialists and socialism has been built up for decades - it's an easy dogwhistle to blow to try to rally around them. They can't argue policy, at least not in good faith, so they stick to fear of the "other" - with Brexit the "other" is immigrants, with UK politics the "other" is socialists. How anyone can say they'd back Boris's Brexit "for the good of the nation" after shitting all over May's deal... which many feel was less harmful to the British economy than Boris's deal - and that first deal was universally considered bad - it just requires a ton of mental gymnastics. But it's the same people that have been doing mental gymnastics since before the referendum, assuring themselves (and each other) that the rest of the world will abandon multilateral trade agreements if we do (spoiler alert: that's fantasy thinking) and that us leaving the EU doesn't significantly weaken our hand at the negotiating table for future trade deals (it does) - therefore they reassured themselves any short term hit to the economy was just going to be short term. They were "ripping the bandaid off." It's hard to take any of the far-right Brexit brigade ideologically seriously either, because the goalposts keep moving. First we were promised there wouldn't be a hard Brexit, then we were told a hard Brexit is what the country voted for. And it shouldn't be surprising, since one of the "great minds" behind Brexit is Nigel Farage - a man who genuinely had power to push for the UK to have more power in the EU as a MEP, but instead used that role to collect money from the EU while not really representing UK interests at all and prefers using his time as an MEP to just be an irritating troll. And what's his fucking stance on Brexit? If it's shit for the UK, he's going to fuck off to America. It's much easier to take the left-wing Brexit seriously - EU economic policies for member states and the austerity foisted on Greece are so much in line with many Thatcher era economic policies - it is a more ideologically consistent approach to Brexit. The counter point to that is that many of these legitimate concerns that ended up devastating communities and have led to Westminster funneling funding to London while neglecting most of the country, particularly the north, should have been taken more seriously then. And it's true - they should have. But it's been 3 decades of investing into this system. This isn't ripping a bandage off - it's going over a healed scar, saying you're tearing the bandage off... but first you cut yourself over the scar pretty badly and need to bandage yourself back up again. The easiest counterpoint to a left-wing Brexit argument is that... it's likely not going to be a left-wing aftermath for Brexit, because it'll likely come in led by Tories - it'll be to usher in a new Thatcherite wet dream. Because to Tories, the EU goes too far in business regulation, employment regulation, and ensuring that workers are adequately paid.

100% agree. Interesting to see how a generation that's spent quite a lot of time shitting upon a younger generation isn't liking it so much when that younger generation decides to stand up and call that older generation out on it's bullshit.

My hero: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50327034

That’s 2 of us for AI officials! Our numbers are growing!

Step 1: condemn people for voting for people because of a theoretically incompetent government. Step 2: then throw your support behind a government led by Boris Johnson.

It really is such a shame that such a talented guitarist has been robbed of his ability to play for SUCH a long time. But in 1989 he was given 5 years to live after his ALS diagnosis - and he's still composing today. This track is cool because it's got so many brilliant guitarists on it.

You've got the better built squad right now though. Don't get me wrong, I think Arsenal have some quality about them - particularly in attack. But as a whole, I'd back this current Leicester team under Rodgers to beat Emery's Arsenal home or away. Weirdly, I think this current Arsenal side has a lot in common with the side we had under Rodgers around the end of his time with us... but I think Arsenal are a bit better up front (on paper at least). Weirdly defensively set up, playing with a total lack of identity/players that don't have the character to stand up and be counted, defensively fragile despite a fairly conservative approach to matches. I don't know if Rodgers is now more amenable to working with other people on transfers... or if he's just gotten better at identifying talent. Or if his system with us just was so heavily reliant on Suarez that he wasn't expecting us to seriously sell Suarez. But if he is better at identifying talent/working with people that are better at picking out players than him, Arsenal should be taking a serious look at trying to convince Rodgers to make the move to Arsenal. But I think the thing is now, currently I think it'd be a step down for Rodgers... but they do have the money and "prestige." But as things stand now, he's got a much better chance of ending up in the CL next season with Leicester - which would give him a bit more prestige in that regard & also give him a chance to keep his current group of players going in a system that's working, while also adding to it with the players that want to play in the CL... ya know, very good players.

Told you he was good! Looks like he just needed a bit of time to adjust to the league. Which isn't surprising as he made the move from Serie A football, so the football's played at a completely different pace.

In fairness, Xhaka should never have been captain in the first place. But this just also adds more to the impression that Emery doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. Tbh I think Emery is a dead man walking and I’m not even sure it’s worth it for Arsenal to let him see out the season if they can line up a replacement at any time before hand. And I would be hoping that’s what Arsenal are doing right now - looking for their next manager

I think any commitments we gave to the EFL may be a load of bollocks we just told them as they “worked with us” to not really ease the fixture congestion at all. Klopp don’t Carabao this cup

Lol so we're playing Villa on December 17. Then less than 24 hours later in Qatar we've got a semi-final for the WCW. Good luck to our U23s against Villa

Hopefully he comes back like he hasn’t missed a beat. It really all depends on how successful his rehabilitation goes and then yeah, whether he can keep his spirits high over a lengthy layoff. Something with us that’s been a bit shit with some of our lengthy injuries has been players like Lallana and Oxlade-Chamberlain suffering setbacks in rehab and lengthening the time they were out injured. But it’s good to hear it’s not as bad as initially feared.

Nice, some good news.

Holy shit @Stan - that's fucked up. Which I feel like is something I said recently in this thread regarding that kid who was murdered at her 3rd birthday party... which, btw @Teso dos Bichos have there been updates on that? Because that's one of the more horrific crime stories I've seen this year.

I still miss Stevie though. I think this match was really the beginning of the end for Rodgers. Apparently, Stevie was so upset with Rodgers' decision to not take the CL seriously that it caused a massive rift between them, that was never really repaired.

Five years ago today: Look how far we've come.