Dr. Gonzo

Nathanial Phillips has gone back to Stuttgart on loan

I don’t blame them for reaching out to managers. But how many titles has Valverde won them and for the board to be floating it in the press that they want him out ASAP is a bit shit Do it like Tottenham and Poch. Sacked at 5PM, next manager that morning. Andres Iniesta agrees with me

Probably

I actually think the way Barca are treating Valverde is a disgrace. A long, publicly drawn out sacking for a man who’s won them titles. Theres term limits for Barca’s presidents right? Because this current era of Barca is just slimy as fuck in the way it operates. It’s funny because the way Messi plays is class personified. But Barca at the board level are so not classy.

I’m not, there was loads of evidence against them - other countries gave their reasons for why they could say “it was shot down” and one thing Iran’s always been pissed off about is the US navy shooting down a commercial Air Iran flight and the commander of that ship getting medals afterwards. The US never made an formal apology to the victims or Iran, but did pay out compensation to the families of the victims. I wonder if Iran will make payouts, they obviously are under very different economic circumstances than the US at any point in the US’s history after 1945. I assume they will, but the payouts will be much smaller. But the mountain of evidence against them meant denying like Russia did would probably have Iranians in Iran being more outraged about this plane being shot down than they currently are about their government killing a plane full of people. And people are very very pissed off at the government right now because of this news

They could have pulled a Russia and kept denying despite the evidence against them. Whoever was responsible for not restricting the airspace is a moron and should be ultimately held responsible. However in Iran, that probably means being put to death.

He's just had fucking surgery on his foot and is recovering - he posted something about what he was doing on New Years at midnight. You know who else did that? Shitloads of other professional players who have Instagram accounts. There are tons of players that perform at a very high level on social media. It's not the fucking issue with Manchester United. Pogba, this season, hasn't even been the issue at Man Utd - other than him not being fit for very much of the season. And I know there were rumours of him faking an injury, but him getting surgery sort of nips that rumour in the bud pretty emphatically because you don't go under the scalpel blade if you need to. Pogba is the go to punching bag at United because he's the one creative midfielder they have that can last a full 90 minutes when he's fit & he's not been fit, he cost a shitload of money but United are still not very good, he left the club on a free transfer and came back to big fanfare and then United have remained a pretty meh side - so he doesn't get the same treatment as other United players. But honestly, who give as a fuck what a player posts on their social media on new years as long as it's not them doing something illegal or mocking the disabled or shite like that? It's a non-issue because... a lot of good players are on social media and active on social media. People just want to blame Pogba for United being crap so they give him a lot of shit. In reality, he's a good player - just not the sort of midfielder they thought he was that would take the game by the scruff of the neck and lead United through example.

Didn't come out with that shite while JLingz is playing like absolute dogshite but gets on social media constantly to promote his clothing brand, though did he? Targeted one particular player and after he posted something of him starting his new year by listening to some shite from his religion. I saw Man Utd fans complaining about it on reddit saying that Giggs' comments were a disgrace - let me see if I can find them. lol @ the top comment : "He's just jealous Pogba can hang out with his brothers"

So Pogba posted a video of him listening to audio of the Quran. Giggs comes out and questions Pogba’s ethics for listening to his holy book. Giggs fucked his brothers wife for 8 years and shouldn’t be questioning anyone’s ethics because he’s unethical scum. Let alone questioning someone’s ethics because of their religious beliefs, the fucking bigot

Lol well they’re denying it was hit by a missile. Just in case you ever want to feel better about how the UK is being run, just remember Iran is run by absolute morons

Hasn't Xavi been a shit manager in Saudi Arabia?

The best bit is the "foul and abuse language is encouraged" bit imo.

I'm not too surprised most of the passengers were of Iranian descent - I think most people would be too scared to go to Iran unless they were Iranian. Especially lately, as in the months before this there were massive widespread protests in Tehran and other big cities... that got suppressed pretty brutally. But these were people who headed back to see their families when they had time off, and they know if you just keep your head down and don't get involved in any political shite while you're in Iran - you'll likely have no problems at all. Unless your a man of conscription age... then you might have to bribe someone on your way into the country. And yeah, the fact the pilots couldn't sound out a distress signal indicates that the plane's transponder immediately stopped working. And one reason that'd happen is because the plane was struck by a missile and the transponder was destroyed. It's a total tragedy. I'm not so sure that the government will flat out deny it was shot down - the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran was the first to report it was due to technical failures & Reuters reported that it was Iranian officials to ask them to retract that statement. Considering how pissed off Iran still is about the US shooting down one of their commercial airliners in the 80s... this has to be hugely embarrassing for the regime. Iran really can't afford to be further isolated from the world community - which a flat denial would likely cause. If that happens, all of this domestic unity they've managed to foster after Soleimani's death likely goes out the window as more countries impose sanctions on Iran and the economic condition (which is already really really bad) worsens and they'll have more massive anti-government demonstrations to deal with. It's insane that the government didn't put any flight restrictions on commercial flights when they knew they would be at high alert as they responded. It's such an avoidable tragedy that happened, just because of the sabre rattling between two countries that haven't had good relations since 1979 and have reached an all time low in the last few years. If the world community does unite against Iran though, that may be the sort of pressure needed to get Iran to come back to the negotiating table and re-enter some kind of agreement with similar terms to the JCPOA. Because as things stand, I can't see the Iranian government ever willingly going back to negotiate with the US regarding nuclear power - it's been demonstrated that what one administration might commit to, the other might immediately pull out of. And for the deal to have any meaning beyond one US presidential administration, which any nuclear deal with Iran would, it'd need to be able to guarantee that the US's commitments can't suddenly end with one administration. It'd need to be an official treaty that the US Congress ratifies... and US politics is so split right now, I can't see that happening anytime soon. People hoping for regime change in Iran should be hoping for it through non-violent methods. Iran's not China - it's not a place where generations of people have had "I must remain apolitical and support my government" - it's a place with an incredibly high voter turnout where people, even living under theocratic repression, will pretty freely speak about politics - and pretty freely talk about what exactly they dislike about living under the IRI's rule. Opening Iran up to the rest of the international community means more Iranians can study abroad again, like they used to, they can get visas and travel to other countries more freely... and then they'll see a lot of the propaganda the IRI feeds them is a load of shit. And they'll remember that when they take to the polls. The JCPOA was a great starting point to start putting more pressure on Iran through diplomacy. Taking a nuclear IRI off the table, and keeping Iran obligated to allow inspectors in upon demand of any of the parties to the agreement (so the UN security council nations + the EU) is the first step in engaging Iran in negotiations for things like: ending support for Hezbollah, ending the conflict in Yemen. And in return, Iran wants to be more involved in the global economy. Which in turn means Iran will open up to the rest of the world and ordinary Iranians will get more of a chance to see what life is like outside of an authoritarian theocracy. The slow burn approach to reforming Iran is imo the best approach to regime change in Iran - because as I've stated here, Iran has the framework for a real and effective democracy - they just need to remove the roadblocks to having a real democracy in the Supreme Leader position shouldn't be around & neither should the Guardians Council. An approach using western military intervention (aka an invasion of Iran) is likely to give us the same result as Iraq... but with a far greater cost, as it's a more populated country with a much harsher terrain, and with a larger military than Saddam's Iraq. So I hope ultimately, at the end of the day, Iran is pushed back to the negotiating table and something to prevent the IRI from having a nuclear weapon (and thus probably being the government in place in Iran for as long as we are alive) and we go back to having that starting point to put pressure on Iran to stop doing the shitty things it does do. But it's a real tragedy those people died in that plane. These tensions escalating since the end of US involvement in the JCPOA and the resumption of US sanctions on Iran were needless and have set back US-Iran relations decades... and the ultimate effect so far of all of this has been: 1.) Iranians getting shot for protesting the shitty economic condition these sanctions made worse, 2.) a plane full of innocent people being shot down, 3.) a top level IRGC is dead - which weakens the IRI... but has also created more unity around a government that was feeling extreme domestic pressure. It's been a bad few years, but especially a bad week, for the Iranian people.

Nah, I can't play like John Mayer at all with that slapping thing technique. My hand just doesn't want to move like that.

The 14 missiles weren't shot anywhere near Tehran & were surface to surface missiles that fly pretty low (so they can get passed the US Patriot anti-missile defense system). So the missiles that were headed to those Iraqi bases with US forces weren't the same as the one that struck the plane. So yeah, the most likely answer is some inexperienced soldier panicked and fired a surface to air missile when he saw a plane fly overhead. It's possible there was something wrong with the plane's IFF (Identify Friend or Foe system) - the technology that exists so commercial airliners aren't mistaken for military aircraft and constantly shot down, according to some pilot on the news this morning. In any case, it's an absolute tragedy - because these victims are the real victims of the recent escalation in tensions. A few families, parents & their kids, were dead in moments. A lot of the people were Iranian international students in Canada that had been visiting their families over their uni's winter break. It's completely mental that Iran didn't put flight restrictions out the night they'd just responded to the tension by firing missiles at the US and they were obviously on high alert for any sort of military response from the US - delaying all departing flights out of Tehran for a few hours seems like it would have been completely reasonable to avoid the risk of innocent people dying. But instead they didn't and they took that risk... and a lot of innocent people died. Tbh when I first saw the video of it on twitter - I thought it was a missile that struck the plane and not a technical error. Just because it was a plane going down in a ball of flames.

He now plays for Ho Chi Mihn City his career was just a spectacular free-fall upon leaving us.

I've always thought pirates are cool - I'll have to check it out. I just started The Spy on Netflix.

Apparently Ancelotti doesn't like to discuss matches in the dressing room right after the match - because he believes emotions run to high and it's not so useful for the players to break down what happened in a match, and what went right/wrong until the next training session where he breaks down the players performances (which I actually thought was strange, but apparently it's very common in top level football). But even Ice Cold Carlo Ancelotti couldn't keep his cool after that second half and apparently had some pretty harsh words for his new players. There's clearly something wrong with the culture of the club if you've got senior players saying they gave 100% in that second half. It's a culture of self-defeat when it comes to Everton at Anfield (granted, in that first half you could have had 3 goals if not for Adrian making saves... but the first half wasn't really the problem, as much as it was the second half performance where senior players gave up to our kids). You see it when Curtis Jones scores and Everton heads just drop. I think you've got the right sort of manager to try to change the culture of the squad - a proven winner with a lot of titles to his name. And as a player, he knew what kind of attitude players need to have success: he won 3 Serie A titles, a lot of Copa Italias, and won 2 European Cups.

I posted it in the wrong thread, whoopsies

Looks like a Ukrainian passenger flight was shot down in Tehran tonight though Iran state media says it was a technical malfunction, but it went down in the ball of flames

That’s very good news

Read up on their current Foreign Minister - some of the shit he’s said has got him in a lot of shit with Iran’s hardliners. And before he was ever in Iran’s government, he got his degree in the US - went back to Iran to get married and then the revolution concerned him - and he went to live in NYC & Denver. His kids were born in America. He went back to Iran after he got his PhD, which was a thesis on when use of force is acceptable in international law - concluding only when force has been used on you. His PhD was centered around the Iran-Iraq war, and part of why he went back was he was disturbed about the US backing Saddam’s Iraq, while they were gassing Iranians. He’s not Ahmadinejad, or anywhere near a hard liner (and was actually forced out of the government under Ahmadinejad’s tenure). For a member of the Iranian government, and a very high profile one, he is someone that’s publicly stated very different ideological beliefs to others in the regime. It’s led him to be frozen out. He tried to resign after being left out of a meeting with Syria’s Assad, their foreign minister & Rouhani and Soleimani. His resignation was rejected by both Rouhani & Soleimani (who apparently had a say) - Khomeini was okay with him leaving as Javad Zarif is far too much of a reformer to him. But it’s weird to not have your top diplomat there while you’re meeting with an ally discussing military plans. Iran has something like above an 80% voter turnout, that indicates that people who even hate their government believe their vote can make an impact. I think if Iran’s ever going to change, they actually have a decent political framework to go with - they just need to drop the supreme leader shite & the Guardians Council. And Zarif would be a good transition leader for Iran - and quite frankly I’m shocked he’s got such a high position in the regime. I trust him a hell of a lot more than Pompeo, who has a long history of wanting war with Iran.

I'm scared for my family that's there

Pompeo's a twat that's wanted war with Iran for decades & almost everything that comes out of the Trump administration is bullshit though. I'd be inclined to go with what the Iraqi PM, who has to work with both sides, says. Unfortunately, I think shits about to get a whole lot worse because Iran has launched a dozen ballistic missiles at 2 US military bases in Iraq.

Australia rejects UK's appeal for freedom of movement between the two countries: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/first-blow-for-post-brexit-britain-as-australia-rejects-trade-deal/07/01/