Dr. Gonzo

I just lump them in all together on this. That May couldn’t keep her party in line regarding the stability of the fucking nation, is entirely her failing, she gets no sympathy from me. She should never have been PM and she’s basically the living personification of ineptitude. How she survived a no confidence vote I will never know

Well yeah, that’s the entire point of making a deal with the EU before leaving. The EU has been saying to expect no deal for over a year, so no doubt they have plans in place - like the equivalency program for our financial services sector to continue doing business with the EU (though under that plan Brussels can unilaterally end the program, so our financial services industries will be at the EU’s mercy - which is why many people are predicting the EU will keep this program in place while they entice firms to leave the UK). And because May and her gaggle of morons that couldn’t really negotiate a deal have boxed us in with their shit deal, yet the Tories don’t want to face reality and believe we will leave with a better deal, despite the EU basically telling us to do one, I’m fairly confident we’ll be exiting with no deal. And with no plans in place for no deal, because that’s the kind of leadership we’ve got. I feel for the young people in the UK having a hard time trying to get their lives together with these stagnant wages. When people point to improved employment statistics, I will keep pointing to the low wages in the UK. And unfortunately I think for them to improve their lives more people will do what I did, chase better wages that allow for upward mobility, for the same exact work abroad and plan to come back some other time.

I’d agree with you, but the EU will be hit in the pocket with deal or no deal.

I think I’m resigned to the UK just being on the periphery as a world power now, there were chances to avoid it - but clearly people don’t want to avoid it. After three years and a piss poor deal that will never pass parliament to show for it, resulting in Brexit killing another PM and giving us one of two complete bellends to run the country through a tough time with a completely split electorate. There isn’t going to be a second referendum before the deadline. May’s deal won’t be approved by the UK. The EU won’t go out of their way to devastate us economically, especially just as the dust settles. They need us, we need them. But it is now in their interest to poach our industries. The UK will still make trade deals, but without the collective economic strength of the EU with us, we’ll be making deals with other countries with less bargaining power. There will be a recession and austerity, which I’m obviously opposed to. But it won’t be the end of the world. And both of the grifters vying for the PM job are promising tax cuts on the wealthy, setting the stage for some disaster capitalism and pushing income disparity further. Maybe that’ll wake people the fuck up to the lies they were told, maybe not.

What I don’t understand about wanting a No Deal Brexit is... we will eventually have to make a trade deal with the EU, they’re our biggest trading partner. So it just seems to me that step 1 for the government would be... negotiating a fucking deal with Europe. And to me, hobbling our economy right from the off doesn’t really put us in a strong negotiation position. Granted, May’s deal is shit. And I don’t think we should be taking that. But I don’t think No Deal and the aftermath of that will be particularly great for the UK in the short term, in that I think the EU can play nice on the one hand with things like their finance sector “equivalence” scheme; but I fear their end goal will be to poach our financial services sector away from London. And obviously that will have long term effects, losing the industry that makes up most of the GDP. And then there’s been the EU, which this whole time has had most of the leverage in Brexit negotiations, saying they’re not going to negotiate beyond May’s shite deal. So we’ve got two bad leave options. And that’s what most voters voted for, to leave. So to go back on that and you’ve got just over half the country pissed off that politicians shat on their votes. I think no matter how you slice it, overall most people won’t be happy with the end result. At this point we just need it to happen, stumble through the aftermath - which is guaranteed to be a shitshow - and then we can move on.

So you're just baiting him because you find it funny?

Well yeah, it's an absolute shithole like all of these places (on the second list): https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/31/uks-safest-and-most-dangerous-cities-are-revealed-7901267/ You might not like what the most dangerous city is though

Every city in the world can probably be accurately called a shithole

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-birmingham-48824157

Yeah he fits the actual dictionary definition of a terrorist, the media is irresponsible by not labeling him as such.

Let's cross the "getting bored of winning the title" bridge after we cross that first bridge of "winning the title while Dr. Gonzo is still alive"

Tbh I'd be quite happy with a title race that's boring as fuck... as long as we're the ones who're running away with it while everyone else is shit.

Yeah, I'd rather keep Salah if given the choice.

Difficult question to answer because of what Salah's attacking contribution for us has been over the last two seasons. The other players that compare to it are players that we're not going to be able to sign... and they're older than Salah by a bit. Maybe Mbappe?

Salah’s done more for us than Suarez or Torres tbh. Around 70 goals in 2 years in all competitions & a European Cup to his name. And he brought out the best in our front 3, as well as Coutinho. He’s easily our most difficult to replace attacker, other than maybe Firmino

Lol, what the fuck? He's been statistically our best attacker for two seasons, we're a club trying to make forward progress and compete for top honours… mostly the CL (so Europe's best sides) and in our league (which is arguably the most competitive league, rather than other leagues that some might argue are just a glorified SPL). It's not a mystery that a club that's made good progress over two seasons would want to keep their best performers over those seasons. I'd only entertain an offer that makes PSG's offer for Neymar look miniscule in comparison... so an absolutely obscene amount of money. The reasoning that you'd sell him for being selfish, no offense, made my eyes roll around in my head roll around so quickly that I had to take several seconds to rub my eyes and regain focus so I could type this. You know who else was selfish? Thierry Henry, who a lot of players consider the best attacker in history of the league. If an Arsenal fan had insisted to me that Henry could be replaced if he'd hypothetically scored 40 odd goals in his first season and another 20 something in his second season (I'm using hypothetical stats that match Salah's to illustrate the comparison) after his first two years at Arsenal, I'd have laughed in his fucking face til I was out of breath and crying. Here we've got a player that in his time with us has given us the best form of his career, suited to our system brilliantly and working very effectively with our current squad consistently for 2 seasons. This isn't like Coutinho being brilliant half the time and average the other half the time, it's not even close to that (although giving credit to Coutinho, he was consistently excellent... after we'd established Mane, Firmino, and... Salah... as our front 3, just prior to selling him). This is a player that since we've signed him has raised the level of the other two attackers that play alongside him. Just look at last year's CL final to demonstrate his impact, we were playing really well while he was on - when he went off we became absolutely toothless. He's a fucking talisman at this point. The only way it's acceptable to sell him is if it's a truly staggering amount of money. And even then, it's only worth selling him for that staggering amount of money until we've got a replacement either signed up or in place and we have a plan for how that staggering amount of money will be spent (because after you receive a staggering amount of money and you try to sign other players, you may find that clubs are now asking for a cut of that staggering amount of money). And even then, there's no guarantee Mystery Player X coming into replace Salah will fit the system as well as he does, or even half as well as he does, or if they'll even adapt well to the league. The club should be doing everything it can to keep our front 3 with the club during their primes. Even if we manage to sign a better winger for our system (which I don't think would be that easy), I'd like us to keep our quality players around as depth because we're competing against clubs like Slave Trader FC and their unlimited wealth. tl;dr - Lol, what the fuck?

They're looking to bin off Coutinho after 18 months, wouldn't be surprised if they look to bin off another player after spending a shitload.

One example is in that same season as the 4-1... but a few months before that, he made Vidic look like an amateur defender... and he was sent off there as well. Torres before he joined us had a history of absolutely humiliating Barca. It was enjoyable.

I'll be worried if we've got a week to go in the window and nobody's signed for us.

Because after Monday night it (and all the other Priest songs from the setlist) is firmly stuck in my head.

Did anyone seriously think Mourinho would go to Newcastle? Especially if there isn't new ownership at Newcastle? Thought it was a weird rumour before any takeover was confirmed. Now that a takeover looks unlikely... I'm not surprised he's basically ruled it out.

Drogba was probably such a frustrating player to play against. A very physical striker... but also one that would go down as softly as Neymar (minus the stupid fucking rolling around like a twat) if a defender had the nerve to give some physicality back to him. Disagree with Vidic that he only had one rough game against Torres, I remember Torres always running him ragged. But yeah, I'd probably agree with him that Drogba was the toughest attacking player to go up against for a lot of defenders in that era of the premier league. He was a beast.

I thought the same before Hodgson had us staring it in the face. I also don't think anyone predicted what would happen to Leeds or Forest. Sometimes it just takes a bit of managerial incompetence and a shit attitude from the players. Having said that, I think for the first time in a long time we'll see the vast majority of Chelsea fans back the manager over the players.

Would you want that assurance if Lampard has you battling relegation in this first season? I think Chelsea are in a lose-lose situation here, with a small chance of stumbling across something great (lose-lose-win). They're not in a position to get managers with the pedigree they're used to/that they'd want. Giving Lampard a shot is a big risk as he's only had one year experience at a level way below what you'd expect a Chelsea manager to have. I also understand why they'd turn to him given the circumstances they're in right now... but given how they operate and how the board has limited patience, they're running the risk of utterly humiliating one of the biggest legends Chelsea has a club.

Yeah tariffs on the US will only impact the US, really. So if I'm still here when I want to get a new console, looks like I'll be popping down to Mexico (unless the mango moron isn't president anymore).