Dr. Gonzo

On paper I don't think gets into our starting XI, but the season is long and he will get plenty of chances to earn a spot. Gini and Can aren't untouchable, Lallana is injured, and Coutinho will probably fake injuries over the season. And while playing out wide for us, he'd be part of our front 3 - which is probably more enjoyable to him than being a wingback which I think he hates. Then again, the last English CM that came here was left back all last year haha. But us having fullback depth and not having a back 3 would likely mean he doesn't play as a wingback. At very least it's better depth than we had last year and that's good.

I think our recruitment under them has been the biggest issue. And if we don't get a CB it's a massive failing on their part. But he club has also been given some serious backing this summer, if we fail to bring people in I blame the people who's job it is to sign players, rather than the people who are trying to pay shitloads for us to bring players in.

Not so much aimed at you tbh. I've got a few friends who fucking hate FSG for anything that ever goes wrong with the club and they don't really give a shit when shit goes well. I think 7 years on from where we were, we've made decent progress. We've had some setbacks with bad signings, management mistakes (at the first team level and in the executive decision making level for us). All things considered, they've taken us from the Hodgson days, made a few pretty massive errors with transfers during King Kenny's 2nd stint - as well as keeping him for more than the season where he steadied the ship post Hodge-podge, kept faith with Brendan a bit too long once it was clear he was out of ideas post-Suarez. And the whole thing with VvD this summer and continually missing out on targets last summer with our low-balling bids are frustrating for sure. But all things considered, we could be having much more major ownership issues. Arsenal, for instance, look to have a real divide between board members who want to see the club ambitious and those who are okay with just getting steady money. Monaco are minted and their new model for their club is to routinely sell off their very best players at huge profits - which is obviously not ideal if you want to win things. We don't have the best financial backing in our league. But those teams in our league that do are: 1.) Man Citeh - oil baron plaything, 2.) Chelsea - oil baron plaything, 3.) Man Utd - the literal embodiment of everything terrible and evil about humanity. I think while FSG are not the richest of owners, they've still given us decent financial backing (compare our net spend to clubs with more similar financial footing than us for the past few years, as opposed to Citeh/Chelsea/the other manc club - it's not like they've been incredibly stingy). But they haven't always had the best decision making - which is understandable considering they've had success with baseball and tried to port that knowledge over even though it is a fundamentally different sport. Shit like the failed Carroll/Downing experiment with a statistically good crosser of the ball and a statistically good header of the ball make sense when you consider what worked for the Boston Red Sox - but when you look at how those signings fundamentally changed how our squad was set up to play, and when you realise stats aren't as important in football (although the data is still useful in some senses) as they are in baseball... it shows they had learning to do. I've had doubts with FSG's ambition in the past as well. But between standing up for not selling Suarez to Arsenal (and then a season later, selling for much more money - more than double if I remember right), bringing in Klopp (rather than persisting with Rodgers), insisting we hang onto Coutinho (who if we do sell this window, we will be getting an insane price for - even though it's not really in our best interests too if we can't land Lemar), and the serious amounts of money we've been looking to drop on individual players this season (the amounts for VVD, Keita, and Lemar are all insane - Salah and Mane look like absolute bargains with the state of this market right now)... I find it hard to argue that FSG haven't demonstrated a significant commitment to improving Liverpool. The moneymen are there to sign the checks. If things aren't working out then, it's on our recruitment team and coaching staff moreso than a board that's giving financial backing. And to be honest, other than the VVD fuckup this summer and Karius... I don't think we got a lot wrong in recruitment last season. This season, I think it was unwise to really be focused on certain players for key areas that need strengthening - it's always a decent idea to have backups... you have to admit, our persistence in trying to land our number one targets shows ambition. Especially for a club that for decades has had problems landing our top targets. But a real major point of my initial post was basically: wow, remember how shit Hodgson & G&H were? Because holy shit it was bad.

One for the FSG Out Crowd: Never forget the dire fucking straights we were in 7 years to the day.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is a good signing - and while that price seems a bit high for him - in this market it's actually fairly reasonable. Chelsea need more depth and homegrown players, the Ox is English and versatile as fuck. Useful on multiple levels.

We were playing some of the worst football I've ever seen at Liverpool and with Gillett and Hicks also staring administration right in the face. Things were absolutely dire back then. Arsenal have financial strength. But Wenger has totally lost the plot and Stan Kroenke doesn't care about ambition as long as he has a stadium in a big city where he can charge high prices (see: moving his NFL team to LA & Arsenal's insane ticket prices). I also think a lot of the players are just not good enough - particularly Welbeck and Xhaka. I legitimately can't see how Welbeck went the full 90 yesterday.

Our group would be the group of death... in the Europa League. So on paper it's good for us. Sevilla's obviously the toughest of that lot. And the flight to Moscow isn't a short one, so that's lots of traveling for us, which isn't great. And Maribor are a side we'd all expect us to beat - which generally means they'll play out of their fucking skin against us.

I hadn't played Titanfall 2 in months, but played a bit last night. I really like the multiplayer a lot. It's better than any COD I've played in years, it does the whole wall-running and movement based twitch FPS thing much better than Black Ops 3 (I haven't played the newest COD, but assuming that's similar - it's total crap in comparison to Titanfall 2). The Xbox One population isn't the greatest, but it's still very populated on most gametypes. It's also had a few maps and other shite added on for free since the last time I played, which is nice to see as well. I agree with the release. Sandwiching it between COD and Battlefield was an incredibly stupid idea. Had the game come out in the Spring, this game would have gotten a lot more press and attention. It's an underrated game for sure, and I hope that eventually there is a Titanfall 2. However, now that I'm back into the game and I've convinced a few friends to buy it on sale this week, I'm looking forward to getting to play it more regularly.

Good strategy to not land Di Maria.

Trent Alexander Arnold is now 1 CL goal away from equaling the total number of champions league goals Everton have ever scored.

I liked Breaking Bad immediately. Weird premise, but an intricate plot with very well done character development. The Wire has to be up there though.

I think Breaking Bad's still the best show ever. But I do love GOT.

There's definitely been some moments where you can see in some characters (although, tbh mostly Tyrion and Jamie) the moral dilemma of dragons and wildfire. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be symbolism for nuclear weapons - but even more obviously, being burned alive is a horrible death. But then other characters, (mostly Dany and Cersei) genuinely seem to give little fucks of any moral ramification behind using their most devastating weapons. I feel like after Jamie witnessed the dragon attack though, and now thinks Cersei is preggers, he now no longer really cares that she killed a lot of innocent people by destroying the sept... which kind of takes away from that moral concern behind using wildfire. I also think Cersei is lying about being preggers though - so who knows. Not too sure how I'm feeling about this season tbh. I liked the Spoils of War episode best, I think most people did. But between the pacing they've forced on themselves by reducing the number of episodes by season and (at least what seems to me) like so much fan service. Although tbh, it is nice to see a cured Jorah and Gendry back in the fold. Also Sam's storyline is getting pretty interesting.

I'm finding the pacing of this season really weird. There's so much that's happened comparatively this season compared to other seasons - but that's also because there are 2 fewer episodes. And I wouldn't say that this last episode was particularly bad... and maybe it just seems more "meh" because of how good the episode before it was. But there was so much that happened and for the series, everything is unfolding at a much more rapid pace. I understand they're on a time crunch - but it is sort of their own doing. Shit like instant traveling makes me wonder why the fuck shit took so much longer before. Having said that, because the plot is moving much faster this season we did see a lot of interesting things develop in this episode. I will say, however, that this plan they have of capturing a white walker is fucking retarded.

Let's not pretend any actress had anything to do with any of that.

I think if we lose Coutinho without bringing in a top notch attacker, which lets be honest, any alternative that's as good or better is likely not going to be signed by us... I'd call this an awful window. Gaining VVD and losing Coutinho would represent serious regression to me.

Assuming we don't sign VVD (because I don't think we will) - do you think we'll sign another CB? Is another CM likely, we've been linked with a lad from Ajax, but I've got no clue how good of a source it is tbh. As things stand now, Salah looks like a good singing and someone that will help our attack. And Robertson is a left back that's got promise, for sure, but it looks as though Moreno will be the starter for our first match... and Solanke looks good but is only a kid. And we've also really just watched friendlies, which are fairly meaningless other than for the players to find fitness. I'm not sure it looks like a good summer for us if things don't stay the same. Having said all that, keeping things as is is probably better than making panic buys that just hold us back.

Ah, well that's a bit shit for the good guys.

That was the second best episode, the first best being the Battle of the Bastards. Danyrs just attacked the Lannisters transporting the gold. I don't think the Iron Bank is going to be repaid with Tyrell gold - I think the Dothraki and Drogon have given her a big advantage here. Plus it's a story of Fire and Ice... so her and Jon Snow are pretty important characters.

Quite frankly, it's got a shitload to do with the US. Venezuela sells a significant amount of oil to the US and as we know, oil is something the US has been willing to go to war for. They were willing to deal with a dictator they hated, and who hated them, in Chavez because of cheap oil. Instability in one of their oil producers is not a good thing for America. Although perhaps the US gives less of a shit now because it's increased it's own oil production significantly. But aside from the callous reasons of oil and economic imperialism, I do think that Venezuela should be getting a lot more news coverage. It's fucking shocking what's going on there right now. Starvation, infighting between the military and police (as in, some are very much fighting for the starving public and others are fighting for Maduro's goal of making his dictatorship stronger), and a whole lot of innocent people dying. I think a disinterested rest of the world will allow for Maduro or another shitbag, to solidify a truly repulsive regime and more suffering for general innocent people.

It's horrific how brutal a dictatorship can be when the West doesn't give a shit. No idea why America doesn't care, Venezuela is the US's biggest oil provider. If US petrol prices go up from this maybe then they'll care.

Tbf he's not getting into our first team either, with James Milner, England's best left back

Hahaha have you seen this?

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/first-team/269167-liverpool-fc-complete-andy-robertson-signing 23 year old left back signs from Hull for £10m. Kevin Stewart also is sold to Hull for... some amount of money. No idea if this is a good signing or not, but I don't know how he could be much worse (if worse at all) than Moreno. I suspect he'll be backup to Milner at the start of the season and it'll be up to him to displace him at leftback.