Dr. Gonzo

I would be shocked if Southgate would play Trent in the inverted fullback role. I think if Southgate's starting Trent, he's probably not starting him at fullback and he's probably putting him in midfield. But regardless, I imagine that Phillips and Henderson are still in his plans - regardless of whether they deserve to be or not (they don't).

Joe Gomez is quietly having an excellent season as an incredibly important player. This season he’s played at CB, RB, LB and CM - and put in great performances in each position. With all the injuries we’ve had this season, him being versatile has been absolutely immense for us. He had a bad time of things last year, but the difference having functional midfielders in front of him has made has him brilliant again.

Antony’s fucking terrible

He owes Klopp some favors tbh

Israel to provide Ukraine with an early warning system for missiles and drones. Not quite iron dome, but I’m sure for Ukraine every little bit helps.

When Milner left us I came to the realisation it was probably the last time a Liverpool player would ever be older than me. Now we’ve got Neil Danns’s son, Lee Clark’s son & Jason Koumas’s son playing for us. It’s made me painfully aware that I’m old as fuck.

Satisfying to get a last minute winner when their fans spent 90 minutes mocking the Hillsborough dead and poverty. Hope they get a points deduction for their cheating and go down.

Get in!

Yeah you're right, he did confirm him out.

I've heard Jayden Danns isn't even in the game & he's 18. I don't play FIFA anymore so I can't confirm - I suppose it's probably difficult for EA to keep track of what young players will get promoted up into first team squads though.

Darwin and Szobo could be in the squad tomorrow. Mo likely to be out still though.

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Israel and Russia used to have very close ties - a lot of Israel was built by Russian-Jewish engineers who moved there. There are many Russian-Israeli dual nationals. I think those ties have worsened because Russia's very clearly using its ally in Iran to have activated its proxies to kick all of this shit off as a way of distracting the world's attention from Ukraine. So I think it makes perfect sense that Israel is now willing to actively work against Russia, who actively work to support Iran, who in turn are providing material support to Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah. I wouldn't say Israel has a general reluctance to supply weapons to allies. Israeli drones and weaponry were a big part of the way how Azerbaijan's military has been bolstered since losing their war against Armenia in the 90s to now looking like if Azerbaijan ever did invade Armenia - Armenia would be absolutely fucked. When justifying the Holocaust, he's quoted as having said "After all, who remembers the annihiliation of the Armenians?" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Armenian_reference) - a reference to the Armenian genocide (the genocide that led to the creation of the word "genocide") - Armenians and Israelis should probably be very close allies due to their common history and the commonality of being a young democratic nation surrounded by very hostile enemies that can justify wiping out their ethnicities. But Israel's support of ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabagh, as well as Israel's continual refusal to recognise the Armenian genocide (granted, this is mostly political - due to not wanting to piss of Turkey, a vital NATO member because of their location) are why Israel generally does not enjoy support from Armenians at large. And that's despite Jerusalem's Armenian quarter and Armenians having been living in the region for an absurdly long time (although the recent treatment of Armenians in Israel also probably has Armenia quite pissed off at Israel). Israel's had a general reluctance to support Ukraine against Russia primarily because of not wanting to damage ties with Russia, and partially because Ukraine consistently does not side with Israel in the UN. It seems months of war and threats of the war expanding from proxies of Russia's ally have finally given Israel a reason to not care if their ties with Russia suffer further strains. *edit* - I've just gone and done some searching and I have found NOTHING that indicates Israel is giving Ukraine the Iron Dome STOP MAKING SHIT UP Maybe one of the worst in Europe, but I think it depends on how you qualify "one of the worst" - I think in the world, you'd be hard pressed to say they make the bottom 10 countries for respecting human rights. The bottom countries for human rights according to statistia are: Yemen, Iran, China, Egypt, Syria, Central African Republic, DR Congo, North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Eritrea, Russia, Burundi, Somalia, and Libya. Places where you've got a mix of: authoritarian rule, corruption being "the way things work," and failed states. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256220/highest-human-rights-and-rule-of-law-index-by-country/) But again, I think we only have to worry about NATO conscription and UK (and other NATO nations) being sent to the frontlines if Ukraine falls and Russia decides to push further westward.

I think at the end of the day, the populations of Arab countries need to come to terms with the fact that Israel isn't going anywhere - and at this point, nearly 80 years after the creation of Israel, they would be just as guilty as Israelis were of the Nakba if they were ever trying to get their goal. And that's Arab governments' jobs to get them on board with dropping the idea of Palestinians and Israelis fighting for eternity until one side is completely wiped out and getting used to the idea of having Israel as a neighbor. But I agree with you that the US definitely needs to do more to restrain Israel. They should have been doing so for years. The practice of Israel announcing new illegal settlements every time a US president would land in Israel is something that America should have been pissed off about every time it happened - an ally doing something against international law that deliberately weakened US interests in the Middle East is something that I've always been surprised no American president has ever really cared about.

Yeah, I'm sure he loves Biden. Putin famously loves US presidents that have strong support for NATO, that are willing to support a nation Russia is invading and planned to take over in 3-5 days but simply can't due to that support, and would absolutely hate someone like Trump who seems to parrot much of what he says & is very anti-NATO generally. That's probably why Putin recently did an interview with one of Biden's most fervent US supporters, Tucker Carlson, and spoke generally favourably about Biden's support for stopping Russian expansion. Iran's had a crippled economy for decades because they're prohibited from being normal participants in the global economy - ultimately the economic plight of your ordinary Iranian isn't something the leadership of the IRI give a single fuck about. The mullahs and the elite of Iran grew richer than ever despite the "maximum pressure" of unprecedented actions - the IRGC remains well funded and Iran's proxies remain armed to the teeth. I'm not sure what your second point really is. If you're suggesting Iran should invade Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, I don't think there's a lot of appetite for that with Iran's population... nor within IRI leadership. The recent Iran-Pakistan exchanges of fire seem to mostly be targetting Kurdish militant groups that both governments hate. It looks as though both sides are doing each other a favour by taking out people they want to get rid of, but with the plausible deniability of the missile strikes coming from across a foreign border. And despite Afghanistan's Tajikis being ethnic brothers of Persians, I don't think there is any desire or appetite for any country in the world to go to war with Afghanistan. First off, Tajikis are a minority in Afghanistan. Secondly, Iran's got a refugee crisis due to the collapse of Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power. Thirdly, war in Afghanistan ends poorly for all invaders. If Iran was going to war with any neighbor, it would likely be Azerbaijan - who're allied with Israel, have made numerous claims to Iranian territory in propaganda speeches, and were more a part of Iran. And even in Iran's province of Azerbaijan, the majority Azeri population doesn't seem to want a thing to do with the nation the Republic of Azerbaijan. A lot of them don't even consider Azeris from the Republic of Azerbaijan Azeri, and instead refer to them as Azerbaijani. So while Aliyev, Baku's own Putin, seems to dream of Azeri reunification... I don't think there's a big desire for that within Iran. Fun fact: the former king of Iran was half-Azeri & Khamenei, the shitbag dictator in charge of Iran now, is also half-Azeri. But ultimately mate, I think you've got to start being less confident in making statements if you're not even going to think about what you're typing up - let alone fact checking.

I agree with everything you've said - except the bit about only intervention from the Americans can bring it to an end. Obviously America has to get involved, because it's the superpower and they're a big part of the reason Israel is the way it is. But I don't think any sort of peace process that's just involving Israel, the US, and Palestine is going to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of many Palestinians who view Israel as an imperialistic project by the US, UK, and Europe to have a foothold in the Middle East. The Arab world needs to be involved as well. This is obviously made more complicated by the fact that the most influential Arab nation does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. But I can't see any sort of US-only intervention in the region being seen as anything more than furthering the notion that Israel is a western colony in the Middle East. Arab leadership needs to be involved in bringing about peace - especially when for decades the plight of the Palestinian people has been a rallying cry to unify "the Arab world." If not the Saudis, because of their lack of diplomatic relations, I think Egypt, Jordan and Oman all need to be involved. And they need to be involved in something more than their recent ceasefire deal which just calls for an immediate ceasefire without meeting Israel's pretty reasonable requirement for the ceasefire: releasing the hostages. Of the remaining hostages, I really do wonder how many are still alive and being used as human shields to prevent Hamas leadership from being bombed. But I think without Arab countries working to create some kind of solution, any intervention by the US won't be taken seriously by Palestinians (and Arabs generally) - I think it will just be seen as Israel and the US bullying an the already oppressed Palestinians.

Yes but I came back 3 days later.

Hamas absolutely knew what they were doing when they attacked on October 7th - they knew they were provoking Israel into a reaction that would be horrific for Palestine. And their masters in Tehran got a call from Moscow saying they had a plan to bolster their efforts in the war in Ukraine, and the IRI is going to jump as high as Putin tells them to when they're now so economically and militarily linked & the mullahs quite literally depend on Russian support. They're just a pawn in trying to distract NATO from being able to fully support Ukraine, which has stopped Russia from its plan to have taken control over Ukraine in 3-5 days pretty successfully. It's only really working because half of US politicians are craven Trump & Putin bootlickers, who see Russia's shitty dictatorship as an ally in their culture war against "wokeness" - even though they can't define wokeness. But ultimately they're just appeasing an expansionist dictator because apparently they don't teach modern history anymore.

I've been to the Middle East before

Just FYI (although I'm not 100% sure he'd have known this either): Islamicist does not mean Islamic. All Muslims are Islamic, because their religion is Islam - that's what makes someone Muslim. Not all Muslims are Islamicists, Islamicists are the Muslims who believe in fundamentalist Islam being the cornerstone of politics. Sadiq Khan is Muslim, so he is Islamic. But he does not believe in the application of Islamic fundamentalism into his politics - so he is not an Islamicist. Ali Khamenei is a Muslim, so he is also Islamic. However, his political beliefs are driven by Shia Islamic fundamentalism - so he is an Islamicist. So using that word is not the same as trying to dismiss anyone that was against the Nazis as "Jew lovers" - there's a big difference between being Islamic and being an Islamicist.

Danns again.

Get in Danns! Two great goals from our two academy grads with famous dads.

Get in! What a great first LFC goal for Koumas!

Southampton hit the post

Apparently we're approaching Edwards again to see if he'll come back, for a position higher than Sporting Director. The man, imo, is a genius for the work he did in his first stint with us. If we get him involved with making signings again, I think that's a great sign for the future under a new manager. But it's a big if, apparently his consultancy firm is doing very well and he's probably making a ridiculous sum of money. Edwards and Alonso back at Liverpool though would be the ideal way to move forward, imo. Fingers crossed we get both.