Dr. Gonzo

Tories getting crucified in local elections = glorious

Yeah I have really high hopes, when Bethesda get an RPG game right… they typically make a really enjoyable game.

It only hurts the game rushing things out before they should be released. But I think Microsoft's got a problem with the way it treats it's exclusives - this botched Redfall launch is just the latest example. But the last 3 Halo releases also fell far off the mark (and I liked Halo 5 a lot and to a lesser extent, I thought Halo: Infinite had a lot going for it) - they've added to them since launch, but still something about them always feels incomplete and rushed. I love the Gears of War games... and I feel the same way about the last one - it wasn't released with everything fans of the series had come to expect after years of enjoying the series. It makes me worried about that Starfield game that Bethesda's been working on for ages now that Microsoft's bought them. In fairness, they've kept on most of the staff there and they've got an experienced dev team... and they've got the benefit of being Bethesda so a buggy launch is sort of to be expected (and some of those early day bugs are hilarious so tbh looking forward to seeing what Bethesda manages to fuck up at lauch); and the Fallout 4 launch was generally pretty solid. Idk about that MMO Fallout they released, though. But Starfield isn't going to be a multiplayer game either. It's not every Microsoft exclusive that seems to shit the bed, Hi-Fi Rush was fun and had a great launch... but it seems to be anything high profile that isn't Forza. But it's particularly bad with the games that are sort of centred around multiplayer. It's hard to get a playerbase to stick with a game if it's released in a poor state and even if they make fixes... if they come out too slow (looking at the Halo series in particular with this), the game starts rapidly losing players. Multiplayer focused games with a small playerbase are destined for failure. Xbox's best gaming product right now is it's GamePass service. But if the exclusives don't start to pick up in quality... they're in danger of going the same way as Netflix imo - where I now expect most Netflix exclusives to be crap and I'm genuinely surprised when I like one.

It sounds like they didn't have a consistent development team while making the game, lots of changes in people working on the game, then mass layoffs - it sounds like Xbox games was also pushing them to release before the game was ready. Sort of an absolute mess of a situation - it's a shame because it was meant to be a good new IP and I think the concept is very good... but the implementation is very poor.

Another Xbox exclusive launching as a buggy mess that needs to be fixed but won't be fixed soon enough in the game's life to keep a player base going with Redfall. People are saying it's worse than the disappointment of Halo Infinite because at least that was playable and demonstrated a solid sandbox. This is apparently so buggy it's difficult to even play the way it was designed to be played. I was looking forward to it, but I was gifted a copy of Dead Island 2 and I've been playing that with some friends and I think it's a lot of fun. I have no idea what the replay value will be like and I never played the first one, but I think it's a lot of fun.

I don’t want to share him with other clubs in England. If he joins though I hope he does really well. But there’s also the fact that I like that right now he’s managing Sardar Azmoun and has helped Azmoun settle into Germany better. I do think he probably needs more experience before joining Spurs, though.

Should we be worried about VVD? Looks like statistically our worst defender. Obligatory fuck Pickford - I'm glad the rest of the t-rexs are extinct. Or is it something that can be fixed by having a more functional midfield this season? Speaking of our midfield and some stats... here's an interesting one: Hoping we finally replace Gini this summer.

I hope Xabi tells them to fuck off tbh.

I think Frank Lampard should get a lifetime contract as Chelsea manager

Apparently they want to give Klopp a lengthy sideline ban. I guess he should have just elbowed Tierney in the head, since that's alright by PMGOL standards.

Still very young and raw, but he's come on leaps and bounds from his performances earlier in the season. I thought Carvalho looked good earlier in the season, pretty lively player, but he's hardly been given any chances lately and it looks as though a loan in the championship for his development next season is likely. But I think both those kids we poached from Fulham have big futures ahead of them, they're certainly full of potential.

Yeah earlier in the season I thought “wow he hasn’t kicked on at all” but since coming back into the side he looks like he’s developing nicely.

Whatever helps you sleep at night pal

I don't really know about that. If you can't get 3 points against a dysfunctional side, you probably deserved to lose.

Idk if that's necessarily true - Chelsea and Everton have spent a lot of money over the past few seasons (Everton less so after they started running into FFP troubles), Everton's floor appears to be facing the real prospect of relegation. Chelsea's floor is harder to judge - is this season just a blip fro the chaos of having an owner willing to spend a lot but without having an actual clue of what he's doing? Forest also... bought enough players to fill 2 starting lineups - but I wouldn't say their recruitment was particularly competent... just throwing money at players to bring in bodies. Competence provides the floor. Ashley didn't have competence or money tbh. I hate the Saudi government and think they're absolute scum, but you look at their investment portfolio and it's pretty clear they're very competent investors.

Did any of them have to deal with loads of money spent on players before being brought in? I guess other than Mourinho who did really well with Ranieri's last signings made as Chelsea's manager in his first stint? Because if I remember right, Chelsea gave Tuchel basically a blank check... and then sacked him to bring in Potter. And how much of Potter (or even Fat Frank) being shit at managing this season... is down to them actually being bad managers vs. players deciding "fuck this, I want to play for someone else." Granted, with Fat Frank we've got his time at Everton where he also didn't really do anything either - and given his history as a manager where he's ended up leaving clubs in the exact same spot as he found them... there's probably not a lot to expect of him as an interim manager now that you're worse than the last time he was around.

Pretty sure you've had managers last more than a fraction of a season in the last 20 years tbh. I think if Poch comes in to this Chelsea squad, he needs to be afforded patience... and I'm not sure the Chelsea fans have the required patience if things start to go wrong, I'm not even sure Boehly & co. have much patience (mostly because I don't think they actually know what they're doing - and they're probably prone to being overly influenced by the media and fans). Meanwhile, the culture of the club has allowed players to down tools when they don't like a manager... and I don't think that changes unless there's basically a wholesale clearout at the club. So if Poch comes in and doesn't hit the ground running... or if the club has a blip in form that most clubs experience over a season... I think he'll find himself under a lot of pressure. I think there's a lot that needs to change at Chelsea for any sort of long term planning to be successfully implemented. Also you probably need a good director of football to make the football decisions instead of a rich American married to a Walmart heiress thinking he can apply what's worked at his MLB side to football.

Goodbye Abbas Ali Soleimani - I don't think hell is real, but if it is I'm glad you're there! https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-741306 I'm glad that the oppressing mullahs are being directly targeted. Like I said yesterday, peaceful protesting against thugs only goes so far.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65308769 "let them eat cake" vibes

5th day of national strikes in Iran to once again demand basic human rights for Iranians. I think part of the problem is non-violent protests in the face of a repressive and violent government aren't going to work. You're just going to end up with thousands arrested, many sentenced to death, and a few high profile instances of violence to discourage people from taking to the streets. It's a very tough issue to deal with because ultimately this government will always turn to violence in the face of non-violent protests. There've been some instances of violence against government forces, but for the most part it's been relatively peaceful protesting. I'm not sure they will be able to free themselves from the oppression of the IRI without using more violence against basijis, sepahis, and even mullahs themselves. And unfortunately, I think that means a whole lot of innocent people would have to put their lives at risk just to fight for the same sort of basic human rights and freedoms that we take for granted in our daily lives.

@Eco with the prospect of more expansion teams (fingers crossed San Diego gets one)... is there ever any chance of promotion/relegation in US football? Or is that something that's likely too big of a threat to the revenue streams of all the MLS team owners to ever seriously be a consideration. It's very clear to me in my time living in the US that football has become so much more popular in the US than it was when I first came here. I think with how absolutely vast the US is... promotion and relegation would be very interesting for football in the US. I also think smaller clubs (if they ever popped up and the US had a football tier system like Europe) would probably have a miserable time traveling around the country - so I'm not sure how like-for-like the US could get to Europe with promotion & relegation. They'd probably have to have regional leagues with playoff systems to determine promotion, I assume. My gut instinct is that promotion and relegation in the MLS or US football generally is a non-starter. I assume there's guaranteed revenue each MLS team gets each season from being in the MLS... none of these owners are going to want anything to threaten that.

You'll probably just pull a City/PSG and have Saudi owned companies sponsor the club at overinflated prices to then point to record revenue at Newcastle. Goes hand in hand with trying to promote Saudi business and being a tourism advertisement for the Saudis as well.

Prime Allardyce imo got a bad rap - Bolton was definitely his prime and there were times where his Bolton didn't just play the turgid shite they were famous for and actually produced some nice passing football in that Jay-Jay Okocha era. Prime Simeone at Atletico is, without a doubt, the biggest example of football terrorism I've seen in my whole life. The amount of money put into those squads playing the ugliest football I've seen in my entire life... the guy's obviously enjoyed success with his methods. But his brand of football is awful to watch & imo his sides are what Didier Drogba would call "a fucking disgrace." The football equivalent of ISIS execution videos. Whenever I see Mourinho compared with him, I feel bad for Mourinho... and I fucking hate Mourinho

The thing about NATO being expansionist is... it wasn't really looking like an expanding anytime recently up until Russia invaded Ukraine. There was some talk of Ukraine wanting to join NATO to protect itself from what it (accurately) thought was the threat of Russian invasion, but it wasn't taken seriously because of rules on being a NATO member and needing to have resolved border conflicts for a certain number of years. Russia invades Europe and suddenly countries all around Russia express an interest in joining the alliance meant to protect sovereignty from Russian aggression... it's not surprising. Furthermore, it's hard to call NATO expansionist when joining NATO doesn't mean you're all of a sudden a western puppet. Look at Turkey, one of the most important nations in NATO from a geo-strategic standpoint... are they a US or EU puppet? Absolutely not, they constantly act in ways that piss off the US and EU. Same with Hungary, which is both a NATO and EU member. Whereas in Russia's equivalent to NATO, CSTO... it's an alliance where nations are called on when Russia wants them to, but they don't really lift a finger if other CSTO nations ask for assistance. So it's not like NATO is going around convincing nations to become their vassel states to mirror CSTO. In fact, this recent surge in NATO's popularity all falls squarely at Putin's feet - it isn't that long ago that people felt NATO was an outdated alliance as Russia was believed to be less beligerant than it was. Similarly, I don't think you can blame Ukraine or NATO for not trusting Russian ceasefire calls, considering how early on in the war Russia and Ukraine would agree to ceasefires and then Russia would promptly break the ceasefire. This is not the West's war to end though - it's Ukraine and Russia's to end... and of course the West will support Ukraine against Russian expansion into Europe (that's why NATO existed in the first place)... if Russia wants the fighting to stop, they must leave all of Ukraine and respect Ukraine's sovereignty. And if the people of Russia want that but their leaders are unwilling to end the war... it's on the Russian people to do something about their government.

Are they losing the war in Ukraine though? It seems like Russia's invasion that was meant to take just a few days has been dragged out successfully and the Russians now have to take defensive positions rather than act as invaders and occupiers. I'm pretty sure the lessons learned from Chamberlain dealing with Hitler are applicable with Putin. Obama, Merkel, Cameron, & co., tried the appeasement stuff with Putin when he took Crimea - it did not stop Russian belligerence and aggression towards Ukraine. Bush & EU/UK leaders did the same thing with Russia invaded Georgia. If you don't stop an aggressive dictator from expanding throughout Europe, they're going to keep expanding and acting more belligerent. Hitler, Stalin, and now Putin have demonstrated it. It's pretty clear that the people of Ukraine don't seem to want to succumb to Russia, nor do many of these former Soviet bloc countries. It's better to support them now and foster alliances with them now than to let them fall and have the aggressive dictator bordering Western Europe and thinking it'll just take that superior infrastructure and economic power for itself.