Lionator

None of the teams coming up would stand a chance. Realistically who is falling off the pace enough to be threatened with relegation? You’re genuinely looking at a Bournemouth or Forest qualifying for Europe and struggling with extra workload being the main risk.

Interesting read about the Forest owner. https://newrepublic.com/article/159252/noor-one-vampire-ship-heroin-turkey-greece-corruption-scandal

The state of the championship if Leeds are the best team in it. Christ.

New Zealand have no chance, Sunday they play on a sandpit, fly to Pakistan on Wednesday to play on a road then back to Dubai on Sunday to play on a crack den again. The politics aside, the general conditions make it an unfair advantage and it’ll always have an asterisk by the Indian name. Which is a shame because India are probably the best team man for man.

Cracking off in Syria again

Busted. At that point that’s what Zelenskyy was saying. I don’t believe him now. Things have obviously changed.

I just don’t see why Russia would ever consider attacking Poland anyway. What would be the purpose? You could even say the same for the Baltics. Those countries don’t have anywhere near the same geographical relevance, provided Russia has access to the Baltic Sea.

This is cope but if they do qualify they’ll seriously struggle next season based on Newcastle and Villa over the past two seasons. They can make big signings to bolster their squad but they’ll break PSR, so they’re limited in what they can do.

Some goal that.

We don’t have to accept it but the ultimate truth is that we’re powerless to do anything about. If Trump wants Greenland and Canada, and can’t get them diplomatically, then he can order a military annexation and we’re powerless to do anything about it. Like if Trump truly withdraws all support from Ukraine, we can beat our chests and shout from the rooftops, Britain, France and the rest of Europe will be powerless to stop Russia from achieving their (recalibrated) war aims. That’s why it’s sh*t and that’s why everybody is acting so emotionally at the moment.

The one thing that China have a huge advantage on is that they’re essentially the only reliable major power, especially now. Any country investing in their future sensibly will always take the economic security of a country like China if they have any sense.

What I want to happen and what is happening are two different things. Also nobody knows what a tolerable outcome actually will be. There’s a lot of chest thumping and scare mongering at the moment. Nobody truly knows if it’s justified. All this talk of Putin’s grand plans are guesswork, Russia academics like Mark Galeotti think that Putin doesn’t really have grand plans, rather he’s just an opportunist.

Incidentally the ones that are good with the long game are China and to a lesser extent Russia.

I suppose with Trump that’s the benefit of being a bit of a sociopath. Contrary it’s maybe better that it’s happening like this as it gives us a scapegoat. The narrative has been sold for three years that Ukraine will win this war so most of the British public think it’s just a matter of time. There was one moment in Autumn 2022 when it was maybe possible but events didn’t transpire that way. Even now, the Kursk salient is falling apart with thousands of troops at risk of encirclement and there’s nothing on the news. This is now why we’re having to think of dramatic panic stricken responses rather than planning for the current, predictable scenario for the past two years. That is EU and European leaders in a nutshell.

I fully understand the worry but I don’t think Putin has ever explicitly threatened the Baltics, but of course they are vulnerable if the calculus changes. The problem is that the biggest economies in the world frankly don’t give a crap. China and India have only increased economic ties with Russia since 2022, then developing countries like Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam, Gulf States are absolutely and massively investing in Russian resources. The EU is a huge economic bloc but even putting the maximum pressure on them now is not going to make much difference. The only thing will be how quickly they rearm, sanctions and pressure may hinder that. We’ve been promised imminent Russian economic collapse for three years, and to say the least Elvira Nabiullina is extremely competent at her job. We’re in snookers required territory yet the way the story is being told is that Ukraine still have some chance/leverage.

A lot of Ukrainians will accept anything provided it’s not missiles and air alerts. They were in the USSR for decades.

Trust is nothing in geopolitics. Assad trusted Putin would come to his rescue and look how that ended. If you just let it play out as Russia v Ukraine with no American support but continual European support, Ukraine would slowly and then gradually get pushed back further, which then their negotiating position would be even worse. Nothing Trump said today about Russia holding the cards is betrayal, it’s the cold hard truth that Ukranians and (most of) their supporters refuse to believe.

The problem is the pre-requisite for negotiations, Ukraine wants security guarantees from the US BEFORE they negotiate which Trump is unwilling to do. Therefore it’s led to where we are now. Russia don’t really have any pre-requisites as things are going their way to an extent. It looks like Ukraine are about to lose Kursk too. It’s likely that Trump might just say to Ukraine ‘sod it’ and let nature take its course which would be disastrous. They need to negotiate. You can always walk away if it doesn’t work out.

As long as the big dipper and Joyland snails escape any drama then it’s fine.

I think peace is always worth a go. It’s peace, continual death or an attempt at peace with a continuation of death if it doesn’t hold.

Aged well.

“We must force Russia to peace” is not a viable strategy anymore. Trump will just keep turning the screw with those sorts of statements.

https://archive.ph/hsu0J Another example why, if it descends into chaos and we don’t have US support, it’s over.

The UK and France can be bullied with nukes. They have 5000 we have combined about 300, so they could inflict a lot more damage than we could if it was truly a race to the end. Also Poland have categorically said no to troops. Where are we getting the 30k troops from, that’s about 25% of what we have? At that point, Argentina or maybe even China might be eyeing up the Falkland Islands. Then what? All this big talk is pointless and is simply posturing. We don’t have the resources or the stomach for it without US backing. We sold ourselves out to the Yanks over the past decades and now we have very few cards to play with, it’s embarrassing.

This would be a cracking conversation over a pint by the way