I've never understood this specific form of racism. America and other Western countries have all sorts of foods we eat with our hands: hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, chicken wings, pizza, ribs, muffins, burritos, French fries, doughnuts, popcorn, etc. like, are you dumb?
@BLRAirport my luggage from Amsterdam arrived 2 days after me. But no one is calling me to deliver the bag in JP Nagar. It’s been 3 days. Who can I call to find out more about how to get the luggage? It’s been 3 days.
In Defense of Salah
To understand Salah's eruption, we must rewind to last season's protracted contract saga—a drawn-out negotiation that felt less like a discussion between equals and more like a test of wills. Here was one of @LFC's greatest ever players, a man who had rewritten the club's record books, forced to endure months of uncertainty while FSG deployed their trademark hardball tactics. They wielded his age like a weapon, letting the silence stretch, gambling that time would weaken his position. But @MoSalah responded the only way he knew how: by producing arguably his finest season in a Liverpool shirt at 34 years old, his body sculpted to perfection, his shirt theatrically discarded after yet another crucial goal—a defiant statement to those who dared suggest his powers were waning. FSG eventually relented, because how could they not? With a title charge built largely on Salah's brilliance, refusing to extend him would have been institutional madness. Yet the damage was done. The message had been received: Liverpool would honor him only when forced to, when the optics became untenable. For a player who has given everything to this club, who dreams of cementing his legacy by shattering every remaining record in the Anfield archives, that bitter aftertaste lingered.
Then came the summer—and FSG's stunning transformation from fiscal conservatives to big-spending revolutionaries. In one frenzied window, they smashed the club's transfer record not once but twice, assembling a glittering new front line around Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak while showing Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez the exit. Suddenly, Salah found himself cast as yesterday's man alongside two shiny new toys anointed as "the future." The tactical recalibration that followed left him isolated, starved of the familiar patterns and partnerships he'd spent years perfecting. Say what you will about Núñez's erratic finishing, but his relentless, chaotic movement had created acres of space for Salah to exploit. Díaz's direct running had occupied defenders and stretched play. Now those safety valves were gone, and Salah—fresh off carrying the club to @premierleague glory—was expected to seamlessly adapt while watching the infrastructure around him dismantled.
Which brings us to Arne Slot—perhaps the most fortunate manager in Premier League history. After seven grueling years of @JugenKlopp going toe-to-toe with @GuardiolaTweets's relentless machine, extracting every ounce of brilliance from a squad built on shrewd investment rather than blank cheques, Klopp walked away exhausted. And then, as if scripted by the football gods with a cruel sense of irony, @ManCity imploded. Slot inherited Klopp's finely-tuned team at the exact moment their greatest obstacle crumbled, and rode that wave to a title that felt—at least to those of us who revere Klopp above even the club itself—desperately unfair. The sweetness of Liverpool's triumph was cut with bitterness: this should have been Klopp's reward, not his successor's inheritance. But the real insult came afterward, when Sporting Director Richard Hughes and CEO Michael Edwards—whose fractious relationship with Klopp had reportedly contributed to his departure—returned to Anfield flush with victory and promptly tore up the rulebook. Suddenly, the financial restraint that had defined the Klopp era evaporated. You can imagine the German watching from afar, vindicated yet wounded, as the men who'd clipped his wings now played Fantasy Football with the war chest his success had filled. And now, with Klopp's carefully constructed machine dismantled and replaced with expensive parts that don't fit together, we're seeing the truth: Slot isn't a tactical genius—he was a man in the right place when City fell and Klopp's legacy did the heavy lifting. Strip that away, and the emperor has no clothes.
When the season kicked off, I harbored a quiet dread about Salah's form—three converging factors that seemed destined to diminish him. His age, finally catching up after years of superhuman consistency. The absence of contractual motivation, that fire now extinguished by the extension he'd fought so hard to secure. And the disjointed new forward line, robbing him of the intuitive connections he'd built over years. All three fears have materialized to varying degrees, yet Salah deserves more grace than anyone in this struggling side—certainly more than Gakpo, likeable as he is, and don't even get me started on Konaté's alarming decline. FSG spent a combined fortune on two elite attackers but couldn't lock down a defender like Marc Guéhi who wanted to join Liverpool, and now we're paying the price. After five early wins built more on fortune than design, Liverpool's luck evaporated in spectacular fashion—a collapse so total and sudden it defies historical precedent, as if the entire squad had collectively forgotten the basics of the game. Under mounting pressure, Slot made his move: he dropped Salah. And here's where his man-management—one of the two essential skills for any top-level coach—utterly failed him. Perhaps it's cultural: the Dutch are famously direct, blunt to the point of tactlessness. Slot likely thought a straightforward conversation would suffice. But Salah hails from Egypt, a culture built on respect, hierarchy, and the unspoken language of honor—the polar opposite of white Dutch directness. He needed an arm around the shoulder, reassurance, the careful handling befitting a club legend. Instead, he got benched and scapegoated while Liverpool's defensive shambles—emphatically not his fault—continued to hemorrhage goals. Yes, players who aren't scoring must contribute defensively. But demanding that level of work rate from a 34-year-old superstar is football fantasy. Salah has earned the right to special treatment. He can be rested, rotated, even dropped—but it requires kid gloves, delicacy, an acknowledgment of all he's given. Slot, the pragmatic Dutchman, probably didn't give it a second thought.
My hope now is that Salah leads Egypt deep into AFCON—ideally all the way to the final—and returns to Anfield recharged, his pride restored, his purpose renewed. When he walks back through those doors, Slot will have no choice but to treat him as the irreplaceable figure he remains. The lesson, one hopes, has been learned. Slot may have a title on his CV, but Klopp's shadow looms longer with every labored performance, every joyless victory eked out through grit rather than brilliance. Even Liverpool's recent wins have carried the same unconvincing, fortune-dependent quality as those early flukes—the intoxicating heavy metal football that defined this club has been erased from the collective consciousness, and the players look like strangers to themselves. Can Slot guide us back to the summit? Perhaps. The pieces exist. But my confidence erodes with each passing week. Right now, our salvation rests on one man: Florian Wirtz, whose silk-smooth elegance and vision offer glimpses of what this team could become. He must be the foundation, the axis around which everything else rotates. If Slot cannot architect that transformation by season's end—if he cannot build a coherent system that maximizes Wirtz while honoring Salah's legacy—then heads will roll. And make no mistake: his will be the first to fall. The man who lucked into a title will be remembered as the one who squandered Klopp's inheritance, alienated a legend, and proved that timing, not talent, had been his greatest asset all along.
#epl #LiverpoolFC #football #soccer #PremierLeague
@PayPal My Paypal account was permanently de-activated almost 15 years back. I still don't know the reason why as numerous inquiries failed to find out what happened. I cannot receive money without PayPal for my films on Vimeo.
Can you please unblock me? I did nothing wrong.
@AsteadWH was incredible in today's Daily podcast. Finally, someone is telling these out-of-touch Elite liberals the truth. I'm going to check out his @TheRunUpNYT podcast next. Also a fellow Spurs fan.
BS Busting DuJour
We cannot scientifically measure happiness and make cross-cultural comparisons. But we can measure and compare the suicide rate, which happens to be high in these "happy" places.
Never trust claims by psychologists.