Vertical highlights, Farage's footballspeak & Stockley Park's canteen crisis

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You can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gascoyne gonna have a crack?

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More of the same for match of the day.

Opening weekend you fear foring and they'll be finding.

Steve Sidwell tries to take John Hartson's absolute crown, the concept of knocking on the opposition's door, South Coast seismology with Gary Weaver, finely poised holiday football watching dilemmas, Sunday League clampdowns, Nigel Farage's football speak cracks under pressure, Stockley Park's new crisis, and Keys and Gray Ride Again.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

Joining me, first of all, Charlie Acoucher.

How are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

Alongside you is David Walker.

You were in Dreamland this weekend, quite literally.

I was, yeah.

Fitting as our latest episode of Dreamland was published on Sunday.

And in a genuine coincidence,

I went to Margate for a day trip with some mates on Sunday.

And that's where Dreamland HQ is.

The physical manifestation of Dreamland is in Margate.

It's good fun.

Good fun, Dreamland.

I'd recommend it.

I couldn't quite work it out.

I just thought it was like a theatre sort of thing.

But then I saw later on, it's like a massive theme park and it was shut by the time I went around to it.

But like,

whatever.

It did make me think.

You didn't feel too nil up at all then, did you?

No, I didn't quite get in there.

Yeah, sadly.

But some big, some real big names are playing and have played Dreamland.

So if we ever want to actually do a show, a Dreamland, I mean, it's an option, but I think we have to really mix it with some real big names.

That would be great.

A summer outdoors gig baby dreamland wildgate that'd be fantastic right but yeah in the real world we're going on tour in 2025 join us in brighton cardiff the hackney empire in london birmingham dublin manchester not leeds or glasgow because they're sold out this october go to tickets.football clichés.com i'm so excited about this live show it is developing and it is evolving very nicely uh with about seven weeks to go looking forward to it let's adjudication panel charlie can we spare a thought for those tasked by uk media outlets to write a review of the first post-Lineker match of the day?

I mean, I wouldn't say it was a damp squib.

I mean, it was just a normal episode of Match of the Day, but what were we all expecting?

And have they pulled the wool over our eyes in some respects?

It's tricky as well, isn't it?

Because we have seen, you know, we've seen Match of the Day 2.

We've seen stand-in presenters, that sort of thing.

Like, it's not like an unimaginable thing that we were being exposed to.

And it's quite a lot of words in some cases to fill about not a lot happening.

Dave, you know, there's nothing wrong with it.

Nothing needed to change.

And so it turned out.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Chappers has hosted it loads of times before, so it didn't feel different at all.

I mean, apart from having Wayne Rooney unveiled as a permanent member of the BBC sport team, that was really the only difference.

I suppose the one small difference I noticed,

I think this is new anyway, it looked new to me, was like the backdrop.

And so not like the big screen where they play all the highlights for the analysis, but the backdrop either side of the presenters and the pundits.

It was some sort of like neon blue cityscape.

Yeah, it's like blue and purple.

Really news nighty to me.

So, when it was just like the one shot of Gabby or Chappers, you know, I could imagine them talking to some politicians or something on the other side of the

sofa, which looked a bit weird.

But that's really all we've got in the way of changes.

How many words can you string out on that?

Yeah, exactly.

I don't want my match of the day background to be a nightscape, Charlie.

I want it to be time-agnostic.

I don't want it to reference the fact that it's on in the nighttime at all.

Yeah, or be any like, I mean, obviously it's recorded in Salford, but what is the sort of scape that we're talking about here?

It's not like a kind of show in Westminster that's right at the heart of the action.

It's the whole point of it is that it's kind of everywhere.

It's nationwide.

Can't believe this is the one thing we found to talk about on Match of the Day.

I didn't even watch it.

I didn't watch it.

Never going to.

Right.

On Match of the Day, though, former clichés guest Ralph Innerson tweeted, all hail the continuity announcer on Match of the Day for going off script to declare his leads love respect.

Here indeed is the continuity announcer just before the Sunday night edition of Match of the Day.

Hitting the halfway point, a double destination X here in an hour.

Before all that, my beloved leads don't kick off until tomorrow, but oh, isn't it good to be back?

I don't want my continuity announcers just talking about the Deceler's Day.

They should be like referees seeking the limelight.

Yeah, it does seem a bit much, doesn't it?

Yeah, if leads were playing and they'd, let's let's say they'd won their first game, I wouldn't mind a nod to that.

Oh, but then you're ruining, then it's the look away now thing.

He might have to preface it with, if you don't know the scores, ignore my leads quick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if they were playing,

I wouldn't mind some sort of elegant nod.

But the fact they're not even playing to tomorrow, mate, shut up.

The ego on this bloke, Charlie.

This can't be allowed.

I don't mind

humanizing these continuity readers.

Yeah, AI is coming for them, I suppose.

It's probably they're only fighting back.

I chose my words carefully there, Dave, for the Sunday night edition of Match of the Day.

It is, of course, officially now not Match of the Day 2.

And as a result, RIP, too good, too bad.

It's been retired, according to a source.

A real end of an era.

The one thing that we didn't see this coming, did we?

We didn't see Match of the Day 2 and Too Good, Too Bad being the sort of ultimate casualty of the post-Linaka era, did we?

But there we go.

How are we supposed to round off our footballing weekends, Charlie, without a quirky sort of sideways look at what happened in, you know, the little lighter moments of the Premier League weekend.

A bit of levity.

I mean,

is it as well?

Because that was obviously when Match the Day 2 started.

It was part of this point of differentiation, like it's going to be a little more informal, et cetera, et cetera.

Is getting rid of it and odd to the fact that, as with the title, it's the same product, it's kind of the same thing.

Yeah, I mean, on a similar note, Dave, they didn't do a little community feature either.

I mean, not that I give a shit about them anyway, I have to confess.

It's not my favourite piece of footballing content I've ever experienced in my life, but wow, they've re-revamped it.

So, what they did do with the couple of minutes they sort of had extra at the end was sort of throw ahead to the Leeds Everton game and they talked a bit about Jack Grealish and his him signing for Everton and so you know a bit more straight-laced content rather than anything sort of that can sometimes be a bit flimsy, too good, too bad, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's a bit throwaway.

Yeah, community features again, it always feels a bit doing something that you feel like you have to do rather than you want to do.

Yeah.

But it does mean we're going to get more generic punditry.

I worry what Adrian Charles thinks about this, Charlie.

His legacy is just being buried.

I I know, I was thinking that you yeah, you fear for the quirky features if uh even match the day two is is ditching or match the day Sunday is ditching.

I'm taking it seriously now, fair enough.

Um one weekend's done in the Premier League, Dave.

So the big question must now be asked by law, who are we fearing for?

Comes down to Wolves or Brentford so far, doesn't it?

Yeah, I think and and those two very much sort of confirming the fears that were already there before the before the first weekend.

A bit of West Ham, I'd say, as well, probably.

Yeah.

I was thinking whether they would qualify.

I thought West Ham bled slightly into they'll be fine because

I don't know, though.

There's not a lot

to base that on at all.

Can you, just thinking about the you fear for, can you do that this early for a newly promoted team, or is that just too self-evident?

I mean, could you say that?

I mean, Burnley lost 3-0, and you do fear for them, but we sort of always did.

You definitely could.

If they get absolutely battered

and

the sort of thinness of their squad sort of reveals itself in the first game, you think you could fear for them?

Or it's more, it's going to be a long, hard season four, right?

Yeah, that, yeah, exactly.

That's what I mean, which is slightly different.

Yeah.

Scott Parker, the Burnley manager, Dave, after they were dispatched quite comfortably by Thomas Frank Spurs, was asked about Spurs, given that they were his former club afterwards, and they said they've got a good manager and some fantastic players.

They'll be fine.

Dan Grisby says, can Scott Parker really they'll be fine, Tottenham?

It's not your place, son.

That's so good.

I think it's all about tone, though, isn't it?

He's not like, it's not like in the West Ham sense where he's going, oh, they'll be fine.

Don't worry about them.

It's more a bit of annoying.

They'll be fine.

Don't worry about them.

Yeah, all right.

Worry about me.

I'm in trouble.

They'll be fine.

They've got look at all the players they've got.

Maybe the intonation was more they'll be just fine.

It wasn't said in the kind of the patronising way we used to.

I mean, I love it.

I love when managers do.

I mean, I mentioned before the Pardu saying about Mourinho's Chelsea that they played their part.

Brendan Rogers used to do it.

He I remember he went went when he was Swansea manager and they played Liverpool away.

And it was like, you know, it's just nice for them to get to see our, you know, get to see our team.

I know a lot of them are looking forward to all of this stuff.

It's just brilliant.

Scott Parker in a very nice suit for the opening day as well.

I wonder how that will unravel as the season continues.

Thanks to the very large handful of people who sent this in as soon as it was uttered.

Here's Steve Sidwell on 5-Live co-commentary duty for Chelsea versus Crystal Palace.

And I think this is the long-awaited challenger to John Hartson's iconic running an absolute mock.

The palace of a free kick just outside, their own penalty area, milk.

Well, I think we're in the yeast end here, aren't we?

I think

they were up in absolute raw.

I think that was a bit

fortunate there.

Up in absolute raw is the greatest thing I've ever heard.

Like, Charlie, there's two things going on here.

He's done the classic thing of getting an absolute in the middle, which is a glorious art form in its own right.

But he's had to shuffle the words around to do it.

And the quick thinking involved there and what it's resulted in, It's just brilliant.

I love it.

Yeah,

that is class.

I still think running an absolute mock for me is possibly unbeatable.

But yeah, that's great work.

The interesting thing about that is that,

you know, running a mock,

running an absolute mock is just inserting absolute into running a mock would still work.

But you wouldn't say up in raw, would you?

Yeah, I know.

That's why it's that's why it's weirder and less good for me.

Up in absolute raw.

I thought it was going to be up in absolute arms.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a new podcast catchphrase as far as I'm concerned.

Not keen on in-jokes, seriously,

but yeah, there we are.

Right, a bugbear of mine that's been going on for years, and it reared its ugly head on weekend one, Dave.

Here is a quintessentially British phrase being posed to a foreign football manager.

Your task hasn't been made easy.

You've lost some key players like Ato Noure and of course Matthias Cunha have left for pastures new.

How difficult is it to replace that and replicate the form you showed at the end of last season?

I think it's not, it's not, today is not the time for regrets,

to complain about.

Please don't say past is new to Vital Pereira.

He took it in his stride, though, didn't he?

To be honest.

At least he didn't go sorry.

He did.

At least it had been sort of telegraphed for it.

Like, it didn't need to mean anything because it had already been sufficiently explained.

The worst is when they are, they're just sort of thrown an idiom as the only thing they've got to chew on.

And it's like, sorry, what?

I haven't read any long reads about Vital Pereira yet, Charlie, but there is a small chance, you know, that in his spare time he reads John Milton's Elysidus from 1637, which coined the phrase, pastor's new.

So we never know.

Well, there was a flicker of recognition when he was asked, so we'll have to find out when it...

Interested that you see it as a flicker of recognition.

I saw him sort of just looking at me going, what the fuck does pastor knew?

What is that?

Yeah, there was definitely something.

Why did they do it?

Why?

Yeah, I think it's just so ingrained.

I mean, we should have asked Shrevesy.

Maybe we did, I can't remember, because he was the master of that.

It's like, Jose, wasn't it a case of locking the door after the horse has bolted or something like that?

And you're like, what is it?

He's speaking in his fourth language.

What is he meant to say to that?

He would have hated that.

That episode would have gone even further downhill, Dave, if we confronted him with that.

God cared to think.

Don't he'll call you again, Adam.

Yeah, true.

Right, next up, here is Dan Ballard scoring for Sunderland against West Ham.

He's done it again, as Ian Crocker illustrates for us.

It's a closing header.

Submitting all these east for this man.

Ben Span

scoring with a memorable header at the stadium of light again.

Either side of summer.

Brett, Charlie spat out his tea.

It's a fantastic either siding of, isn't it?

Look him go.

I honestly was not expecting that.

Either side of summer.

Either side of summer.

And the way he said it was just such a good intonation.

Absolutely unhinged delivery all the way through, Dave.

But Chris Luke Jones writes in and says, I guess it's true, but surely that's way too long a period to be either side of.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, without getting into the fact that technically we are still in summer, I suppose.

But it's, I mean, yeah, what's he been doing

in the interim?

One big, long half-time break.

Yeah.

Picked up where he left off.

Fantastic.

Right.

Charlie, the footballing phrase knocking on the door,

what scenarios does it pertain to?

What does it mean to you?

Well, they've been knocking on the door.

You might say if they have finally then scored, knocking on the door means they've been creating lots of chances, getting close, getting closer, and then finally bang the door down and they score.

So it's a spell of concerted pressure.

Yeah, I would say so.

Classic type 2855 on Reddit says Daniel Sturridge has just said at the end of Manchester United versus Arsenal that Man United were knocking on the door and the goalkeeper was answering.

Surely if the keeper is stopping goals going in, he's keeping the door shut rather than answering it.

That's a good question.

You suppose you could tell someone we're busy or whatever from behind the door.

Not today, mate.

Sorry.

You can keep answering.

Because the key is not, I suppose, whether the door's open.

It's whether you can actually get through it and get in.

Because you're kind of like banging the door.

You're trying to bang the door down, essentially.

I guess the implication is that once you have done it, you'll all sort of stream through.

Yeah, it's not an expectation of someone opening it going, oh, hello, come in.

Is it like you're trying to beat the door down yourself?

But the responses to this on Reddit, Dave, were pure, literally, Dave, heaven.

Viva Le Domp says the only plausible explanation is that Raya was keeping the door shut while simultaneously telling him not today through the letterbox.

Yeah, nice.

The letterbox is good.

Yeah.

Shameless Bullshitter says it's 2025.

He was using a video doorbell, surely.

Good, good answer.

Yeah.

Baleric priest, Charlie, says, I guess you could see them as Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever and just answer every time like, sorry, not interested.

which I think is quite a clever way of saying a goalkeeper repelling some fairly tame attacks.

Yeah, but there are layers to this that I'd probably not thought of before.

Well, that last one could be an Andy Gray conversation, couldn't it?

And Rya's opened the door and he said to them, sorry, not today.

Billy Connolly there.

They can take our lives and never take our freedom.

Our Scottish accent not improving in 25, 26.

You can do it in your spare time.

For some reason, as soon as we hit record, it all goes to shit.

The game is gone, Dave.

The game has gone for 2526.

Skysports are publishing vertical highlights.

They are named as such.

Premier League vertical highlights.

And you can click on the ones you want to watch.

So they're pandering to the portrait audience.

Yeah, and it sort of annoys me that

they've labelled it vertical highlights.

We can't see that they are.

Mobile highlights, if anything, I'll call them vertical.

Yeah,

this came up on a a listener's MHD, didn't it, once, in terms of problems with vertical highlights or with any vertical footage, is the camera pans and you and you can miss people coming in out of shot or all that sort of thing.

So that is it's going to be something we're going to need to get used to.

We're going to be consuming our highlights vertically this season.

Charlie, you know, a lot of people are bemoaning the shortened attention spans of the youth of today, but now we've got to bemoan the fact they can't be asked to turn their phones around 90 degrees and watch it like that.

Pathetic.

Yeah.

If if some have got the lock on and they've got to change change that and stuff.

I do, to be fair.

I do have to change the function if I do.

Yeah, I know.

So, yeah.

Extra layer of security, I find.

Against what?

I don't know.

We'll find.

It doesn't matter.

Against Virtual, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

We've heard from Ian Crocker.

It seems remiss of us to go at least one week of the season without hearing from the great Gary Weaver.

Here is Ipswich taking the lead early on at home to Southampton.

Ipswich Town will take that.

And Portman Road, Ipswich Town's castle, which needs to be a fortress again.

It shakes to the sound of an Ipswich Town goal.

And the tremors can be felt in Southampton.

That last bit is ridiculous.

Completely unnecessary, Challenge.

The first bit, the rest of it is pure weaver, like textbook weaver.

What is that last bit?

Yeah, because also you'd expect it might be like the tremors could be felt all around the championship or something if it's in a kind of like they're sending out a statement way.

But the idea that like the Southampton army or cavalry has gathered back in Southampton and are sort of being warned off making an attack of this fortress.

Don't do it, lads.

Cups of tea just sort of vibrating on the tables of Southampton going, oh, we must have conceded early.

So seismic going behind against it, switch away and quick or get in the path.

You should have scored a second.

There's a small portion of that which

I would like to hear again, which is, which is, I feel like I've heard Weaver say so many times, Fortress again!

Fortress again!

Like that intonation is so Weaver.

It must be just absolutely coded into him by now.

It's incredible.

Steading into his castles and his fortresses.

I mean, so when is a castle not a fortress?

And how do you make it?

It was a fortress when they were in the championship and then they went up to the Premier League and it got downgraded to a castle because they were no good.

Well, I guess they just started getting their defenses started getting breached.

I mean, not every castle is impenetrable.

So I guess,

it needs to be back to where it was, it's properly fortified, and invaders can't just swan in and take what they want, or you know, as they were doing last season.

Yeah, instinctively, Dave, I feel like you've fallen into the trap of assuming that all castles

are built for pure defence.

Like, if you go over to Germany and look at the beautiful schlosses of Bavaria or something like that, that's decoration first, right?

Yeah, a lot of them are perched on unassailable peaks, which make them difficult to breach, but they're not all about sort of you know, hardy defenses.

Weaver can have that if he ever gets a call up to the conference league or the europa league that would be helpful for him yeah yeah we should unleash him on europe we should but he did do europe didn't he well he did yeah famously that malaga game malaga dawg

yeah the first ever planting of a flag yeah of course it was great knowledge uh on this game blues for the fisherman was watching and he says during the ipsich vsampton game on sky andy hinchcliffe no not don goodman i'm certain has just said that he's looking forward to ryan manning coming on so he can enjoy the battle between him and the opponent's left wing back, Leif Davis.

Given that they'll be on opposite flanks, can they do battle?

Dave, this is opposite number gate all over again.

Yeah, so what?

And Manning is a left back as well.

Yeah, a left back, yeah.

Yeah, it's not really a head-to-head battle, is it?

They are literally operating on two different flanks.

He's a former left-wing backman himself, isn't he, Charlie, of course.

So maybe he was just looking forward to seeing how they do things, but it's mad.

They can't do battle.

No, but I wonder if as a left back, if you were playing like an Andy Robertson or someone when he was in his pump, whether you as a left back would be like, oh, I can't wait to test myself against him, you know, see who has the the better g even though you're not in direct combat, if you've had a great game and he's been, you know, his crosses have been crap, you might be like, oh, I've really won, I've won that left back battle today.

Yeah, they're they're they're sort of they eye each other across the pitch and go, Do you know what?

They put us down as a key battle in the newspaper this morning, can we uh do something about this?

You can't you can't pay too much attention though, can you?

You you can't be accused of being opposite number watching.

You know, you've got to be alert out of possession.

You can't just be standing over there and looking at the other side of the pitch to see how they're getting on.

Cutting out each other's crossfield passes.

That'd be the only way they could do it.

Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.

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And indeed, into Europe we go.

A little curiosity from European competition for you now, Charlie.

Back in mid-July, Irish side Shelbourne beat Northern Irish champions Linfield in the Champions League qualifying first round.

As a result, Linfield dropped into the Conference League qualifiers.

Shelborne progressed, but then lost to Karabag in the Champions League qualifying second round and dropped into the Europa League qualifiers.

There, they lost to Croatian side Rijeka and dropped into the Conference League play-off round where they will play Linfield again.

That's mad.

The two teams are playing each other twice in European competition in the same season in different competitions.

That is mad.

Do you think this has ever happened before?

I don't know.

I think, I mean,

that does sound like quite an extraordinary set of circumstances.

I realize this is very guardians, the knowledge, Dave, but I need to know.

I want listeners to furnish me with this information.

If two teams have ever met in two different European competitions in the same season before, the Super Cup does not count.

Do not go with the Super Cup.

I'm not interested.

So my theories are: Intertoto to UEFA Cup is possible because you have multiple winners of the Intertoto in the past and they go straight through to the UEFA, so they could meet again.

I don't think Champions League group stage down to the UEFA Europa is possible because two teams don't drop down from the same groups, they couldn't have played each other twice.

And you wouldn't have, and then, yeah, they wouldn't have played.

I mean, they could go on to play them.

You mean

they couldn't have played consecutively in different competitions?

Oh, no, because you could.

Yeah, you're right.

You can't.

Well,

hmm.

Yeah, I'm trying to think.

Yeah, you couldn't have.

Oh, because only one team drops out of the group.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

So it would need to be the same sort of scenario as this, Dave.

You'd need to be qualifiers.

Listener Michael Cox says two teams could have met in the Champions League qualifiers.

One has lost and gone into the Europa.

One has gone on, gone into the Champions League group, dropped out of that group into the Europa, and they've met again.

So that's perfectly feasible, but the odds are right against it.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I feel like we would have, I feel like we

probably would have heard about it if it had happened before as well.

One of the Shelbourne players,

Charlie, said that it's just really annoying to have to play Linfield again.

Like, there's just no magic in this whatsoever.

We've had to play them four times in the space of six weeks, and it's just, it's just crap.

And that, do you know what?

I agree.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is annoying.

Especially if Linfield win.

If Linfield beat Shelbourne after having lost to them initially, that'd be even more annoying.

Yeah.

Listeners, get in touch if you can find a precedent for this.

I'm fascinated to know.

And if you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com/slash cliches, and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

This is the adjudication panel.

A reminder that for $5.99 a month, you could become a football clichés member.

You can join Dreamland, where you'll get two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show, and add free listening to all of our episodes.

As Dave alluded to earlier, episode five of Dreamland is out now, the perfect football season.

Charlie, we tried to assemble the major and minor components of the optimum football season, a campaign where everything ends up in its rightful logical place.

Once we got through the ethos and figured out what we were doing, it was really good fun, actually.

Yeah, I think we've all got a lot of thoughts on that sort of thing.

I think it's sort of thing as well.

Listeners will have thoughts on as well.

So hopefully it'll resonate.

One of those episodes where I'm glad my observations on the acceptable FA Cup finalists only went out to a listenership of about four figures, Dave.

Yeah, you're talking about the old double slug final, weren't you?

Portsmouth and West Brom.

Oh, thank you for that.

Okay, we've increased that listenership.

Sorry, everyone.

Portsmouth and Cardiff.

Yeah, offended

another team with Westbrom.

Just assuming it's always West Brom.

Right, yes.

Go to dreamland.football clichés.com to enjoy all of that.

You're going to love this.

This came from Elliott.

Here is West Brom midfielder Isaac Price being asked about his brace against Wrexham this weekend.

Which goal pleased you most?

I think they're both different goals, aren't they?

But the second one is something that I've been working on a little bit more, the timing, arriving in between defenders.

And yeah, headers is something I should definitely get a lot more goals.

I'm 6'2, 6'3.

Like Jed said, I should be in there more scoring more headers.

He can't list his own heights.

You can't know how tall you are.

This is insane.

Unless he's still growing, which he might well be at the age of 21.

Yeah, I can sort of see that.

Because I'm a half-inchman.

I'm six foot one.

So it's like, I'm always like, I don't know.

I feel like I'm lying a bit if I say six two.

It's not quite right.

But then I don't want to downgrade myself.

So.

And you don't want to go for the half inch because it looks a bit.

It's a bit much, isn't it?

Yeah.

I can say that.

But also, I think it's how often do you actually measure yourself?

You know, at some point when you sort of think that you've stopped growing, whenever that might come in your teens or whatever, or whenever it is, you might measure yourself and that's it.

But, you know, you sometimes think, am I still that height?

Have I gone down a bit?

Like, have I.

Like going up a shoe size.

Oh, that's nice.

Anyway, I went to his Wikipedia page, Dave, and he's listening to six foot four.

Wow.

He could have gone for the trio.

That would have been so good.

Yeah, you can't go for it.

You would never do the three, Charlie, right?

That would make no sense.

Oh, God.

I mean, that's for yourself.

That's that, that really is a lot.

That means you've got no grasp on how tall you are, which would be absolutely insane.

Quite a flex.

I'm that relaxed about it.

Wearing studs as well.

They could chip you over the edge, couldn't they?

If you're halfway, that's true.

Riding to Isaac Price's defense here, both of you.

Good to see.

Now, next up, John Myers.

Got in touch on Friday night, Charlie, with a finely poised dilemma.

He says, I'm on holiday with my wife and two kids under five, and I've been given leave to watch the first half of the Liverpool versus Bournemouth game.

I'm a Manchester United fan.

What is an acceptable score to leave here happy, but not desperate to stay?

Obviously, I would take 5-0 Bournemouth, but what's the right answer?

This is a fascinating dilemma.

Getting to watch the first half is a hard situation.

That's really hard as it is.

I mean, well, happy in what sense?

Like, happy that you're not missing anything.

If Liverpool were 3-0 up, if you're a United fan, you'd be like, well, fuck this.

I don't really want to watch the second half anyway.

To actually feel happy that the result you want, which is presumably Liverpool not winning,

I mean, that's Bournemouth would have to have a big lead.

But even then, I think you'd still then, well, I know.

I think if they were like 3-0 up, because if they're 2-0 up, you'd think, well, Liverpool are probably going to draw this anyway.

I might even win it.

I think at 3-0 up, you'd be like, there's a very good chance Liverpool dropping points here.

And all I'm going to be watching in the second half is Liverpool attacking and scoring potentially.

And I don't, like, I've seen the fun bit.

This is the half I wanted to have seen.

From here on in, I'll sort of take it.

Still feels quite far-fetched 3-0 Bournemouth the way it feels, Dave.

I mean, realistically, would you, I mean, 2-1 Bournemouth?

Like, just to say, you've seen enough goals.

You've seen quite a few goals in the first half of football, you know, just as a general neutral football fan.

But you're left with the fact that Liverpool are having to fight back in the second half, and Bournemouth might cling on.

What about a really, really dull 0-0 where Liverpool aren't playing well?

Liverpool looking, just looking like they're not jellying and Bournemouth are just being Bournemouth.

So you don't really want to see any more of it.

You're satisfied that Liverpool aren't looking that good this season and I actually don't want to watch another 45 minutes of that so I'm happy to get out of there.

A finely poised answer to a finely poised dilemma, I think.

That might be the most realistic option.

Yeah, I mean,

I'm sure I've been in this situation before, Charlie, where I've only had the chance to watch the first half of the game.

I just think, yeah.

I have had it before with childcare where I could only go to the first half of a game.

And I'm not exaggerating.

I know, it was awful.

I just could.

I tried every avenue, couldn't get it.

But I was like, well, half's better than nothing.

Really?

You just thought that.

Really?

Yeah.

Because I'm like, I'll go for a half.

Because by the same logic, what if the first half is 3-0 and then nothing happens in the second?

You're like, that was well worth it.

Saw all the goals.

Brilliant.

As it happens, the first half was 0-0.

And on the three-minute vertical highlights package, there was one...

The second half was then really exciting.

Loads happened.

There was one thing from the first half, which was like a sort of p-roller volley that dribbled wide.

That was, that was what I got for that 45 minutes of football.

Also a terrible ratio of like travel to and from the game for minutes watched.

All awful, but I'd do it again.

Yeah, that's loyalty.

That is loyalty.

Now, Dave, you'll remember from last week, someone got in touch with a kind of unsolicited listeners, Mesa Harland Dicks, where they said, well, they look up stadiums on Google Maps and find that the pitch hasn't been readied for football.

It's either missing or it hasn't had the lines painted.

And they, you know, there was a remarkable ratio that they'd found of stadiums not in football mode.

And we had some theories, you know, that satellites are you know a clearer view during the summer when football isn't isn't on.

But Benjani56 has taken upon himself to do the research on this.

And he says, if like me you listened to the most recent podcast and wanted to know the state of every prem pitch on Google Maps, then here is the answer.

Intact pitches 16, no pitch, two, Spurs and West Ham, something in the middle, two, Burnley and and Palace.

That is their pitches are being relayed or, you know, just having work done on them.

Can you see the groundsmen rolling out the pitch then?

Yeah, well, yeah.

I mean, that would be fantastic.

But yeah, Spurs and West Ham, of course, Dave, are in concert mode on Google Maps, which feels massively unsatisfying.

Yeah, I mean, Spurs, yeah, a lot of concerts there and both of them.

But I guess it would be...

It would be even better if you got them while they were hosting another sport.

So boxing at Tottenham or the baseball at West Ham would be good, wouldn't it?

That'd really blow your mind if you didn't know what was going on there.

Yeah.

Charlie, as a footnote to this, Benjiani56 says, none of them are being played on in the images, disappointingly, football or otherwise.

Do you reckon the Premier League would clamp down on it if a satellite captured it?

Doesn't have the rights.

You could piece all those images together and make some highlights.

You know, that's, you know, space piracy.

All that would happen, though, is somebody would just end up sending it to you, and you'd have to work out what minute of a match it was.

Oh, who was playing?

Yeah, that's the next frontier yeah it's probably for the best i'm in a real rut with some of these at the moment i had to tweet one out and uh yeah people sending in clearly incorrect suggestions come on guys it's a um this thing is a similar phenomenon to when you go past a football stadium on a train or maybe even by car and you can get a sufficient angle to get a little peek into the ground and like the the the den when you're going out the train on london you're going south out of london bridge you can see clearly into that for a few seconds and if you if you time it right, you do it on a match day, you can see what's happening and

it feels very nice.

You feel like, yeah, you've stolen something a little bit there.

But equally, if you go past in the summer and the pitch is in a state of disrepair, it's not as fun.

No, not in its right mode.

King of Punk69 on Reddit next, Charlie, says, when is the best moment for a manager to drop the, I think you've seen the champions there, or words to that effect after a valiant loss?

Is there a statute of limitations?

Can you go too early with this?

Could you do it on day day one, Charlie?

I mean, it seems a bit.

I think that would be pretty bold.

Yeah.

There also has to be an element of like you would, like, I don't think you'd have said about like Pep City as they went for their like fourth title or something because it's kind of like, well, yeah, we sort of all know that.

Like, I think there has to be, like, I think like last season, you might have done it with Liverpool in about October, say, when, you know, Arsenal and City had been the favourites for the title.

Liverpool hadn't won it for a while.

They've got a new manager, but they started really well.

And I think at that point you could maybe pull the I think you've seen the champions today I mean maybe you could go earlier that would be bolder but I think that's an acceptable time that's that because that's the point at which it's like oh you know we're getting to around like we're getting to double figures games in this isn't just a sort of early season flash in the pan this is this is serious stuff now yeah there probably isn't really a sweet spot for this necessarily Dave but uh king of pants 69 goes on to say later in the season they can of course switch to the old best team we've played all year which I think is a a classy thing to say as well but it also there's a bit of sort of reflected glory on your own team isn't there sort of you know look at what we were up against today we we acquitted ourselves well i think in this context in the premier league like yeah i think it is would be very early to say after the first game about any team especially when the the three favourites all won but it feels like something that keesy might say he'd go early with it and go you know in the blog maybe and go i know it's early but i think we've seen the champions there today ominously well well I can, yeah, and I think it, because I don't think we hear so much of it anymore.

I think it is quite a like early-ish Premier League thing.

In the post-match analysis, when Andy's left the commentary booth and is now in the studio, I think that Keesy would pull the, have we just watched the champions today, Andy?

In a kind of like,

you know, like laying it down, like almost like a, yeah, it could be, almost like a broadcaster calling the election.

Maybe it's like, maybe.

Let's, can we, can we go?

Is it too early?

I do think week one is too early, but I do like the device, I have to say.

Next up, MJ88 writes in dave and says bonnie blue has been doing so many interviews recently it feels like her media run is reminiscent of a newly jobless manager after a long run of employment can we see bonnie blue on monday night football soon christ i don't think we want to see that do we bloody hell dave jones jamie carrager and bonnie blue the last half an hour of that episode would be

just gonna have a look back at some of your some of your career highlights bonnie

talk us through this one my goodness right yeah moving very swiftly on um Alexander Pitt writes in, Charlie, and says, I'm watching Sunday League football in Salford, and the keeper's just given away a corner to the opposition team for not releasing the ball.

I think the game's gone.

It's permeated to Sunday League already.

Brilliant.

Just thinking how annoying that would be on both, like, yeah, if that's your team getting that done to the.

The clampdown has gone that far, Dave.

A mate of mine and listener, Will, messaged me over the weekend, said that he saw this in his game as well.

And I think, actually, yeah, we hadn't, we should have thought about this.

This was obviously how, like, the ultimate repercussions of this rule change, they're not going to be felt at the top level.

This is basically like foul throws again, isn't it?

You're just going to have, there's going to be over-efficious refs at Sunday League counting every single time keepers have the balls, and it's going to be loads of corners given for that.

Off the top of your head, Dave, would you say that the release time for goalkeepers and the ball at Sunday League is longer than in the Premier League?

Like, given all the factors involved, do they release the ball slower at Sunday League?

Like, are they more in danger?

I don't think so.

But maybe towards the end of the game, there is a bit of sort of copycat time wasting creeping in.

But yeah, you're right.

It probably shouldn't happen.

But I can, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if the refs are like counting really quickly or something.

The arguments that are going to ensue after these can be brilliant.

But Charlie, the first one in the Premier League this season came at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Tottenham versus Burnley, when Martin Dubravka was punished.

And I was fascinated to see how the players reacted to it.

And Richalison ran up to Dubravka and tried to get the ball off him.

Because I think,

on that basis alone, I think Richalison thought that he got an indirect free kick and he was trying to take it really quickly.

When there's no point in trying to get the ball really quickly for a corner, is there?

Unless you're really trying to take a quick corner, which I don't think was in his mind.

So

I think just the players weren't really ready for it as a scenario at all.

They haven't listened to the long do things they must have had on it.

Exactly.

They had an all-hands with PGA MOL and they just got bored at the last bit.

But yeah.

But yeah, we are advised, Dave, that it's this is not going to happen very often.

Like the whole point of it is to deter situations like this and move the game on.

But but referees aren't really going to be trying to award as many corners as they can.

Yeah.

On on another sort of refereeing note, you know, the the disallowed Eberici Eze goal against uh Chelsea on Sunday.

Did you know about that rule before?

Like you you're not allowed to be within a metre of the or a yard of the of the attacking wall as a the defensive wall as an attacking player.

Yeah, I knew about it, but it it's it's rare to see it sort of become visible and be sort of deployed as a rule.

But it was also quite an extreme example of the rule being sort of broken because obviously Gay just basically just threw Coca-Cola into the wall and followed him along.

It was really, it was a very violent sort of way of getting yourself closer to a wall.

So in the last game of last season, Sunday League, we had a free kick outside the box and

I did that.

I just went and stood on the end of the wall thinking that I could do that just in case it dropped or whatever.

And the referee moved me away and said, no, you've got to to be a meter.

And I think, yeah, there are quite lots of those little, tiny little quirks that, again, you do, you might in a weird way have like more knowledge of the rules than professional players because of the way that Sunday League refs operate sometimes.

Well, yeah, I mean, like, do you think, I mean, I don't even know if this is a rule at Premier League, but you know, you can't say mine or leave it at amateur level.

Is that a rule at Premier League level or is that just coached out?

You know how like people, you know, proper footballers just know never to say that.

They've got all these

things that they should say.

There was a big controversy about this.

I'm sure it happened in like a an efl game in the last few seasons tell you who it was where an opposition go on i'll tell you who it was if you're talking about the same incident uh 2019 20 no is it was it 20 2017 18 okay um watford were beating bournemouth at bournemouth and the ball was rolled to nathaniel shalabar in space in the area and one of bournemouth's players i think charlie daniels i think it was harry or harry artist harry arter yeah said mine or leave it and he and I think he said leave it.

And Chalabar just completely left it.

And the ball just rolled past him.

And Bournemouth got it.

I don't know if he got booked or not, but I remember it being a big, big thing.

Chalabar was going mad.

The referee gave it.

Chalabar just ran after him like he'd sort of, it was a bit like he'd attempted a panenka and failed.

And Chalabar was sort of running after him saying, you can't do that, basically.

And it was a real moral dilemma.

In the way of being like, you just can't be doing that.

Like, that's basically.

Beyond the pale, you do not do that sort of thing.

But yeah, just a tremendous episode.

But yeah, um players not up to speed with the rules okay we'll take a short break back in a moment

oh look at that

that is wonderful

welcome back to football clichés um

hesitant to talk about this but here it is nigel farage has launched reform fc with some football shirts and you know trying to be balanced here if I you know from a cliche's perspective it was going so well for Farage right until the very end

we are reform FC and I'm proud to be its manager what a season we're having we're right at the top of the leaderboard we're nine points clear of our nearest rivals and I want you to get on board join the winning team we need your support leaderboard I'm not voting for them Charlie and And a leaderboard.

They fucked it.

Pretty easy thing to rectify.

Why have they done that?

There are going to be people walking among us with Farage 10 football shirts.

That is astonishing.

I mean, yeah.

In some ways, I think it's like a relatively clever marketing thing.

And then when you realise the actual physical manifestation of it, it's unbelievably bad.

I did see someone point out online earlier on that the double XL and triple XL sizes have sold out already, which, you know, I'll say no more about that.

But yeah, seeing one in the wild will certainly be a moment.

Are we going to like, would people wear these two at football matches?

Like, could it kick off at places?

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, some places, I don't know exactly what the rules are on those sorts of shirts, but different grounds do have rules on, you know, certain things you can bring in of a political or national persuasion.

It is a political

show of political support, isn't it?

Very much so.

Is it objectively a bad shirt?

I don't know what to say.

Like, it looks a bit roughish, like, cheap.

But, you know, design-wise, I don't know.

Don't Don't want to talk about it.

Right, you might have thought that this would be a segue into Keys and Grey Corner.

No, no, the

political values don't align, actually.

So, we've got one more item for you.

This came from an anonymous source at Stockley Park, Charlie.

He says, I thought you'd be interested to know that the canteen at Stockley Park will be closed for four weeks as a result of a pest problem.

Ooh, bad process.

The problems deepen.

Yeah, this was

a little statement released by the canteen.

We would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding.

As you may have seen, we had to close the canteen at very short notice this week.

Our canteen facility at Five Long Walk has a rating of five in terms of hygiene standards, the highest as determined by the local authority.

The well-being of our colleagues and guests is always our priority.

And in the interest of transparency, we decided to close as we were made aware of an issue with pests, which needed us to take immediate action.

We need to get this to Keesy.

Someone needs to get this to Keesy.

Yeah, he'll join the game.

Who's going to get this still hold of this story this week, I I wonder?

Perhaps that's why there were a few VAR cock-ups in the first weekend.

They weren't sufficiently

well-fed and watered.

I've gone on record on this podcast about the canteen at Stockley Park before.

We got opprobrium back.

Now whose rights?

As I was saying, I don't want to get too keysy about this.

Anyway, speaking of Premier League pests, it's time for Keys at Grey Corner.

No theme tune change for us.

It's Keys in Grey Corner, the first of the season.

I want to take you back, though, a little bit to the UEFA Super Cup evening.

Keys in Grey on Thomas Frank.

I like him.

Yeah, I agree.

It's a good appointment.

I agree.

But, go on, I think he's overtalked since getting the job.

And when he said, I'm here to win the title, I just winced.

Because you're not Thomas.

But hold on.

He never met this year, did he?

I don't care in any.

Well, you don't.

No.

You do.

You don't.

That's got everything I'd want in a sort of mid-level Keys and Grey.

Chuckle Brothers at the end.

You do, you don't.

You do.

You don't.

They did this all the time on being.

It's like how much the proportion of their coverage is taken up by them just batting forth.

The same opinion.

But Charlie, I love it when he addresses football managers by their first name in a kind of hypothetical exchange.

It really puts them in their place, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's like he's got a direct line to all of them, which I think in his mind he probably does.

Overtalked.

Wow.

I like him.

But.

But.

So powerful.

Exactly, yeah.

Fast forward to Friday night then.

Richard Keyes raising the curtain on another Premier League season.

No team has started more seasons defending the title than Liverpool.

And no team has started more Premier League seasons together than Andy and myself.

Now that's a start.

Isn't it Jeff?

That's a start.

And here we go again.

It's great to have you along.

We're in for quite a night.

So proud of themselves.

They are never going to let go of the concept of them being the Premier League themselves, are they?

So much so that Andy,

Keysy rather, in his blog, not the one that went up on Monday, but last week, he made a claim, I think it was something like, this is mine and Andy's 36th Premier League season together.

I mean, there haven't been that many Premier League seasons.

So it's kind of like, they're so iconic and intertwined with the Premier League that they've had more Premier League seasons than together than there have been Premier League seasons.

It's 39 if you include our time at the original BSB.

What a run we've had.

You can't, what a run we've had yourselves.

Exactly.

And those weren't Premier League seasons.

And now we're the last man standing.

That's a source of huge pride to me.

We'll be offering the usual mix of grown-up chat for adults with the football.

Who's that, a digger?

Who is it, a digger?

Oh, that's surely a carriger thing, isn't it?

Yeah, maybe.

I think just Jembrew Skye.

Yeah, just, you know, all the larking about.

Pandering.

Well, that was Friday night.

Let's fast forward slightly more to Saturday lunchtime.

And here is Richard Keyes raising the curtain on another Premier League season.

Yeah, one unsavoury incident aside.

That was a really good start to the Premier League season last night.

The champions starting the defence of their trophy.

No team in English football has defended a title more often than Liverpool.

And no TV team has presented more Premier League football than Andy and myself.

So it's just absolutely lovely to be back for another one.

Just reuse the same line.

Can't do that.

As I often tell you, Adam, it could always be someone's first time watching or listening, okay?

Keys, he's a pro.

Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah, Gordon Eddie doesn't need any encouragement to talk about himself.

To his blog, then, he had a kind kind of tone setter for the season blog the other day.

The opening line: nothing is certain except death and taxes.

Benjamin Franklin, 1789.

Not quite true, though, is it?

If Franklin had been alive today, he would have almost certainly added, and relegation for clubs coming up from the championship.

Benjamin,

how do you think Burley will get on this?

I think it'll be fine.

Putting the date in.

Why did you need 1789?

Yeah, he'd obviously just looked it up and was quite proud of himself.

Oh, God, he loves a quote.

He loves his history.

History buff.

He published just before we recorded, 10 minutes before we started recording, Charlie, Keesey unleashed his first Premier League review of the season.

And I've never been so sure of anything in my life than him spelling Tijani Rinder's surname incorrectly.

So close.

Just an errant eye.

And you can understand why.

But yeah, that was never going to happen, was it?

Yeah, I look forward to seeing the variants in the coming weeks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The headline for the blog on Monday, the 18th of August, it's a nice one, really, to get things going properly this season from Keesy.

It's simple.

Bayandir was fouled.

And then he just goes on to just explain it again in his opening line.

Good old Keesy.

Right.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.

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