The threshold for being "rudderless" & Tour de France riders as footballers

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I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gascoyne going to have a crack? Yes, you know. Oh, I see!

Brilliant!

Jeez! He's round the goalkeeper! He's done it!

Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supportler who was

without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip. Oh, I say,

it's amazing! He does it tame, and tame, and tame again. Break up the music, charge a glass!

This nation is going to dance all night.

The knowledgeable Wibbledon crowd being almost too knowledgeable, the BBC going with possibly the eighth choice way of describing Scott Sinclair, former Spurs ball carriers in West African percussion, how to embarrass yourself on the Boca Jr.'s Reddit page, tour de France riders as footballers, questionable depictions of the football calendar in Danish science fiction novels, John Taraude and Greg Wallace, we've been here before, and spending a day in the late 90s pomp of Richard Keyes.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts. This is Football Clichés.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Cliches. I'm Adam Hurry.
This is the Midweek Adjudication Panel. I'm joined by Charlie Eccleshare.
How are you doing? Very well, thank you.

And David Walker, how are things? Things are good. A reminder from Tuesday's episode of this clip from All Elite Wrestling.

And we subsequently received confirmation from the masked man mounting himself that all-elite wrestling ace Excalibur is a cliché's listener. Who would have thunk it, Dave Walker? Wow, yeah.

So, I guess the challenge from here on in is to see how many references he can get in without it becoming too ridiculous. He went quite subtle with that one, Charlie, didn't he?

It's good to know good to know he's not showing all his cards straight away. Yeah, to the point where it's almost just as if it's buried in his brain and it came out.

I mean, which I'm sure we all do in certain ways, don't we? Yeah.

A list in fair play is surely constant opportunities to drop that in in whatever scenario you find yourself in. In all walks of life.
I'm sure he can get one of those in.

I mean, the ultimate challenge is obviously can he what's the best way for him to do a gets the shot away?

I don't know.

Surely doable. Gets the punch away.
Gets the ladder away.

Gets the chair away.

Yeah.

I understand he dropped in a can he do it on the cold wet night in Stoke the other day as well.

I didn't think it was good enough for the podcast.

I didn't really care about it enough. And now I'm fully invested in this guy.

But if you're interested in seeing grown men throwing themselves about for the entertainment of a live audience, you should join us for clichés live in 2025.

You can see us in Brighton, Cardiff, Hackney Empire in London, Birmingham, Dublin, and Manchester. We're sold out in Leeds and Glasgow, I'm afraid.

Go to tickets.footballcliches.com and join us on tour this October. Right, on to the main event now, the adjudication panel.
First up, I'm not willing to let Wimbledon go just yet, Charlie.

This came from Danny Clayton, and I actually think this might almost be too Wimbledon. Here is Ben Shelton being interviewed after his third-round win over Hungary's Martin Fuciewicz.

Also.

My sister's here. She's been here for every match that I've played at this tournament so far.
She's been the lucky charm, but

she has work back in the U.S. starting on Monday.
She works for Morgan Stanley. Hey, hey, hey, hey,

come on, Mal. Charlie, this could be another level for the knowledgeable Wimbledon crowd.

Someone on Twitter speculated that the crowd were booing because Barclays is the banking sponsor of Wimbledon and Morgan Stanley is a direct competitor. They're so knowledgeable.

You wouldn't be able to do that. I mean, if they did know, fair play.

Yes.

I mean, that's too knowledgeable, isn't it? Yeah, I think so.

Well, or more to the point, it's probably that the Wimbledon crowd being what it is, the demographics, a lot of them probably work for rival companies.

If ever there was a place where that could be possible, and there would actually be some antipathy to Morgan Stanley. That probably wouldn't make sense.
Yeah,

it can't be full of people who would instinctively boo bankers, you know, can it? It's just, it can't be.

It got even more pure Wimbledon in his very next match when Annabelle Croft just sort of spoke for all of us when we're talking to an American and we're a bit out of our depth.

And And she said to him suddenly, oh, and Ben, you were a quarterbacker in American football. And he just was like, uh,

yeah. He dealt with it about as politely as you possibly could.

Because he even said, he was like, yeah, I play quarterback or quarterbacker, as maybe you say here, as if it was a thing that we all, like, that was the English word for it.

Oh, just, yeah, just a very British tennis commentator thing to say. Yeah, good old polite Americans at Wibwood.
Next up, this came from Lucas Swain Britton, Dave.

news from BBC Wiltshire Sport that Swindon Town have handed a trial to London 2012 Olympian Scott Sinclair.

Has a footballer ever been referred to as a London 2012 Olympian before by the English media? Asks Lucas. What a strange way of expressing a description of Scott Sinclair.

Yeah, I have heard it before, but very specifically in relation to Marvin Sawdell, who

came through at Watford before signing for Bolton and played for a few others, Burnley, I think.

And because that was basically his career kind of didn't really live up to the early promise and he retired early.

The most notable thing he did really was being included in that Olympic squad in 2012. So it kind of makes sense for him if he somehow pops up in a piece or something.

But Scott Sinclair, the bloke scored a hat-trick in a player final, didn't he?

He's surely he can, you know, play for Celtic.

Yeah,

his side problem is he spread himself so thinly that we know we've talked about before when you like, how do you describe a player and And

if you don't want to give three clubs, which, by the way, even picking three would be quite tricky for him.

But if you're just doing one, I mean, I guess you go Swansea, he's probably most synonymous with them.

But I mean, I don't. If you were to, if you weren't a football fan and you were looking at it at a glance, Charlie, you'd wonder if

they've signed a hurdler just to give him a chance at football to see if he's his skills would translate. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's quite funny.

Of all the players in that squad, though, Sinclair is who I would first think of.

Right. He's who comes to mind.

He was the most London 2012 Olympic squad of all of them for some reason for me. The more I look at it, the weirder it becomes.

Olympian.

Absolutely mad. Elsewhere in the lower divisions, Dave, I don't know if this is bad news for Watford's season, but the BBC have whisper it quietly to Watford's prospects for new season.

As it stands, the two stars of the team have remained, Yorgi Chakfatadza and Kwadwo Bar, as well as some of the other solid performers from last season.

This summer, the signings have been more impressive, and others are on their way. Whisper It very quietly, but the Watford squad is shaping up rather nicely.
I mean, how does that make you feel?

Do you feel personally that Watford are in a whisper it quietly phase? It feels like there's a lot of whispering going on amongst the fan base at the moment. We are all getting, yeah, quietly excited.

We have made some intriguing signings,

but yes, I think we are. We are sort of in that whisper it quietly window, yeah.

Watford feels like a perfect club for it as well, because they're seen as so scattergun and chaotic that there's quite a low bar.

You know, if they act sort of vaguely sensibly, that feels like a whisper it quietly.

I mean, also, this is a whisper it very quietly, which I suppose speaks to that context because that suggests we've been burnt so many times. You've got to be really cautious about it.

Have you gone about your business quietly? Any of the any of that nonsense to go with it? Well, under the radar? Yeah, I'd say a little bit, yeah. I don't think,

I mean, you can't really go about your business that loudly in the championship, really, unless you're spending big money right at the top end. So, I sort of it's it's inherent in a way.

But I think you're right, Charlie.

We aren't we're we're never too far away as a club from a whisper it quietly because we're just in this constant cycle of mad thing happens, and then there's sort of the counter-argument to the mad thing of like, well, you know what, whisper it quietly.

I know we've sacked the manager after three games, but it could actually turn out okay,

could Could do worse than Kiki Sanchez Flores.

Next up, this doesn't qualify for a Four My Sins corner, but I did enjoy this uttering of an immortal footballing phrase. It came from Zach Redding.
It's on Radio 2. I didn't think this,

you know, is this one of the most mundane for my Sinsing? Let's find out.

Let's go to Lebre and say a very good morning to Jez Morse. Morning, Jez.
Morning, Gary. How are you? I'm good.
And you? Yeah, very well, thank you. A big Gloucester rugby fan, I see.
Formats.

Format Sins, yeah.

How are they doing at the moment? They've had a good year. Good season this year.
Came fifth, much improved from the last year. So, yeah, looking good for the next season.

Two aspects to this, Charlie. First of all, I mean, I have no view on whether Gloucester rugby are For My Sins worthy or not.

I mean, I mean, it just feels like a classic example of just someone just saying it and not really believing it. Is that fair? Yeah, quite possibly.

I mean, is there an extent to which any club rugby is a little bit? Because it suggests there's like a slight element of anorakness. You know, know, you're like, I'm not just a casual rugby fan.

I'm not just a, you know, watch the Six Nations. I'm properly into it.
I mean, I guess Sarry's would be the most maybe because they're the kind of Man United equivalent. Sarry's, is it?

That it's the kind of

is a bit like Glory Hunter.

You spent two weeks at Wimbledon.

The other aspect to it, Dave, it was the absolutely textbook, inch-perfect delivery of the, how are they getting on this season?

Because it was, yeah, we did all right this season. We did X this season and we're hoping to wise.
So yeah, yeah, looking good. It just tails off at the end, always.
Yeah, very nice.

Every box is ticked. What was especially good about the asking of the how they're doing? Because I think he went with this year, didn't he? He wasn't even sure.

He didn't sound like he had the rugby season picture in his head. So it was even vaguer.
It was just a kind of like,

yeah, you know, it wasn't like have had a good season or something. It was really nice and vague.

I didn't include it in the clip, but he goes on to ask several more questions about Gloucester Rugby, including like, did you go and see them all over?

He says, yeah, I'll go watch them across Europe and stuff how many games you watch this season he was like

how many games have you watched in total and he was like uh well I should count Europe but sometimes we're not in it oh god

it's quite a hard question to answer on this

for fuck's sake picking out how well they're doing move on

right uh this arrived mere seconds before we start recording it's a glorious footballer's names in things if only for the build-up alone it came from Luke Jensen Jones and he asks which former Spurs midfield ace will be performing live on the balafon on radio radio 3 this afternoon?

Well, it's almost time for me to hand you into the capable arms of Mark Forrest for today's classical live. That starts at one o'clock.

Choral evensong at three o'clock comes live from Selwyn College, Cambridge. Music by Parry, Mendelssohn, and Charles Wood today.

And there's live performances from the pianist Rebecca O'Mordia and balafon player Moussa Dembele. That's with Katie or in tune.

You should have seen him in training.

Couldn't get the balafon off. I'll get the piano off him.

The pianist's pianist.

What is a balafon? Anyway, let's find out. Who's the goat? For me, it's Musa Dembele.
Bloody hell. Fair play to the Balafon.
It's like a massive xylophone. Big old xylophone.
Bigger than you'd expect.

Yeah, take someone special for that one. Now, I wouldn't normally raise this story.
I don't think there's anything particularly clichés worthy in this. But the story that

Spain's Ministry of Social Rights has urged an investigation into Barcelona winger Lamin Jamal after he reportedly hired people with dwarfism to perform at his 18th birthday party.

Dave, I put it to you quite simply: is this the most the upshot thing that's ever happened in football?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like it designed in a lab to be an upshot thread on Twitter.

Yeah, it is very upshot, you're right. Also a bit rugby as well, actually, I think.
But yeah.

Hello, ask Charlie. New Zealand 2011, of course.
Exactly, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, let's move on very swiftly.

Sorry,

I've got to talk about this once again. I really have to stop finding the football games going on in the background in films and TV shows.
Dave, it's ruining my life.

It's actually distracting me from the most important things that are actually happening in my life.

Everything stops. Everything stops.
It's like you're on call 24-7, isn't it? Really?

If you see that little notification pop up and it's, can you tell me what this is, mate? I've seen you do it. I've seen you do it live.
You know, I've got to make...

Two and a half episodes of a podcast every week, Charlie. I've got a child.
I've got a family.

And then someone sends me a clip from some rubbish real-life survival stories reconstruction series called I Shouldn't Be Alive about a man who fell down a crevasse and climbed his way out.

And there's a final scene of the reconstruction where he goes into a bar to toast his now dead friend and drinks two beers in his honour. And I can see one third of the TV in the background.

And I saw what I thought was quite clearly the back of a Boca Junior's kit.

And I thought, well, that looks kind of mid to late 2000s from the style of the play and the sort of fit of the kit. So I sort of look through the the history of Boca Junior's kit.

Your daughter's screaming in the background as this is going on. Daddy, it's my birthday.
Shut up.

Daddy's busy.

And there are some seasons where Bocco Jr.'s kit doesn't have the yellow stripe that goes all the way around the back, so I could rule those seasons out. I thought I pinned it down to about 2007.

I ended up on the Boca Junior's Reddit page asking in sort of cod Spanish for them to help me by posting the clip. And some of them were like, why do you want to know this?

And I was like, don't worry about that. Don't worry.
Just need to know.

And then the moment after i posted it or the moment after they replied sorry i quickly realized it wasn't bocco juniors it was uh it was everton from uh from chile and they were playing um colo colo in a clausura game in the chilean league and uh uh i thought i found the game i couldn't i couldn't make it match up but that that's my life right now i really should find other things to do you're the equivalent i mean it's like a reporter when your manager gets sacked on a Friday night or something and you know you've got to drop your plans but you're I guess it's the equivalent but then having a manager gets sacked a lot in your case.

Yeah,

I've got

a list of about six or seven unsolved cases for this day in my Google bookmarks. It's like cold cases.
I've got to go back to them in 20 years where they're loving the evidence.

Coming out of retirement for one last job. Oh, yeah.

Some of them, I do fire some of them back up, Charlie, and think, my today might be the day. Fresh pair of eyes.
Maybe I'm a bit more alert today. Nope, doesn't work.
It's killing me.

Absolutely killing me. Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.
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Indeed, as did Frank Carroll, who sent us this from the highlights of Birmingham City 3, Sevilla 1, obviously. On Be in Sports Australia, obviously.
It's Ollie Hogburn on Commentary Duty, I believe.

Clara forward once again, and the header comes back off the post from Romero. And in it goes, and the gentleman who had a chance earlier, he's taking it now.
The captain, Christophe Clara.

And the gentleman has scored.

And England lead West Germany by three goals to one. It is a little bit like that, but there's just no explanation for why he could be referred to as the gentleman.

Maybe just sort of just it was off the top of his head, Dave, and that's all he could think of at the moment.

And Frank Carroll says, This is incredibly formal, but is this too much for the modern game? I kind of don't mind it, but I don't see why it ever happened. I mean, that's really weird.

Obviously, he didn't know who the player was. He couldn't, I don't know whether he was unfamiliar, whether he just couldn't work it out.

It brought him some time before he figured out who it was, Charlie. Bad typeface, as we were discussing the other day, the PSE kryptonite.
Cometh the gentleman, cometh the hour.

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The Who's Down and Who Newville were making their list, but some didn't know Walmart has the best brands for their gifts. What about toys? Do they have brands kids have been wanting all year?

Yep, Barbie, Tony's, and Lego. Gifts that will make them all cheer.
Do you mean they have all the brands I adore? They have Nintendo, Nespresso, Apple, and more. What a bad.

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Here's my 30-second story with Guinness. As soon as my sister and I get home for the holidays, we don't even unpack.
We head straight to our pub.

The bartender already knows our order, Guinness and Fries. We laugh all night, catch up with old friends, and walk home with faces sore from smiling.
It's one of my favorite nights of the year.

That was my 30-second story with Guinness. Guinness Draft Stout.
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Welcome back to Football Clichés. This is the Midweek Adjudication Panel.
A reminder that you can join our Football Clichés membership at dreamland.football clichés.com.

For your $5.99 a month, you'll get ad-free listening, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show, and free entry to clichés quiz live events as well.

We've got one coming up in Newcastle in September, and we're hoping to arrange one in Bristol as well. So keep your eyes peeled for that.
Right, on we go.

We did Wimbledon tennis players as footballers the other day, Charlie. You then ran with the idea on BBC Radio 5 Live.
You just couldn't get enough of of it, could you?

You just could not get enough of Wimbledon tennis players as footballers. They ran with it, yeah.
But I was more than happy to oblige. Time to turn our attention to the Tour de France.

Stage nine has been completed now, Dave, so we're well into it. And here are the top 10 in the classifications.
Let's run through them and decide who and how they would fit into the world of football.

Number one, Tade Pogachar. Slovenian? Is he Slovenian? As we'll discover as you go through this list, it's a bit tricky.

They are not massively football-y all the way through, but Tadei, so that's that's with Tadei with a J, T-A-D-E-J, Pogaka,

I don't know, centre-back who ends up playing for West Brom for a bit.

Quite West Brom-y. Yeah, I

had a completely forgettable spell at West Ham in the early to mid-2000s, though to be fair, Tim, he played more for them and they got relegated to the championship. Nice.

I went with Interwar Striker who scored more than Pele, but no one really believes it because there's no pictures or any videos of it happening. I like that, yeah.

Or, alternatively, he has been drawn against the new Saints in the Champions League qualifiers, Tade Pogachar. Number two, Remco Evenopol.
So, this guy's Belgian, isn't he?

So, I had him down as a versatile Belgian defender who joined Brighton when past his best, but he's perfectly serviceable. Won't let you down.
He's immensely can play fullback either side.

Or in the middle if needed. I quite like this, yes.
I don't know. I think Remco sounds like some sort of like vague investment group that's going to take a club over halfway through the season.

They're going to buy Sheffield Aramaic actually. They're going to save Sheffield Wednesday, Remco.
I had him down as a 16-year-old Belgian who's currently playing for Barcelona B.

And I've been watching some very impressive clips of him

up.

Number three.

Number three, Kevin Vocalan. Everton.
I had him down as a... £7 million Fulham right back, personally.
Oh, I had him more attacking Vocalan. I don't know why.

It's just quite an interesting name that stands out. I think he's a bit more flairy.
Who's the Kevin who was always playing in the Europa League? Kevin Morales. Kevin Gamaro.
Oh, Kevin Gamaro, yeah.

Kevin Gamaro. I wonder if you had him in mind.
Number four, Jonas Wingergaard. Could there be a more Scandinavian in the Premier League doing a job for you name than Jonas Vingergaard?

I mean, it's almost like a pro-Evo Yannick Vestergaard, so I couldn't look past that. He's a sort of Lester-y Southampton centre-back.
Touch of Watford about him, Jonas Vingergaard?

No. I don't think so.
Oh, okay. Fine.

I'm glad that you have an input into this. Number five, Matteo Jorgensen.
Dave, this is very.

Yeah, fair enough. But he is also very...
If his name was,

we'd be raving about him. Matthew Johnson.
If his name was Matteo Jorgensen. Yeah, but what would that be for Natalie?

I think that would have to be for something like a throw-in coach or a set piece coach. Because I don't think of, it's not a country necessarily you jump to otherwise.
Yeah.

actually i quite like him being a set piece coach matteo jorgensen only 33 yeah i mean but yeah yeah he's this little this young uh whiz kid i mean i yeah to add some flesh that i had a brentford central midfielder who in a future quiz we'll discover it turned out he came on for them as a sub against arsenal in 2021.

number six dutchman matteo van der Poel Dave what are you thinking goalkeeper

for Swansea. Okay.
Yeah, quite goalkeepery. I had him down as a six foot six

Europa League weapon, Charlie. Yeah, it's fun.
I struggled with him, but I've got both of the types of people you've got. I took people later on.

He's tall, isn't he? Either way. Goalkeeper or centre for Van der Beampole.
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, very honest.
Tallest nation in the world, the Dutch. Yeah, of course.
Number seven, I've got nothing. I've got a big question mark for this.
Oscar Onley. Bristol footballery name.

I don't know.

Rower all the way.

It's not a footballer's name. Oscar Onley and

Tim Davidson in the double skulls.

He's some sort of official. He's involved in the running of the game.
From the old days. Yeah, certainly.
Even now, it's not going to work.

Look, this might be due to the company that I keep these days.

But I think that he could play for Oxford United in the championship, and George and Ali would get really excited about him on a weekly basis on the Top 20 podcast. Yeah.
Yeah.

A 21-year-old at the very most. Okay.
Number eight, Florian Lipovitz. Charlie, I'm going for German starlit dubbed the new Kai Havertz.
Yeah, I've got three words here, pure Red Bull.

He doesn't care which one is it. He wrote for the Red Bulls, doesn't he?

I don't care which one it is, but he's getting moved around the Red Bull clubs. Oh, yeah,

he's got the whole pathway set. He's great.
He's great. He's an attacker midfielder, loads of talent.

and may i mean maybe he'll end up at buyer after moving around the red bulls but yeah he did a year at the random australian one then salzburg then then leipzig yep and then leeds and then leads because he's not very good right number nine primoz roglich yeah i've got him as an absolute unit of a striker um

you sort of know him because he pops up for slovenia from time to time but his club career is largely bundesieger journeyman yeah hefty guy i think dave i think that's that's actually a good shout out i had called a beast or something or Yeah, I prefer this, Dave, to my suggestion of rising star at UEFA in their refereeing ranks.

Primos Rocklich is an ungainly number nine, very much sort of like Jalai of Hungary, that sort of bustling unit.

Yeah, misses two games in the crucial stage of the season due to picking up his tenth booking of the season.

The sort of detail we need for this sort of thing. Number 10, quite boring, it's Matthias Skelmoza, Dave.

I had him down as a Serie A midfielder and suddenly turns 29 out of nowhere because you thought he was just 21 the whole time.

Yeah, yeah, plays for Atalanta or one of those clubs that are not the traditional big ones but are actually quite good at the moment.

Yeah, the scandy-friendly ones at Eudenazia and Atalanta, but not for a big club. Absolutely right.
Yeah, I think that's good. That works.
There we've done. We've done the tour de France.

I'm happy with that. That's good.
I'm happy. I think that was a good selection of names, actually.
Yeah. Yeah.
Get out of some good names in the cycling world. Next up, this came from Jacob Rosenberg.

Dave, he says, in the second book of the calculation of volume, a five-part Danish series of novels nominated for this year's Man Booker, in which a woman experiences the 18th of November over and over, the main character travels to Dusseldorf.

She ends up on a bus with raging fans who are, as she describes it, cheering a promotion relegation play-off.

This is a literary book, etc., so I don't expect anyone to really think about football, but it's the climax of the second book and driving me crazy to try and figure out how any such match could possibly be played in November.

It would have to be in May. She repeats November the 18th over and over, and there's no fucking way a football match with this consequence would fall on that day.
They're actually really annoying.

Like, the fact, Dave, that she, the author has set it up as a promotion relegation playoff, that implies some good knowledge. That's a great game to pick for a bit of sort of insider context.

And then she puts it in November. I'm annoyed.
Well, hang on. There may be some method to this.
Okay. I reckon it could be, because November 18th, that is international break territory.

And this could be a promotion relegation de facto playoff in the Nations League. Oh,

okay.

Behave.

Could Germany play that in Dusseldorf? Maybe, maybe.

But yeah, no one's getting that exercise about a Nations League playoff. They wouldn't even know what was at stake.
Do your research, Charlie. It's all I've seen.
Yeah, no, I agree.

I mean, like, if you wouldn't have, like, a an American election popping up in May or something because it would annoy everyone reading it. They'd be like, well, that's clearly wrong.

And you know what, if this just happened in passing, Charlie, I'd be all right with it. But the whole concept of the book, apparently, is that this day keeps happening over and over.

The date is at the core of the book. Get something that's happening in November.
Guy Fawkes Night hangover. I don't know.
Make it in May or something. Fireworks being released two weeks later.

Something. Yeah, it's maybe Thanksgiving.
Yeah. People are getting worked up about that.

Five-part Danish series of novels. Hope the other four are Danish beloved survivor series and wrestling.
Exactly. There's plenty of stuff to choose from.

Right, next up, this came from Burt Sampson, Dave, who was having an argument with someone on Reddit about Brentford's prospects for the season. season.

The other person said Brentford looked pretty rudderless, losing both Frank and Norgard. So having a vocal player in the form of Jordan Henderson makes up for those losses.

Burt Sampson replied with they don't look rudderless, they haven't even played yet. They then referred it to us and said I'm currently having a little bicker about this person's use of rudderless.

To me, rudderless can only be used about a team's single poor performance on the pitch, specifically poor positioning and marking.

Maybe a wider usage about a team in general after several of these performances. My now arch enemy is saying otherwise and that Brentford are already looking rudderless based on the exit of leaders.

Do I drop it? Do I keep repeating myself with slightly different phrasings until they get bored or I get bored? Charlie, how do you feel about this?

Can a team look rudderless after losing key personnel pre-season? I think they, no, I think that's probably a bit preemptive.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Brentford are described as looking rudderless.

But I think you do need a bit more evidence rather than... sort of fearing that they will look rudderless.

You know, a couple of games in or three games in and they've got like a point from the first three games and, you know, are they they just looking a little bit rudderless?

You know, they've, they've lost some of those key players in the locker room. They've lost Frank.
They're an inexperienced manager.

I think rudderless is the sort of thing you hear a source who shall remain anonymous to protect relationships say from the inside.

Like if it's all going wrong and there's a bit of an inquest a few months into the season, you hear a source going, look, it's rudderless in there.

Great to have a situation where we end up saying the word over and over again until it loses. Get yourselves out because it is rudderless, in it.

But, I mean, semi-seriously, I'd pick up on both of your sort of addressings of this. You both seem to think that rudderless is a sort of bigger picture aspect.

It's a top-down view of the happenings at a club. Charlie, could rudderless ever be an on-pitch local situation? They look rudderless out there.
I don't know.

I think it's just a bit of a grand word to use. Like, I think you might just say they look a bit lost or they're lacking, you know, someone's taking the game by the scruff of the neck.

I feel like Rudderless is slightly bigger picture. It's the kind of overall kind of vibe of the club.
I could see Chris Sutton actually going for this, like going,

it's rudderless out there. They look a bit rudderless.
Yeah. It could also be like the running of the club as well.
You know how obsessed we are now with sporting directors and what have you.

There's a bit of a vacuum because they replaced one and they've restructured and it isn't quite working.

And that's especially where the source who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships might comment on that. On that note, then, Dave, who is the classic classic rudder of a football club?

I feel like a manag manager first, then possibly a captain in an on-pitch situation. Sporting director,

I don't want them in the rudder equation at all. I'm very anti-sporting director anyway.
Yeah, get them well away from the rudder.

Yeah, it's manager, it's captain, it's obvious sort of on-pitch leaders.

Connor Cody, pure rudder. You think? Yeah, because he's

got to steer the...

He's good for general atmosphere, but he's not steering the team in any direction. Jordan Henderson might well do that for Brentford, but Conor Cody's not steering them in a footballing sense.

He's steering them in a camaraderie way. You need someone who is actually sort of influencing them footballistically, right?

Maybe, but I do think if you lost him, he could contribute to an atmosphere of rudderlessness.

I was talking about Brentford the other day. I was sort of forecasting a difficult season for Brentford.

They look like Keith Andrews, Jordan Henderson, losing a lot of their players, could could lose even more.

It just wouldn't surprise me if they have that classic out of nowhere, all of a sudden they're really struggling after having had seasons of doing really well.

And my mate said to me, what do you reckon the chances are of Jordan Henderson having to be caretaker manager for a few games this season? I could really see that. Yeah.

Of all the preseason predictions. that people might bandy about, Charlie, is the predicting T-Mex to have a difficult season?

How do I put this? The smuggest one? Not the smuggest one.

Is it the kind of, I think I know ball here?

Saying someone's going to have a great season, that doesn't base. Do you know what? I think it could be.
I think they might struggle this season.

I think they might have a little tricky one. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's all because there's a vagueness to it, which is a bit of an out.

I know what you mean. It's quite knowing of sort of like.
But then I don't think it is in this instance because it's been so well documented.

I think it's more like that if it's just they've had a good first season and you're saying, I know they came up and surprised people. do worry, you know, that difficult second season sort of thing.

That's just when you pick up on their sort of preseason issues and yeah, a manager who's unproven and things like that,

it's a nice prediction to roll out, Dave, is basically what I'm saying. It feels good to say it, yeah.

And I think it is, you're right, it's an easy one to do, and that's I was definitely doing that, no, no question.

And because I think there were plenty of predictions last season that Forrest would struggle.

I'm pretty sure one of Carragher or Neville had them in their bottom three when they went through their predictions at the end of the season.

No one's sitting there going, you know what, I think Forrest are going to just do really well this season.

They could just sneak into Europe. I think they could.
No one ever says that. No one ever predicts it the other way, do they? Yeah.
Do you know what? I have to say, I'm really annoyed by this.

I mean, it's natural, Charlie, for sort of preseason predictions to be looks back on and say, well, that aged well, didn't it? I don't care.

That's the fun of predictions. Like, they should be kept sacred.
There should be a sort of statute of limitations on this. You shouldn't have to go back and say, well, you got that wrong.

It's what you feel in the moment. It's like a supercomputer.

Yeah, although it is funny that just like the complete lack of imagination in predictions, because I looked at this a few years ago and basically all anyone does is thinks, I think everything's going to remain basically exactly the same, certainly at the top end, because, you know, recency bias is such and it kind of follows.

Teams just had a good season. They'll probably have a good season again.
But yeah, I do like on Brentford, I think I predicted they would have a difficult second season. And they absolutely didn't.

I think they were a lot better in their second season than their first. I think the Premier League should always have a club who people fear for in that kind of way.

Not in a they're rubbish, they've only got promoted, they're going straight back down. I want a club who are sort of suddenly teetering on the edge of crisis, having been quite stable for a while.

I think it's important. Who do you think that is? I think it's Brentford.
Yeah, I'm all for it.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Right, next up, our man Nick Miller spotted this in a Tinder advert on the It Was What It Was podcast. Liam Hauler saw it in Stick to Cricket.
Danny Estrich on Hand Break Off.

Dave O'Leary on the Totally Football Show. Here it is.
And it turns out football is now our thing. Didn't see that one coming.

Discover unexpected possibilities.

It is what's known in the trade as the Ellis James crowd noise. Dave, it won't go away.
Where are the people getting it from? Amazing.

People can't just keep going on the BBC sound effects database, go, yep, we'll have that one. Because where do you even, what would make you go and get it? And no, it's that one.

Just go and get another one. Yeah, it's a great question.
It has to be the person putting this together, if indeed it is a human, just knows the noise and knows where to get it.

You wouldn't stumble across it randomly. I don't, I just don't think you would.
I just, this is it.

Exactly, my point. So, Charlie, as iconic as this is becoming, no one's got it in their head to going, I need to go and get that one.
Can we go and get that one?

Because you just wouldn't know how to go and find it. So, how are you not finding other ones? Well, yeah, has it just got its way to the top of kind of generic football noise?

We're not a proper advert if we haven't got this one. Go and get the proper one.
Splash out if you have to.

Next up,

I had to talk about this because I saw the phrase, it plunged the BBC cooking show into a deeper crisis, and I just thought that was an incredible way of framing the story.

Charlie, MasterChef, is in crisis. John Taraude has followed Greg Wallace out the door.
And

here's a quote from John Tarode. He said he had loved every minute working on MasterChef, but it's time to pass the cutlery to someone else.

Why do people have to talk like this about stuff?

What's he hanging up? He's hanging up his apron. His apron, yeah.
Yeah, I suppose you do. Yeah, that's fair enough.
He doesn't wear an apron. He's not in the kitchen, is he? No, he does a bit.

He's done tasting, isn't he? Every now and then he comes in and sort of pulls rank and says, Right, this is how we do things.

I think it's like the semi-finals when they have to cook for like 50 dignitaries. He starts to run the kitchen.
That's when he starts. Yeah,

he has to flex his muscles every now and then. But

inevitably,

Danny McMoomins tweeted, Charlie, Tarod and Wallace will be on the next plane to Qatar to host BN Master Death. This is so Keys and Gray.
Yeah, it's amazing. This whole episode, it's unbelievable.

Yeah, I mean, when you hear about Wallace and some of the stuff, and even not the worst stuff, but just the general kind of rubbish banter and then being like, oh, don't you have a sense of humour?

And it's like, yeah, but that's just not funny. Like, imagine how much Keys and Gray would crack up at his gags.
Like, there'd be such a good audience for it.

You know, in their slight defense, I think Wallace is much worse. If the stuff that's coming out is, it is, I mean, there's been full-blown investigations and like 40-odd people coming.

It is, it's, it's a different league to them, uh,

to be fair. Uh, Ben the Guna says, Dave, do you reckon the off-menu lads are going to do a Tarodon Wallace corner from now on?

That would be great, but anyway, speaking of, well, it's pretty easy this one. It's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

Right, a couple of things for you. The first one came from Ashley.

This is a feature with Richard Keys in Match magazine back in 1997, which shadowed him for a Sky Sports Live broadcast, Arsenal versus Liverpool at Highbury. This was his 500th game.

Charlie, do you remember what happened in this game? Depends which Arsenal Liverpool of 97 it was, because there was one in March, which Liverpool won 2-1, and then they won 1-0 in the November.

May have been April, that first one, but that was the penalty fowler deliberately missing. Was it that one? That's the one.
Yeah, I believe that was a...

Seems to be a Monday night football by the looks of it. So, this follows Richard Keyes throughout his working day, Dave.

Not massively insightful feature, I'll be honest. Starts off at 2pm, Richard Keyes poking his head out, Harry Redknapp style out the side of what looks suspiciously like a Jaguar.

I mean how keysy could that be? It's either Jaguar or a really really high-end rover. Yeah, it's well upholstered isn't it that car you can see.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's I think it's more the rover vibe than the jack. I was going by that by the door handles but I'm really not sure.
But yeah it's sleek. I think we can call it that.

Anyway it starts with a West London trading estate isn't glamorous but it's Richard Keyes' workplace. But some people have proper jobs like mining, so I can't complain, says Rich.

it is partridge, isn't it? It is already.

I can't see any driving gloves.

Mining.

1997, they'd all have closed by then, surely. Was that the go-to back then? Where now you'd be like, you know, there are nurses out there doing proper work.
Was mining the go-to or is it just keys?

3.30 p.m., Dave. Before heading to makeup, Rich has a quick shave with his handy razor.
Don't say it. Uh do I have to hike myself up? asks Keys.
No, I'm naturally enthusiastic. I just love football.

How easy is it to ask himself a question there, do you think?

A little shave. A very 90s razor there, Charlie.
You don't really see them anymore. The sort of the handheld rechargeables with the dual kind of spin.
Also, I don't know if

it's the M ⁇ F getting into momentum. It is going satisfyingly Monday night football.

Right. 15 minutes later, in Sky's ultra-busy makeup room, Rich has his cheeks powdered.
I just have to grip my teeth for this bit, says Rich. Still, I've been through it enough times now.

Why are we calling him Rich?

Why is he

about it's Match?

But yeah, and it is informal. There he is, Charlie, just having a laugh with the makeup lady.

A more foreboding image I have never seen.

Looks like Barry Venison has joined him. Yeah, Barry Venison.
And 20 past six, Charlie. While producers connect a million cables, Rich gets mic'd up and admits he can't believe his job.

My two loves are football and TV, and I combine the two. To think I could be mining.

And here I am. It's nice to see that the behind-the-scenes I spent a day with the broadcasters feature is such a long-standing

part of the landscape. Still very much happening now, and just as uninsightful, to be honest.
Yeah, at least this one doesn't bother chatting to the people behind the scenes.

Don't give a shit, to be honest, mate. Oh, producers got a bit of a difficult job.
Match director's got camera two, please. Can we have camera two? Don't give a shit.
Right.

Second item for you, be in. They're not mucking around this season.
They're getting all the rights they can find.

It's one of Europe's fiercest competitions. Feeding the Champions League.

Filled with incredible talent.

Bring out the market.

For those who know and those about to.

For the roots you remember or the passion you've yet to feel. And now it's ready for the world to see.

Welcome home. The Polish extra classa, only on BN Sports.

How many bloody leagues do they need? Who's watching this?

But what they were selling that, like, so the ultimate destination is the Champions League, potentially, if you win it and then win qualifiers or whatever. It feeds the Champions League.

That is one of the weirdest promotional taglines I've ever heard.

You've got to watch this because some of the teams go into the Champions League. I mean, because obviously you hear Fees James, you're like, oh, okay, this is Europa.

Then I was like, oh, not Europa, is this the conference league?

The Polish Extra Cluster being shown exclusively in the US and Canada this season, Dave. I mean, lots of Polish sort of, you know, second-generation Poles out there, no question.

But, you know, the idea that they're going to rediscover their roots by watching this league is hilarious. Is Keesy going to add Warsaw Time to

his opening tweets of the day on Sunday? I don't know what channels this is going to be on.

What an empire BN have. I mean, they show absolutely everything in Arabic and English and French.
Crazy. Absolutely crazy.
But I won't be.

I don't think we'll be getting any clips from that this season, will we, Charlie? You never know. Never say never.
Yeah. Good for the Nord VPN slot, at least.

Thanks to you, David Walker. Thank you.
Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Cliches Pod.
We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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