Pre-season trophies, Iran in the Championship... and what happened to shin splints?

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But gee, he's round the goal, KB.

Done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter 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!

Centre court's cauldron credentials, rebadging preseason friendlies as Spurious Cup finals.

England's Euro 2025 lift-off.

Does scoring before a cooling break still count as a psychological blow?

GB News burst onto the transfer scoop scene.

Manchester United don't want to swap pennants before games anymore, and fair enough.

Iran's terror threat falls between a classic footballing crack and 90s football injuries you don't hear about anymore.

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, of course, is Charlie Eccleshare.

How are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

And David Walker, how are you?

I'm very good.

Good to have you both.

Charlie, good Wimbledon.

Good, solid Wimbledon this year.

Not spectacular, I would say.

It was a good Wimbledon, and quite a lot of clichés Wimbledon crossover over the course of the fortnight.

There was a lot of, they've made a lot of friends out there that seem to recur.

Who made the most friends this year?

Ollie Tarvet, I would say, who was your classic.

He played Colos Alcraz in the second round, and he's ranked like 700 or something, which is a bit deceptive, but he's at Union Estates.

Yeah.

You know, massive underdog, lost comfortably, but it was one, four, and four, you know, absolutely no disgrace.

And yeah, you know, it was the first introduction of him to the crowd.

And yeah, I think he won a lot of friends out there.

There was also a huge amount of XYZ.

How does that sound?

I mean, real.

That was catching on.

And I pointed it out early and then it just kept happening.

But then the most satisfying clichés of Wilmington crossover was on the eve of the men's final being set an amazing quiz question, which I won't reveal now because more on that later potentially, by clichés alumnus, Josh Robinson,

which I completed kind of just on the e, just sort of as the men's final was about to start.

So, yeah, that was very satisfying.

Yeah, we'll roll out that trivia question in some form very soon because it was.

That's classic stuff there from Charlie.

Of all the things you've experienced in the last two weeks, your highlight is completing a quiz question just before the men's final.

What a moment started.

Really went down to the wire as well, which is great.

Of course, the big event this weekend, Dave, was an unprecedented competition climax between a club who were formed fairly recently and a club who have been accused of doing things all the wrong way when it comes to their model.

And that was the Football Manager Trophy between Watford and AFC Wimbledon.

The trophy was shared

after a one-all draw.

It wasn't even played at Vicarage Road or the Cherry Red Record Stadium.

It was played at Worldstone's Ground.

Good to do it at a neutral venue, though.

Grove in the Vale.

Yeah, exactly.

Neutral venue.

And yeah, it was really hot.

It was a one-all draw.

So I think they probably just thought, ah, fuck it.

Let's just share the trophy.

It's fine, isn't it?

That is exactly the vibe, Charlie, I get from this.

They probably just went, I don't think we intended to do this, but I don't think it's prestigious enough to actually award it.

So we just say it's just, I mean, how shared was it, Dave?

Did they hold it?

Did they lift it together?

Did they parade it together?

As far as I'm aware, there was no trophy presentation.

I could be wrong.

Maybe there were some local dignitaries getting in on the act.

But, yeah,

I'd imagine it was just everyone went home.

Charlie, how do you feel about pre-season friendlies being sort of engineered into a trophy?

I mean,

Emirates Cup is probably the pinnacle of this in terms of its prestige.

Audi Cup.

Audi Cup.

It was the P-Sup.

Yeah.

I mean, there's all the like Premier League trophy and things, aren't there?

Yeah, that's true.

World Cup.

Yeah, that Trump did.

Discuss.

Leave it alone.

It's finished now.

I was thinking, what did they used to do when the Charity Shield was shared?

Would like each captain, would the captain of both teams kind of hoist it up together?

I don't remember.

When did that finish?

When did they stop sharing it?

Early 2000s?

No.

Late 90s?

No.

They were having penalty shootouts then.

I think it was shared between Arsenal and Spurs in 91.

Right.

That would make sense.

Yes, maybe that was the last one.

Oh, no.

The last one apparently was between

Manchester United and Arsenal in 1990.

But hold on.

That doesn't make any sense.

Would they have been...

Is that Google fucking around with you?

That's Google fucking around.

Yeah, no.

I was right.

Fucking idiots.

Google's a joke.

I can't believe they're letting this happen.

Arsenal and United couldn't have.

They couldn't have

had the charity.

They could search it in the middle.

Let's not dwell on it.

Don't worry.

We don't have to solve this, do we?

Maybe we do.

Arsenal and Spurs.

I think it's quite important for the rest of Charlie's day that we do solve it.

Yeah, yeah.

It will be on his mind if we don't.

Yeah, there's a picture of Gary Mabbot and Tony Adams kind of holding it together.

Class.

Innocent times.

Yeah, they've hoisted it together as well.

Speaking of prestigious events, join us as we go live in 2025 on tour in October.

We'll be in Brighton, Cardiff, Hackney Empire in London, Birmingham, Dublin, and Manchester.

Leads of Glasgow already sold out, Dave.

Great to have the tail end sorted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Manchester leads Glasgow as a quickfire treble at the end of the tour.

It's going to be a hell of a way to finish, I think.

Glasgow was the first show of the last tour.

Now it's gone all the way around to being the last show.

And I'm very much looking forward to it.

This has got, we need to pace ourselves written all over it, hasn't it, Charlie?

Keep someone in reserve for that final trio.

That trio, yeah, definitely.

It's good for Glasgow to get it last this time.

That feels right after, as you say, they've gone first last time.

They could get the best show of all.

Who knows?

It's like the NFL draft.

Whoever comes first has to be last.

So Brighton for the tour, the next quiz.

Not to say the Brighton one won't be great as well.

No.

It's not going to be a work in progress.

It's going to be a polished final product.

Go to tickets.footballcliches.com and join us in October.

Elsewhere, the clichés quiz live in Newcastle on Thursday, September the 25th is also sold out.

They flew off the shelves, Dave.

They really did, yeah.

So

I'm pumped.

Pumped for the Northeast.

Yeah.

Sounds like the Northeast is pumped for us, too.

Yeah, we're pumped all around.

Quizzing's a religion up there, isn't it?

An absolute hotbed.

Right.

Let's adjudication panel.

Let's kick off with Euro 2025 developments.

Let's take you all the way back to last week, Dave.

England are now safely through to the quarterfinals, but before that, they had a crunch must-win game against the Netherlands.

And Lauren James's superb 22nd-minute opener was met with this from Robin Cowan on comms for the BBC.

Here's Lauren James.

James!

The line has his uplift off!

Absolutely, all the necessary ingredients here for England have liftoff.

Liftoff is part of the England tournament tapestry, and this ticks all the boxes, I think.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It was a big liftoff moment for sure.

22 minutes into the game.

I think ideally you'd like to lift off a little bit earlier if you could, but nonetheless, it was, and the sort of goal as well, it was an emphatic finish from just outside the box, really sort of slammed it home.

And yeah, textbook stuff from Robin there.

Charlie, I would say that there's a fairly broad variety of goals that could happily qualify as a lift-off goal, but I would say

there is a minimum threshold for this.

Like, if it was a scrappy goal from a set piece, could you still call that lift-off?

I mean, there's still an element of release and relief about it.

I think that is the most important element of all, the context, the goal in a major tournament.

The other stuff is, I wouldn't say a bonus, but it's kind of garnish on on it.

I mean, that's perfect, that kind of goal.

It's emphatic.

It's like a we've arrived type goal.

Yes.

But yeah, I think it is mainly just the fact of the, you know, it's the relief and the release of the tension of like, oh, you know, everyone's been waiting for the moment and here it is.

Do you think that the liftoff scenario was helped by the fact that we had something of an aborted takeoff attempt against France?

Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

I wouldn't mind it in the first game because, you know, that's that's neat and tidy, but you want that extra narrative twist of having been delayed, I would say.

And you could have, you could have, could you have lift off in the third game?

If they'd drawn against the Dutch, Charlie, could you have had lift off against the Welsh?

Can you leave it to the third group game?

I mean, yeah, I was thinking that.

What a sound by David.

I was thinking in the 98 World Cup, the Beckham free.

Was it Anderton who scored?

Anderton scored first, didn't he?

Against Columbia.

Yeah.

Obviously, England had already beaten Tunisia, but that did feel a little...

It wasn't liftoff, but it was similarly like relief, like it's all going to be okay kind of thing you could lift it twice

no no you can't do that what i'm talking about right next up i didn't watch finland versus switzerland on thursday day but i was immediately alerted to it by dan smeath who said well that jonathan pierce intro is straight into next week's football clichés i couldn't have gone and found it quicker and well it didn't disappoint let's head you over now to your commentary team jilly flaherty and jonathan pierce Thanks very much, Gabby.

Good evening, everyone.

Cow bells ring.

E-listening.

Mountain tops, snow still glistening.

A beautiful sight.

They'll be happy tonight walking in a Switzerland wonderland.

If that is, they get that point, they need to qualify for the Euro knockout stages for the first time in front of that set-out crowd at the end of a beautiful, sunny, hot day in Geneva.

I love the fact that all the extra information at the end might be just be included in the song.

He's just keeping it going.

That doesn't fit.

No, no, that doesn't fit.

It doesn't scan.

And also, Charlie, I think if this was his channel five days, he would have really gone for it with both the tune and the rhythm.

Quite possibly.

My absolute favourite bit of it, and people often do this with those sorts of things, is they'll be happy tonight.

The slightly different intonation and as if it's just conversational.

Are you listening?

It's yeah, very funny.

Yeah, I wish he'd really gone for it, Dave.

Just to give us 90s heads, something to really cling on to.

I know what you mean.

Just sort of pitch it up an octave higher, just kind of get into it a little bit more.

But I guess, you know, the old pro that JP is, he's feeding off the environment around him.

He's a cheerful entertainer, yeah.

Yeah, you know, exactly.

It wasn't quite fever pitch, was it?

Let's return to SW19, Charlie, for a moment.

Jim Selly said that BBC Breakfast on Sunday morning referred to Centre Court at Wimbledon as a cauldron.

Surely that is possibly the least cauldron-y stadium in existence.

I've checked listenfairplay.com.

We've never discussed whether Centre Court Wimbledon counts as cauldron.

Arthur Rash, a cauldron, but never Wimbledon.

Certainly not for the finals.

I mean, that's like the most or the least cauldron-y vibe because it's so self-selecting, it's so expensive, it's a lot of kind of corporate things like that.

So, yeah, I mean, how cauldron-y could it get?

It can get, I mean, like, so Radakanu Sabalenka on the Friday, which started at eight o'clock, which means you, you know, it's the lights are on, the roof's on, there are resale tickets, there's a vibe, people have been drinking all day.

Steamer.

That was, yeah, I'd say for Sabalenka, that was a bit of a cauldron up against the home player.

But that's kind of the upper limit of its cauldronness.

It's a shame that it's not a clear-cut case tape because it's very cauldron-shaped, and now it's got a lid as well.

So, I mean, it has all the visual ingredients.

Yeah, well, I think number one court's a bit more cauldron-shaped than centre.

It's poly, is it?

Yeah, centre's square, and the other one is sort of overly.

Yeah, yeah,

there's really nothing cauldrony about it, to be honest, is there?

Tell you when it was cauldron-y when I went in 2001 for the men's final, that it was held until the Monday because of rain, and it was all for people who camped out overnight.

So it was proper fans.

And that was, as it was described at the time, it was like a football atmosphere.

It was so raw.

People's Monday.

People's Monday.

But it can never happen again with the roof.

You can't really have a cauldron atmosphere, Dave, when it's interrupted by someone popping a champagne cork while someone's about to serve and the cork literally landing near him.

The ball girl having to go and pick up the cork.

Does she have to hold it up?

Roll it under her arm.

Incredible.

You should have just waited until the change events.

If you're that desperate, you know, like you need your champagne, find.

At least do it when the players have sat down rather than he's a bit about serve in front of you.

There are some shameless people on Centre Court Wimbledon Charlie.

You know, the people who, you know, have called out and asked Steffi Graf to marry them and things like that.

But how mortified would you be to be the champagne opener disturber of a first serve in a men's Wimbledon final?

Yeah, but maybe they, I don't know.

I don't know if they'd feel that level of shame.

If you're doing it, you know there's a risk it's going to happen.

Do you think he thought he could do it quietly?

Like trying to eat crisps or something,

muffling.

Does it into his pocket?

Anyway, elsewhere at Wimbledon, this came via Luke.

Here is Charlie Eccleshare with recent cliches things in pre-match BBC montages.

You've got all the ATP brains in a room to kind of think about what we could create like in a lab a sort of dream star.

They could do a lot worse than Carlos Alcaraz.

I can't believe you've CDALWT'd Carlos Alcaraz.

Tremendous.

Brilliant delivery.

I mean, is that the pinnacle of the tennis correspondent's sort of aspirations, Charlie, just to appear as a talking head in a pre-final montage?

Don't mind it.

Did you film that after the episode where we did that last week, where we were talking about they could do a lot worse?

I think I did, yeah.

I should say as well, you know, it's one of those things where you talk for quite a while and then, you know, they take out the best bits or the the most televisual bits, I suppose.

Oh, I know it was on your mind.

That's the main thing.

Over to the Club World Cup now.

We've been talking a lot recently about tenuous stats, Charlie.

This one starts off really tenuous and then sort of blossoms into something beautiful after that.

The BBC on their live blog, this came from Simon.

He says, Cole Palmer is the third player to score multiple goals in a final against PSG.

Okay then.

Joining Michel Platony for San Etienne in the 1982 Coupe de France final and Alessandro Del Piero for Juventus in the second leg of the UEFA Super Cup in February 1997.

That's great company.

That's genuinely good company.

I'm so glad it worked out like that.

My only regret with this, I tweeted this yesterday when we got sent to it, was that it wasn't how does that sounded to Cole Palmer after.

Can you imagine just the level of bafflement if this had been read out?

Like, I mean, I guess no more than most questions he's asked, so maybe he wouldn't be the best person to do, but the look on his face, yeah, just would have been amazing.

He'd be the perfect person to either him or Kevin de Bruyne.

They both give it the shortage of shrift in their own unique ways.

Can't think of a more slam-dunk piece of cliché's content than if Cole Palmer had been, how does that sounded with Michelle Platoni and Alessandra Del Fiero.

Yeah,

right.

Next on this came from Fididi.

And

he says, they just said on DeZone Comms that scoring just before the cooling break was a good time to score.

It's the same reasons as half-time, I suppose.

That means there are three opportunities to score before a break.

If we define the period of opportunity as within five minutes before a break, that's 15 minutes.

One sixth of the game is a good time to score before the break.

Charlie, are calling breaks, if we assume that they are going to become increasingly a thing in summer tournaments, going to be bad news for the good time to score culture?

Or good news.

I mean, what you mean because it will dilute the half-timeness, half-time uniqueness.

I don't know if it is a good time to score before a calling break, personally.

I don't know if it's catch-on.

Well, we'll need a bit more data, though I've always been curious about how much the data actually supports that particular cliche.

As I said before, I think it's disproportionately linked to Brazil scoring just before and after halftime against England in the 2002 World Cup.

And it was said at the time, retrospectively, by the way, as a, wow, you know, they did score just before half-time.

It was a terrible time to concede.

It changes your whole team talk, which I've never been that good.

Is that so terrible for a man?

Like, just adapt.

on the fly.

Is it actually in a different way to halftime?

Is it a good time to concede?

Because you then do get that little opportunity just for a bit of a breather.

It's not like 15 minutes where you can stew on it and the other, you know, it's like you get your coach can get around you and like get you focused.

Yeah.

That was interesting because the whole basis of the psychological blow, as it's been known, Dave, before half-time, is that, yeah, it throws your half-time plans into disarray and you've got to regroup in a different way than you expected.

But in fairness to Andros Townsend, who was on co-comms for this, he opined that Chelsea scoring before the first calling break, which was 25 minutes, I think, was good because PSG were all over the shot before then.

And then Luis Enrique got his troops together and properly gave them a proper tactical schooling in that cooling break.

So if they hadn't scored before then, the game may never have turned out that way.

So the logic was pretty sound.

I'm all right with it.

Yeah.

Yeah, that does make sense.

That's slightly different, I guess, though, isn't it?

Because that's like we've got to do this before they can change something.

Yeah.

Which maybe you hear about at halftime, but I feel it's more about the like, oh, that's going to make it a really difficult team talk.

Maybe this whole paranoia about the psychological blowers has dictated the fact that, you know, teams are basically stopping games all the time for a bit of a sort of chit wag on the touchsline.

Eddie Howe is famous for it now.

Part of the dark arts to feign an injury and then have that.

There you go.

Let's move on to something much more entertaining.

It's Footballers, Names in Things.

Lovely trio for you.

This first one came from Sam Davis.

It's from the Great House Revival on BBC.

Judith is still hands-on with every aspect of the project.

Today, she's meeting sign restorer Damien Duff.

Good, solid six out of ten

names and things.

Yep, he's just lost his job, hasn't he, at the whatever club he was at.

So maybe

that's what he's uh imagine.

This song to interview him if he did become, you know, if that was what he was doing in retirement, how everyone would be after that interview.

I mean, it would be great.

Just wanted to stay active.

Next up, Rob Gilbert writes in and says, I was in a taxi in Mallorca last night, and our driver had the song Rasca I Ghana by Cresh K playing.

Imagine my surprise to hear an Aston Villa hot shot mentioned.

What are you doing there?

Wow, and that is actually...

This isn't one of those where it's like, oh, I've heard a song and I think it sounds like they're saying Eddie Howe.

Which is all, it's always Eddie Howe.

This is actually that's a lyric.

He's actually talking about Ollie Watkins.

Yeah,

other footballers that appear in this song, Charlie Adam Lalana, Arno Danjuma.

I don't know what's going on.

Pear Murtasaka's in there as well.

It's very selection of players.

I've got no idea what's going on.

Right.

Get someone to translate it for us.

Yeah, we need more on this.

Yeah, someone get in touch with the full context.

That would be fantastic.

It's been leading up to this, though.

This came from Muted Lab 8600 on Reddit.

This is from All Elite Wrestling, All in Texas.

Some bloke called Excalibur on commentary for the clash between Jon Moxley and Hangman Adam Page.

This is Football Cliche's theme tune things in wrestling.

We talked about the violence that we've seen in the Texas death matches, perhaps none more violent than Hangman and Swerve Strickland

on the floor.

And fans are, without a doubt, giving him some lift, but they've got a sign out there.

That can't be a coincidence, Dave.

Wow.

Do you know anything about this Excalibur fellow?

I know who he is.

I mean, you follow him on Twitter, so tell me more.

His thing is, he's got like a.

He's under a mask.

Right.

So it's sort of a persona, but he's but acts as a sort of straight-up commentator.

But yeah, didn't have him down as a clichésman.

Fair play.

I mean, not far off, It's close enough to make me think that he must be aware.

Yeah.

Imagine if he'd thrown in the stutter.

That would be unbelievable.

I will

with that.

Oh, that would have been absolutely glorious.

That's a lovely way to end part one.

We'll be back very shortly.

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Welcome back to Football Clichés.

This is the adjudication panel.

A reminder that episode three of Dreamland is out right now.

This is the football linguistic civil war of the 2020s.

Dave, Charlie, and I explore the simmering tensions between newfangled football terminology and the mainstream media.

We take in Dean Saunders' talk sport masterpiece of swallowed a laptop and sporting directors hailing the verticality of new right-backs as we look into the intergenerational football linguistic civil war.

Go to dreamland.football clichés.com to enjoy that episode and everything else.

Two episodes a month of Dreamland.

Pre-sale access to our football clichés live shows, free entry to clichés quiz live events, all of that for just $5.99 a month.

Let's delve into the world of transfers now, Charlie.

Here's one for you.

Marcos Ascencio is on the verge for a permanent move to Fenabace, snubbing Saudi in the process.

Oh, this is textbook.

Yeah, lovely.

There was something about his loan to Villa, Dave, that felt like it was never going to be turned into a, it was never really going to be consummated, I didn't think.

I thought it was a little bit of a shop windowy situation.

Yeah, bit of a fling.

Yeah, exactly.

Rather than anything long-term.

I think Villa fans are all right with that as well.

I think they see the bigger picture here.

But I think I like the fact that

he's snubbing Saudi to go to Turkey.

That is nice.

Yeah, he knows his place.

But I really think that this year's summer transfers that just sound so right 11 is coming along nicely because Asencio is going to be the absolute heart of it.

News breaking before we just recorded.

Wolves, Charlie, are closing in on the signing of Fluminense winger John Arias.

A fee of around 15 million has been agreed for the Columbia International.

28 in September.

Never played in Europe.

This is real credibility for the Club World Cup as a kind of old school signing generation competition because he starred in Fluminenze's run to the semifinals.

Of course he did.

I think it's going to be reverse engineered to starring, but that's all right.

Yeah, I think we probably probably even talked about this, didn't we?

As to whether the Club World Cup would

have that kind of old school World Cup

boost for players.

Also, good see another Columbian with John spelt in the way that Juran, you know, I think that was most people's first introduction to that spelling of John.

Yeah, good see it catching up.

There's a real vacuum for that in the Premier League, and it's been filled, which is crazy.

Do you think that because it is club football, but it is still in a tournament setting, like that kind of lends itself just that little bit better to signing a player because you've seen it's the club game.

It's international football, it's still a bit too much like, oh, well, he might be good for Columbia, but it's a different

sort of international game has become too different from the club game.

But no, I've seen him in there playing for his team

and he looks good.

Yeah, he's done it against organised club teams.

Charlie, a little quiz for you.

Can you name another ex-Premier League John spelt J-H-O-N?

Oh, South Coast.

Oh,

ah, yes, the guy.

Ah, fuck.

Whoever gets this first is the winner forever.

Oh, I know.

Right, so you've got Collins John.

It's Portsmouth, right?

Yep.

Oh, Utaka?

Nope.

No, they had a bunch of midfield.

Ah, listeners screaming at their mobile devices.

I'm not sure I'm going to get it.

In my head, Juran was the first time I saw this.

Signed for Portsmouth in June 2005 for 2.2 million euros.

John Viafara.

Yes.

Here you are.

Don't remember him.

Yeah.

Big on the J H O N's here's one for you.

Burnley and Wolfsburg are in talks to sign Norwich forward Josh Sargent, who Norwich value at around £20 million.

It's all perfect, Dave.

Doesn't matter which one he goes to, it's perfect.

Yeah, he's already played in Germany, which is a nice, well-trodden path from the USA college system just to finding yourself at the academy of a Bundesliga club.

I did check that it was that way around, and he wasn't born on a military base in Germany, which would have been a bit on the nose with the surname Sargent.

So

he didn't follow that path.

But yeah,

Birdley would work equally as well for him.

Yeah, Bernie's perfect.

Basically, signing one of the top scorers from the championship as you go up on your way up.

Just take him with you for £20 million.

It really is absolutely perfect.

Didn't see this one coming, though.

Charlie, Mason Holgate has gone to Qatari outfit Al Garafa.

One of those random little free transfers.

But one report I read said this, the Jamaica International will team up with former Royal Madrid stiker Hosolu in in the Middle East.

Not much for teaming up, not much for joining forces, that is it.

Mason Holgate and Hosolu.

Can't see them linking up too often.

I was going to say the fact they play completely different positions as well, just adding to the randomness of that pairing.

Is that the least likely telepathy you can ever imagine, Dave?

Oh, you make you good.

Started finishing each other's sentences.

Oh, dear.

You don't hear much about the Qatari League, do you, really?

But, like, it's sort of, you know, I had a look at the team and I look at some of the teams in preparation for this.

And yeah, there are this sort of random little sprinkling of players who Saudi, for whatever reason, are presumably aren't interested in that is the assumption, isn't it?

Yeah, I guess it's the same sort of vibe, though.

Probably, in some respects, if you're a footballer, Qatar is a bit more appealing than Saudi.

If you like a lot of people, Qatar's tiny, though, like, it's Saudi has a bit more about it

as a place to visit.

Who's the shill now?

Compared to Qatar.

I mean.

Right, next up.

Didn't expect this lot to have a transfer exclusive this window day, but GB News the other night came up with the exclusives of Tottenham eyeing Adam Wharton to complete an incredible triple transfer swoop worth 175 million after deals for Morgan Gibbs White and Mohamed Kudus.

The whole idea of GB News having it having A, a transfer exclusive, or B, a person even remotely employed to do it, it just blows my mind.

Yeah.

I'd like to know who their uh who their transfer guru is um but yeah okay interesting a few years ago john sopol was briefly a spurs itk uh he was out for dinner yeah he was out for dinner and tweeted that he saw bill kenright with daniel levy and it was around the time spurs were about to sign rashardison so he he tweeted it and then it was being it was being picked up by all the aggregators it was hilarious like and they didn't really know what tier to give him because you know all the journalists are ranked tier one whatever for reliability yeah john sopol's a very very well respected journalist but possibly not in the area of Spurs transfer.

So where do you rank him?

Well, what tier of GB News has been stuck in automatically after this?

I mean, are they bursting onto the scene in this respect?

I don't know.

I think they'd have been pretty low.

Yeah.

I hope that it's a wholesome homegrown transfer reporter for GB News as well.

Yeah.

Right, the game's gone, Dave.

I can tell you that the game is gone.

I hadn't noticed it.

I don't know how recent development this is, but Fabrizio Romano is selling t-shirts with his own tweets on them.

Wow.

Okay.

One of which is the tweet about Luca Modric leaving Real Madrid after 13 legendary years.

So it's just that tweet with a little cartoon of Luca Modric with all these trophies on a white t-shirt, smack bang in the middle on the front.

Who's wearing it?

Where and why?

Yeah, I mean, that is the question.

Keep your eye out if you're out and about and you see somebody wearing one of these.

Like, there's also the option, I think, to basically you can choose any of his tweets, right?

I think so you can get like him announcing the player.

You can personally

make it up.

Which I can, I mean, I can sort of imagine someone doing that, you know, pretending that they're signing for the club they support.

Here we go in a hundred million pound deal if you're at the Mayfair Dave Stag do.

Yeah, exactly.

Like,

actually, I don't know.

I might take it, to be honest.

You could do worse.

Yeah, you could do worse.

Love that.

Yeah, just the £71 for a personalised sweatshirt with a Fabrizio Romano tweet.

on it.

Nothing more to be said about that.

Right, news of Manchester United's penny pinching continues, Charlie.

Talk Sport report that they are about to abandon the traditional act of pre-season-friendly gift-giving, most traditionally the penance.

They're doing away with pre-season-friendly penance.

But crucially, the reason they've decided to do away with them is because they're playing leads.

And they thought, well, we played each other loads.

We don't have to give each other penance.

What an incredible bit of logic this is.

It's quite funny this, as well, because it's one of many things that must be quite divisive for Keesy.

Because on the one hand, he must think that pre-season-friendly penance is ludicrous, but on the other, it's evidence of Sonny Jim's sort of evil cost cutting so I'd love to know where his head's at with it.

I love the granular detail or speculative granular detail in this Dave.

It also says their Premier League summer series fixtures against West Ham, Bournemouth and Everton will also likely be devoid of gift giving.

It remains to be seen whether United changed their approach for Fiorentina at Old Trafford on August the 9th.

It should be up in the air because that should be pennant giving.

all the way.

But it does sort of strike me as one of those things about it's a tradition, long-held tradition.

We're still doing it.

But once you've sort of been around for as long as Man United and all the clubs have that they're playing, it's like if you play someone for the first time, I think that's sort of fine.

Yeah.

But otherwise, they'll just, where do these pennants go?

Are they just collecting dust in a museum somewhere?

Or like, is each one kept?

Or is it just in a box somewhere?

Like, what's the you know?

Essentially, it's tat.

I quite like this idea, Charlie.

You should only exchange pennants if you've never played each other before.

That would be class.

That would be a really class.

You preserve the honour of the tradition whilst saving money at the same time.

But then you might want, I can see why if it's a certain club, you'd want more than just one, even for a museum.

But then there are definitely clubs where, yeah, you're like, all right, it's like going somewhere, like, right, I've ticked it off, I've done it now, I don't need to do it again.

Yeah, spot on.

Yeah, maybe there is some logic in it after all.

Next up, this came from Richard Simpson and Adam Simpson separately.

Here's the news agents podcast discussing the level of Iran's terror threat to the UK.

How would you characterize the view of the people at the top of MI5 and MI6 over this threat?

Well, I think it was summed up very well by one of the agency heads who described it: that Iran, in terms of threat compared to China and Russia, is

in the top of the Championship leagues, not yet quite in the Premier League.

Too good for the championship, not good enough for the Premier League.

Thing is, Dave, if they get to Premier League level, they're going to have to change the way they terror attack, aren't they?

They will have to invest.

Good of them as well, to put it in terms that ITK John Soper will understand.

Yeah.

And the thing is, you can get to Premier League level, Dave.

If you make mistakes, you get punished.

I mean, that feels like, you know, with my limited grasp on international relations and geopolitics, it feels like there isn't as much of a chasm between Iran and the rest of the world as there is between the top of the championship and the Premier League.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think that's slightly underselling them.

I'm not sure that analogy quite works.

I mean, they're sleeping giant, aren't they?

Yeah, they're in, yeah, I would say nuclear terms, they're in the Premier League.

They might not be necessarily one of the big boys, but yeah, they're knocking around.

Someone hasn't been following the bombing of their nuclear facilities.

Yeah, who knows?

The chasm between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow.

Next up, this came from Striking Bandicoot 89.

Here is golf caddy Billy Foster speaking on Talk Sport about working with the USA's Colin Morikawa for the next few weeks.

And looking ahead again, Billy,

how are you going to cope with this Ryder Cup?

You know, people are already calling you a traitor.

Yeah, which I think is a bit strong, Billy.

I think it's too strong.

Listen,

there's one thing, I'll, before you go any further, I'm working this week and next week, that's it.

It's only a two-week dig with Colin.

If by some minor miracle he won the open next week and offered me the job, obviously I'd have to say, well, I'd love to work for you, but I could not wear the Ryder Cup for America.

Let's put that on the bottom.

That's a belter.

You've done 16 Ryder Cups and

you bleed Europe.

Love Bleed Europe.

I think that's tremendous.

Can you be a proud European?

I suppose you can, obviously you can in a Ryder Cup context, but Bleeding Europe I've never heard before.

It's fantastic.

It would work quite well, actually,

if you were to be the sort of figurative stick of rock, the European flag actually would look quite nice if you cut your arm off and it was just there, the stars.

Would you accept, Charlie,

if you cut me open, I'd bleed blue and yellow?

Would you be alright with that?

Or would that be clear-cut enough?

Might imply Sweden.

I mean, that's the ludicrous thing in tennis, they're trying to do a Ryder-Cup equivalent and it's Europe against the rest of the world.

It's sort of like the idea, or like I think it's called like team world, but yeah, the idea that if you cut me open, I'd bleed world.

Hope so, hope so.

Next up, uh, this guy was already in demand, but Stockport County have said they can confirm that first team coach Andy Mangan has departed the club in order to take up a new role at Brazilian side Bottofogo.

We wish Andy well in this exciting new chapter of his career.

County fan replied with, I just hope our fans give him a good reception when Bottofogo next visit Edgley Park.

Class.

Class.

Great.

That is a great response.

That would be a fixture worthy of a pennant, wouldn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

For sure.

100%.

I would want stitching on the shirt for Botofogo versus Stockport.

Who is this guy, by the way?

Because this was the guy who Real Madrid wanted to sign.

And he couldn't get a work permit.

They couldn't get clearance for him to move from Stockport, so he had to stay at Stockport.

Carlo Angelotti wanted him to sort of freshen up their attacking strategy.

He's like an attacking coach.

And now he's gone to Bottofogo, who are now managed by Davide Ancelotti.

So that's the connection.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah, it's interesting.

You do get those little curious links every now and again.

Like, you know, Anthony Barry is currently Thomas Tuchel's number two.

Paul Clement was with Anchilotti before, wasn't he?

Yeah, if it works, it works.

But I mean, how revolutionary can his attacking strategies be, Charlie, to go from Stockton to Botofoga?

I mean,

what has he cracked that nobody else has done?

I'm not casting doubt on anything because I don't know, but I'm just fascinated by the idea of it.

But do they need to be?

I mean, or does he need to just be quite good?

In the sense that, like, if a Premier League team appointed a Brazilian coach, you'd just be like, yeah, I guess that's just what we do.

Like, he doesn't need to be a revolutionary as such, just needs to be quite good.

We just don't tend to think of kind of English coaches as being seen in that way because it's so unusual, I guess,

for them to go and work abroad.

The language barrier surely would be more of an issue.

I don't know.

Andy Mangan may well be fluent in Portuguese, but if he isn't, if you're a coach, surely that's more of a problem.

Because if if you're the manager, you can kind of get away with still being this sort of figurehead, motivated diagrams, though.

Translated.

You're actually a coach.

You're actually out there on the grass.

Yeah, but you're just pointing at your magnets, moving them around.

Don't need Portuguese for that.

Yeah, I wonder if the more specialist a coach you are, the less language barrier becomes a problem because you are literally just you're expressing really simple, straightforward concepts.

You're not motivating.

You're not trying to G players up.

You're not trying to get in their heads.

You're just saying, do this do that so I don't know I think motivating would be easier in a foreign language that you don't speak so well that you know there are more it's the language is a lot less technical and you know tone of voice volume gesticulating can get your point across to more of a degree than if you're explaining like complex attacking patterns I can throw teacups in any language so exactly yeah what an incredible career path that is how about this Dave football injuries you just don't hear about anymore this came from J.O.

O'Neill he says shin splints rarely get much of a look in these days they seemed seemed all the rage in the 90s, but whilst Jack Grealish had a period on the sidelines due to splints while playing for Villa, it seems like a once-everyday injury in serious decline.

Do we know why?

What happened?

I'm not sure.

Sports science.

I don't know if you two would agree with me, but when I hear shin splints, I think of Andy Cole.

Oh, really?

Is that right?

He suffered with them in the mid-90s quite badly.

And I think that was the first time I'd heard of it and was like, what are shin splints?

Because it's quite an, as injury terminology goes, it's quite evocative, isn't it?

Yeah.

It sort of conjures an image of something that's probably worse than what it actually is.

Yeah, it does sound really bad.

I think I remember seeing it on Championship Manager for the first time.

Oh, right.

And again, probably thinking,

is this real?

Like, you know, it sounded a bit kind of made up.

I can tell you it's debilitating.

When I moved into a flat with hard floors for the first time,

it really got me for a good couple of years.

Got myself some insoles, never looked back, never had it since.

What were you doing?

Just absolutely sprinting around your flat every day.

Just generally walking around your hard, floored flat with slight over-pronation in your ankles.

Trust me, the pressure starts to build up on your shins and it really hurts.

It's just a big bruise all the way up the inside of your shin, but one you can't see.

You touch it and it's like, ouch.

So, yeah, that's it.

That's shin splints.

Haven't had them for 10 years now.

So recovering.

Still recovering.

But yeah, don't want to get too comfortable.

You never know when it can come back.

Finally, this came from Andrew Gournel, who

got an email from Campaign Magazine in the marketing industry, and their headline was, David Lloyd Gyms raids Chelsea FC for their first CMO.

Andrew says, Charlie, can an upmarket gym chain raid Chelsea?

Is this a complex PSR deal with a David Lloyd Physio moving the other way to balance the books?

Like raid here at all.

I suppose she could have been headhunted.

Claire Cronin.

The idea of them selling their training ground to David Lloyd or something.

Yeah, I think they could raid, but it has to be more than just this.

They're just the one.

If there were a a lot of Chelsea employees moving there, an Exodus.

Slightly dramatic language, Dave.

She's actually going to take Andy Mangan with her.

So it's David David Lloyd Jim's.

Their marketing strategy is going to go stratospheric from now on.

Can't believe

she's left the club world champions as well.

What a time to leave.

I know.

Doesn't get any better from there, I guess.

Anyway, thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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