The ultimate managerial indignity & everything ITV crime dramas get wrong about football

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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 Gas going to have a crack?

He is, you know.

Oh, I say!

Brilliant!

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 your glass!

This nation is going to dance all night long!

Kevin De Bruyne undermines the Premier League weekend narrative before it even begun.

Gary Neville taking co-cometry a little too seriously, who can and cannot pull rank at a set piece, clickbait football headlines hit a desperate new low, the indignity of a manager being sacked before they can go down with the ship, a cold, wet cycling race in Stoke, several huge problems with the football realism in an ITV detective series, and Keys and Grey Corner roars back into form.

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.

On the panel today is David Walker.

How you doing?

Yeah, I'm good.

I've got a little Sunday league tale for you actually from yesterday.

You may remember that at the start of the season, season, this season, Ribblesdale Rovers, we turned up without any nets to our first home game of the season, which caused mass panic, us running around Clapham Common trying to borrow a set and eventually we found ours in a in a lock-up somewhere and it was all fine.

But today it was come full circle, coming towards the end of the season now, and yesterday we answered the call from another team from Holloway Royals who had, I don't know how, I don't know what their situation was, but they found themselves on Clapham Common without any nets.

And we didn't have a game yesterday.

And the guy who has our nets, thankfully, lives literally a stone's throw from Clapham Common and was able to give them our nets.

Wow.

Did they contact you directly?

Or was it a blanket call and you answered it?

Yeah, I'm not sure about this.

The manager who, the guy who managed the team before me got the call.

So his number must have been on a list somewhere or they didn't have my number.

My number is publicly available to other managers, but they called the ex-manager and he messaged the group saying, lads, who's got the nets?

The team needs the nets.

Wow.

That's heartwarming as well.

Yeah.

And because, yeah, what is a game of football at that level without a goal net?

But yeah, great to see the community pitching in to fill in a gap.

Speaking of which, that's fair play for you, that is.

Speaking of filling gaps, alongside you is Nick Miller.

Welcome back to Football Cliches.

Nick.

Hello.

Nice to be here.

A little callback to another recent episode, I think, when we were talking about the construction of your underwear and socks drawer, like a football team.

I just got a load of new socks socks after just after Christmas and my kind of clothes drawer is a little bit chaotic so I just threw them all in there and just yesterday I got what is very clearly a brand new never worn before pair of socks unreal feeling my instant thought of this is just like a new signing but you know depending on what the packaging they were in you know sometimes they're in a kind of cardboard kind of thing and you and you pull them out and they're so fresh and you think should I use them now I'm just gonna be in the house today should I waste them because as soon as you wear them for like two hours that's it they become a run of the mill pair of socks yeah But yeah, exactly.

It's so good to give them a run-out.

I mean, they were a new signing and you chose not to use them

for two months.

Why?

It's not I chose not to use them.

It's just that they all got thrown in.

They all got thrown into the drawer and they were all just all plain black socks.

So it's quite difficult to tell when you're just reaching in and getting a pair of socks.

You do realise you've got that player training with the kids.

You haven't used him yet.

He's over there.

Still schooling him in his philosophy.

Not ready to blood just yet.

Anyway, you are here.

It's your 80th cliché's cap which makes you gary lineker in england terms couldn't be better yeah and uh yeah let's let's adjudication panel and um mixed thoughts about this premier league weekend nick it it felt like he this season's bubble had been burst in many ways but there were ominous signs before it even began the extended football weekend began with the news that kevin de bruyer will be leaving manchester city at the end of the season and i was exposed to such such faff as where does kevin de bruyer rank among the all-time greats and i'm just sat there thinking i don't know, I don't know, I don't know what the answer is to that.

Where?

Where does he rank?

Yeah, probably up there.

I don't know.

One of my first thoughts as well when I heard this is that that felt like a very kind of week before the last game of the season announcement.

It's like De Bruyne has clearly decided, well, yeah, the rest of the season's a bit of a waste of time, isn't it?

So I might as well pipe up now.

Really annoying timing, actually, Dave.

I don't want my early rumblings of a Premier League weekend to be polluted by such chat about where Player X ranks among the all-time greats.

Yeah, I I thought I mean that that conversation you know you you expect it to happen sort of on social media and you know other sort of outlets that do that sort of stuff.

That's fine.

But I I was quite surprised that Sky went down that route after the game on Sunday.

I mean obviously there was fuck all to talk about from the game itself.

But you know Dave Jones was asking the the panel where does he where does the Brunei get into your all-time eleven?

And like you don't really need to go down that route do you?

You can just talk about how great he was and the city team that he's been in.

And is it the end of an era for that team?

All that.

You know, there are other angles you can take rather than trying to get him into a midfield in an all-time 11.

We've got all this to cover with Mohammed Salah as well.

I mean, I've got real fatigue with Kevin De Bruyne.

I've watched him being good for so long in such a relentless way.

I've got nothing new to think about him, let alone say.

But that's interesting because I actually think that...

Because he's sort of tailed off for the last, well, this season, really, he's not had a, you know, him and City haven't had a good season.

But it's been a few years since he was absolutely at his at his peak right that when the that montage was doing the rounds after the news the other day on socials of all of his amazing long-range goals for city I did watch it and think fucking hell I had forgotten how good he was every goal was just amazing just left and right foot just absolutely hammering it in from all angles so many of them that are completely forgotten there was one one or two that you think oh yeah I remember that goal but just loads of sort of just his sort of average goal was just brilliant That's that's an interesting observation.

I'm surprised, Nick, by Dave, by Dave's kind of excitement for watching Kevin De Bruyne's goal compilation, because the thing about Kevin De Bruyne that strikes me is he's done so many things, eight out of ten, for about six or seven years that I can't remember any of them.

They're just all really good.

Has he done one thing that's unbelievable?

I suppose not.

I mean, he's not that kind of player.

He would play, he would sometimes play those kind of either through balls or like

big crosses from kind of in the chat yeah Dave is though that's not not great for an audio medium but Dave is doing the classic whip in the cross from deep on the right gesture unmistakable hand gesture of the corridor of uncertainty cross there 100% so yeah he did those brilliantly did the thing I really this is such a sort of five-year-old's way of looking at football but one of the things I really just

always really liked about Kevin de Bruno is he kicked the ball fucking hard and it was really really satisfying when he would I think it was a goal he scored against Real Madrid I think, a few years ago in the Champions League.

Yeah, I'll give it that.

Absolutely.

That's an 11 out of 10.

Yeah,

sometimes there's nothing you want more than just someone absolutely leather in it.

I think he's sort of slightly affected by this way that this city team, of which he has been probably the best player consistently, are just not really loved by anyone, you know?

Okay.

I think that's probably why there are some people debating whether or not he should be in the all-time team or one of the greats.

When clearly, numbers-wise, trophies-wise, everything, he's one, clearly he deserves to be in there.

But he doesn't have that same, and maybe in time it will come, but like he doesn't have that same sort of mythical stature as Lampard, Gerrard, Torre.

There's nothing mythical about him.

You're absolutely right.

And he also never played the game with a smile on his face, which I think actually

one of the most irritated looking footballers I've ever seen.

Not doing anything away from him here.

I'm just talking about how boring it is to talk about how great Kevin De Bruyne is.

This weekend was bookended.

Just to wrap things up, Nick, with a debate about whether the Premier League is boring or not.

A real existential, half-hearted existential crisis at the tail end of Sunday.

And I thought, oh my God, this is the pit.

Was that was Arn Sky?

A little bit, yeah.

In the sort of the aftermatch knockings of Man United Neil, Manchester City Neil.

And everyone was sitting around going, what are we doing here?

In a real big picture sense as well.

Neville talking about how robotic teams are now.

And

we make this mistake quite a lot, Nick, by making big assumptions about the state of football after a Super Sunday game.

And Super Sunday games are so ripe for this because Sunday evening is a time for reflection, right?

It's very off-brand for Sky, really, to talk about how boring things are.

Usually the kind of the Uber hyper merchants of the game.

You're absolutely right, because things got so bad, something happened that I've never seen before.

I think they all sort of walked off thinking, oh, we're okay here and got away without making a mistake.

I think that was the sort of type of game.

It was really disappointing.

I apologise for my co-commentary, actually.

I think I let it get to me.

I was boring on there as well.

That was drab as well.

I let it get to me.

I've never seen a co-commentator apologise for their performance before, Dave.

This is astonishing.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Good levels of self-awareness there from Neville.

Although, yeah, he doesn't want to set a precedent, I don't think, though, does he?

Two things about it, Nick.

Love the fact that he called himself Drab, which is such a football word.

And

he seemed to wave to the kind of backroom staff at the sky to say sorry to them, like they're the fans.

sorry to the

sorry to the guys in the van who had to listen to all that yeah sorry you had to edit all that yeah you've got to edit the highlights of that that's good luck um much more spectacular scenes on the sky sports live blog for this game adam cooper was reading that for some reason and uh one of the highlights of the second half dave was omar marmouche stinging andre inana's palms and um the live blog read free kick 30 yards out for city this could be in range for either kevin de bruyne or omar marmouch marmouche pulls rank and curls one over the wall marmouche can't pull rank um adam cooper says surely de bruyne is the ranking officer here yeah of course if if marmouche was stood over the ball and had like collected the ball and placed it and was shaping up to take it but then de Bruyne came along and went sorry mate I'm gonna I think I'm gonna especially this weekend but it's my last you know I've just made the announcement come on let me have it come on did you not see the Instagram post

come on

so whose approach is correct here Nick is it the is it the status of the players or is it the order in which someone kind of takes charge of the situation?

Well, it is the status of the players, but you could, I suppose you could argue that Marmouche is more of a kind of guaranteed starter than De Bruyne this season.

So it depends

whether you're judging the status as in like historical status, which obviously De Bruyne is higher in, or very kind of current status, which Marmouche might be slightly higher in.

So, you know.

Adam Cooper has introduced EAFC ratings to this scenario, Dave.

Okay.

Marmamouche has 63 for free kick accuracy.

Kevin De Bruyne has 83.

63?

Nah.

Come on.

It's got to be more than that.

Holding up his card.

See that if we go to that.

Seen this.

Oh, God.

I let it get to me as well, to be honest, Dave.

I can't abide a flat 4.30 Sunday kickoff, especially when it's one of the headline fixtures.

Even though we should have seen it coming, that it was going to be a drab encounter.

And I put it to Twitter that the Sunday 4.30 game is

the one fixture of the standard time slots that we can't have being flat.

It has to be good.

Or the others can get away with it.

Yeah, well, it's because it's got the most eyeballs and attentions on.

It is obviously set up to be the biggest game.

I have gone into a bit of a habit this season, I must say, of dozing off during the 4.30, regardless of whether it's a thrilling encounter or indeed a drab nil-nil.

And actually, yesterday, I was a bit annoyed that

nothing happened because I kind of rely on the fact that there's going to be a goal or two to wake me up.

And then you sort sort of come to and you go, oh, there's a goal.

And then you can kind of tune back into it.

But I just slept through the whole thing, woke up, and they were just banging on about how crap it was.

It was crap.

But yeah, Nick, it's like having like a really rubbish dessert at the end of a reasonably good meal.

It's going to overshadow everything.

Yeah, uh- and and obviously if if the the twelve thirty on a Saturday is rubbish then you could go oh well you know that that was I'm all right with that because it's like a treat to have it yeah you might you've got three got three o'clocks to come and then the five thirty game and then two

couple of games on Sunday now what have we got we've got We're relying on the Monday night game to kind of redeem the weekend.

That's not going to happen, is it?

I could watch Roma Juventus.

I could watch it.

I'm not going to.

I don't want to.

That's too much.

We had a surprisingly good Sunday 2pm

before this one, didn't we?

With Fulham beating Liverpool 3-2.

That's true.

In quite a decent game, which maybe they'd set us up for a four.

Yeah.

It's annoying that you have to trade it in.

Shouldn't have to be one or the other.

Should be both.

When was the last time we had two really good games on a Sunday?

Come on.

Speaking Speaking of the 2pm Sunday kickoffs, this came from Adam Goldman, who was listening to Spurs vs.

Southampton Nick on Five Live Sports Extra.

On co-comms duty was Stephen Kelly, the former Spurs defender.

And you could tell he's done his co-commentary badges.

Here he is, first of all, with some entry-level VAR distaste.

But like the thoughts of some guy in an office somewhere in a room trying to get a line out on protractor to try and see the angles and see what's going on, it's just ludicrous.

If you can't see it straight away, on-field decisions should count?

It just needs a bit of polish, doesn't it, Nick?

But he's on the right track.

Yeah, 100%.

I like him introducing new elements of stationery into things as well, the protractor.

I don't think I've had that before.

Just the right level of disdain for Stockley Park there, Dave.

An office and a roof.

We needed to mention some distance.

We've got to get the distance in there.

Absolutely.

That's what separates the wheat from the chaff in the Cocom's stakes, I think.

But then they sort of return to this topic soon after, Nick.

And Stephen Kelly introduced a brand new made-up margin of VAR closeness.

It's such a bugbear, isn't it?

Every game we seem to have a conversation about how long it takes and why it takes that long, whereas

I think it's a very simple remedy.

If it gets to a certain time, then the on-field, if it's that unclear, then it's not clear and obvious.

It has to stand what's going on the pitch.

They may have got this right.

He may be offside by, you know, two-fifths of a centimeter.

Who knows?

What an incredibly precise measurement he's gone for.

I was waiting for a body part then.

What body part could it possibly be that that hasn't been used already?

I know.

I mean, let's set aside the ludicrous give the VAR a time limit debate.

I'm sick of that.

It would be absolute nonsense.

Doesn't work.

It would make some people's lives completely untenable.

But still, 0.4cm, Nick, is about two and a half times as wide as a strand of spaghetti.

That would have been so good.

Yeah.

Dave, it's about three times as long as a grain of sand.

How do you standardise that?

I mean, is a grain of sand always the same size?

No.

But yeah, Stephen Kelly really is on the right track when it comes to VAI.

I hope semi-automated off-side doesn't set him too much of a challenge.

Over to Villa versus Forrest on Saturday, Nick.

Mark Bryan says the commentator on this game said that just 17 years ago, Forrest were playing Cheltenham in League One.

And surely that's too long a time to be adjusted.

Is it pushing it?

I mean, definitely, yes.

Even the kind of disparity between Cheltenham and...

There's been a little bit of wiggle room given the disparity of the size of the team, but even that, what level of team would it have to be to be 17 years to be acceptable?

How many years, Nick, was it that Forrest lost to Yeovil in the playoffs?

That was 2007, I think.

2000, yeah, 2006, 2007, 2007, I think.

Okay, so what were we saying?

18 years ago?

17 years ago?

So similar sort of time.

Well, it was League One, wasn't it?

That was a League One playoff.

So it was probably the same season that they're referencing here.

Go with that.

That's better.

But also, if you want to hark back to something obviously worse than what they're doing now.

Like you've got plenty of examples from five years ago when they were slumming it in the championship.

You have relegation battles in the championship not that long ago.

Barbara the championship three years ago.

Yeah.

Just over three years ago.

So, you know, come on, guys.

Yeah.

I mean, 17 years before that, Forests were competing for league cups or whatever.

So too long a window.

It really is.

But that's just a prelude to this.

This came from AA.

Dave, it's a real new era for clickbait football headlines.

I've never seen this before.

I was only just getting used to headlines that said player x issues 11 word response to rumors about x y or z but this one 48 touch nottingham forest star justifies faith with best ever performance versus manchester united 48 touch wow what a ludicrous prefix that is can i guess which player that was who's been justifying who's justified the faith nick whose place has been in doubt ryan yates

maybe it was ryan yates up tower one you maybe but it wasn't really justifying the faith because he he played because he there's no one else to put in front 48 touches seems a lot for a centre forward, doesn't it?

Given we've now come to learn that actually they don't have as many touches as you think.

Great scandal uncovered from Sources of Optic.

It was Anthony Alanger.

No, it wasn't.

It was Ryan Yates.

There we go.

Both of them had 48 touches.

Who knows?

Could be either.

That's the tantalising thing.

It would be excellent if it was a Langer.

The 48 touches was the thing that they took away from the United game when he scored a brilliant goal.

Yeah.

But the way that's worded as well justifies faith with best ever performance versus Manchester United.

Is that his best ever performance ever?

Or his best ever performance against Manchester United?

I really hope it's that.

I really hope it's that, just to make it even more tenuous.

But we can't have touches in a headline to prefix a play.

Come on.

This is the absolute pit.

Speaking of the lowest of the low, Southampton, just before we were recorded, have confirmed the departure of Ivan Urich, who himself replaced Russell Martin as manager at St.

Mary's this season.

Jack Pitt Brooks says, Ivan Urich joins a very specific list of managers brought in during a relegation season that sacked before they can go down with the ship.

Love the turn of phrase, by the way.

Mullenstein at Fulham, Pardew at West Brom, Bob Bradley at Swansea, Remy Gard at Villa, Javi Grathia at Leeds, Nigel Pearson and Claudio Ranieri in different seasons at Watford as well, Dave.

Yeah.

Is it the managerial ultimate indignity?

Is it like the sub being subbed off of the managerial world?

I think so.

I think it depends slightly on the context, but yeah, I mean, it is Urich in particular.

I was talking about this to a mate at the weekend after it got confirmed they were relegated.

And he just, he just looks

hapless

i mean just just just the whole thing it's just complete and unutter joke isn't it really

i mean i'm sure he obviously has done well at other jobs and whatever but he just nothing about him convinces you does it really and and you know we know so little nick about what really goes on in the innards of a football club and a football team in a dressing room and things like that but it's it's quite comforting to us as laymen in a way to see a manager who so clearly has no fucking effect on his players whatsoever like in a way, it sinks, yeah, you are human, you lot.

His only purpose

will be in a couple of years' time.

Do you ever do those sporkle quizzes of like all-time Premier League managers?

Yeah, he'll be the one I forget along with like Alan Paran or that other guy that was at Sports.

He was a sporkle.

I actually did one of those

off the back of him being sacked.

I think it was...

Is it Planet Football who do a lot of these?

It was Can You Name Every Southampton manager in the 21st century?

And I did it.

And there were so many that I'd forgotten about.

I think I got 10 out of 23, I think.

Stuart Grow is the one you always forget for my.

Well, but there was like, there were a couple of like Mark Water.

Yeah, I was going to say, he was the Dutch twat.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, yeah, Mark Water.

I forgot that Claude Puel was there.

There were loads that I'd forgotten about.

Obviously, these situations obviously throw up some unexpected caretaker managers.

Adam Lalana, Nick, is now a Premier League Assistant Caretaker Manager.

How quickly things move on.

The circle of life.

That's no good.

Yeah.

Good for the dressing room, I guess.

Is he still registered as a player?

Oh, yeah.

He was one of their big signings last year.

Is he still actually playing?

So we could have a player manager.

In 2025, we could have a manager playing for a Premier League team.

Give it a go.

Give it a go.

Yeah.

It need help.

Southampton still have something to play for, of course.

They are still chasing Derby's unwanted record of the lowest points tally in the Premier League.

90 men, the website, were previewing Southampton's game at Spurs at the weekend.

And they say Southampton have long been consigned to the second tier, but Ivan Urich is intent on ensuring his team usurp Derby County's record low points tally of 11.

They edged towards the promised land by securing a point at home to Crystal Palace on Wednesday.

What a pathetic use of promised land, says equal departure on Reddit.

I mean, that's really sad, isn't it, Nick?

I'd like to think that that's knowing.

They know what they're doing there.

I would like to agree with you.

But yeah, wow.

Do you think that's the, ironically or not, Dave, do you think that's the most tenuous use of promised land in football history?

Definitely.

The promised land were 12 points

in the Premier League.

I've seen some chatter amongst, I think it was BBC Radio Derby who posted a thing about this.

They'd obviously done some sort of retrospective on that season.

And I sort of sense there's some sort of affection amongst some Derby fans of like, we want to keep it.

Reclaim it.

You know, some sort of weird twisted badge of honour.

And speaking of that season, it's a very well-documented season, Nick.

Derby's 07-08.

But for one reason or another,

I was forced to consult this Wikipedia page.

And the players they brought in in the January of that season to try and steady the ship and get themselves out of the shit.

I don't remember a single one of these players then playing for Derby.

Danny Mills came in on loan from Man City.

Laurent Robert signed on a free.

Robbie Savage from Blackburn.

Hossum Garley on loan from Spurs.

Roy Carroll on a free from Rangers.

Mile Stojovsky, undisclosed from Genshle Biligi.

Alan Stubbs.

What?

Savage is the only one I remember, because I think Savage stayed for a little while.

Yeah.

But the rest of them,

absolutely.

Alan Stubbs.

Robert Earnshaw.

Robert Earnshaw was playing for them the whole season.

No recollection.

He then came to Forest from Derby, so that's why I'm not here.

Lauren Robert, actually, similar to the managers we've just been discussing, he actually left before the end of the season as well.

That is, in a way, quite funny.

So, I'll fuck this off.

Of those, Robert is

the most understandable signing because you can just imagine them because they're going, I mean, he scored some good goals a few years ago, didn't he?

Just get him in.

Just

give them that spark.

They need a spark, don't they?

Anyway, that's matters from 17 years ago taken care of.

We'll be back for part two very shortly.

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Welcome back to Football Cliches.

This is the Adjudication Panel.

A reminder that you can get in touch at football cliches at gmail.com.

You You can DM me on Twitter or Instagram or Blue Sky.

We can get involved on our Reddit page, which has hit 26,600 users.

In stadium terms, Dave, that makes us to the Hawthornes.

Okay.

Nice.

The highest altitude ground in the Football League.

Yeah.

Rarefied air.

Yeah.

Is it like, you know, the official attendances get given, so the Hawthorns are to sell out would be that number.

But really, how many active members have we got?

Is it just Reddit season ticket holders?

They're just not logging on.

They're just lurking.

I love to think they come every week.

I think so.

No, I think the cliché's faith will turn up week in, week out.

Come what?

April, May.

Yep.

Speaking of tough places to go, this came from Moto Sheward on Reddit Nick.

Cyclist James Knox was in the latest issue of Roulette magazine.

And he was asked, from your experience riding grand tours with Remco Ivanopol, what's he like as a leader?

And he replied, he's bullish.

I think that's the right way to describe him.

He's confident and he's up for it, whatever day it is.

It doesn't matter if it's a wet, cold Wednesday in Stoke, he's going to go for it.

So first of all, great to see it being used in cycling of all sports.

What a transfer for this concept to make.

Yeah, I imagine cycling in the pissing cold rain is more unpleasant than playing football in it.

I think so.

I think it's really appropriate for cycling because, you know, your hands, and if you're a keen cyclist, you've probably got your glove situation's probably been taken care of.

But those hands on the handlebars, if you're outside for two hours hours on a long cycle ride in the cold, you're going to get cold hands.

The wet's obviously a danger.

It could cause serious injury, depending on the angle of the rain as well.

If it's driving rain coming in from the side,

it's fraught with danger.

The handles, you need some of those, you know, those warmers that like the Liveroo drivers have on Mopass.

Yeah, the little gloves that are just on there already.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You need a pair of them.

As who I now realise I should pronounce as Matoshi Ward says that Stoke-on-Trent is actually the sixth most visited city by the tour of Britain.

So this isn't a complete, this isn't completely sort of, you know, random reference.

Okay.

And then so I think that's a challenging.

Is it a challenging course in Stoke?

I wonder.

Is it very hilly?

Is Stoke?

Stoke is quite hilly.

Yeah, I think it is quite hilly.

So I put this to cycling enthusiast Michael Cox, who directed me towards the 2012 tour of Britain.

What great year for this Stoke reference as well.

Stoke at their absolute peak as well.

And in the review of stage five on the Wikipedia page, three riders were able to break clear before the second climb of the day at Oakamore, also taking maximum points in the process at both of the intermediate sprints on route to the climb.

Strong crosswinds at this point allowed the mainfield to split apart, forming echelons, and also allowed a group of 21 riders to break clear of the Peloton.

There you go!

Stoke is a hard place to go and cycle.

Yeah, one of the things they say about the whatever it's called now, not the Britannia.

Beth 265?

Yeah, is that there's this kind of weird microclimate where the wind kind of whips through it.

So it's good to hear that that applies to the cycling as well.

We have we've reached peak mythification of Stoke.

My attention was turned on Sunday evening to ITV drama Grace, which is of course named after the detective and his surname.

Brilliant way of doing things, isn't it?

And the subject of this episode was a football club called Brighton Royal.

which rang immediate alarm bells and there was a bomb scare a bomb threat at their stadium someone brought a bomb into the stadium and there was a there was a ransom demand and that was the drama it was immediately identified that bright and royal were actually playing at Plough Lane, Dave.

And the makers of the programme had gone to the trouble of adding an extra CGI tier to the stand to make it a bit more give it some oomph because presumably this was a Premier League club in this fictional world.

So good work at that point.

Closer inspection of the game and they didn't use sort of footage of a real AFC Wimbledon game.

They just got a bunch of randoms to go on the pitch and obviously none of them looked like footballers at all.

They were playing on a pitch that had rugby league markings on it because I think London Broncos play at Plough Lane or something like that.

So had very visible rugby league markings, again, very annoying.

And the goals had no nets in.

Should have given Ribblesdale a call.

Poor bastards had to CGI in the nets.

That's when it got.

So for some reason, they decided to show one of the goals.

This guy pathetically side-footing past a pathetic goalkeeper.

And so the ball went into the side netting of the inside of the goal.

And the CGI had to make it ripple.

And it was awful.

Why do this?

What's the logic in thinking now?

We just put that in in post.

We haven't got any goal nets.

Put some fucking nets up.

It's got to be a fuck-up, hasn't it?

Someone has not turned up with the nets.

There was somebody whose job it was to sort the nets, and they haven't done it.

And this is yet more evidence that

get us in.

Get the football clichés team in.

Absolutely.

We will be your consultants.

We will, despite my track record, we will turn up with nets.

They can sort the net within an hour.

It's going to be all right.

But you know what?

You know, amid all the drama, most of that was relatively okay.

There was a few banners placed up by the art department behind the fans, Nick.

One of them said like

Royal till I die or go Brighton Royal.

And this is, for God's sake.

And they were daubed on really carelessly as well.

Almost they tried to make it too careless.

It's not like that anymore.

You don't just get bed sheets with stuff draped on them anymore.

This is elite level stuff.

It feels like someone...

the

famous Chelsea one of the three rats.

You remember that one?

The thing with Cesk Iazard and whatever it else was.

I just don't see that anymore.

There's the line in the sand.

After that, everyone was like, no, we can't let this stand.

We can't let this.

They get commissioned now.

Like, they're a big deal.

But you know what?

Beyond all of that, I was most disgusted by this.

Listen to the fan chants going on in the background as they have a little meeting in the control room about what they're going to do about the bomb.

Roy, we're at the stadium.

Call me.

I'm on my way to see Morris now.

We might need the rest of the shareholders.

Just announced this is Kip Cavindra, one of our investors.

D.I.

Branson.

So, what did they ask for?

Money.

Two million.

You think we should pay?

It's not that simple.

Nick, they're singing football's coming home at Brighton Royal.

Oh, look, again.

I can only echo Dave's sentiment.

You wouldn't take that long.

Just a five-minute phone call.

Yeah, come on,

let's have a day at least.

Come on, we don't want to sell ourselves here.

Pay us for a date.

But, you know, I'm just saying, it won't, won't, won't hold back the product shit.

What is our day rate for this consultant's Egyptian day?

500 quid a day?

Oh, come on, no.

We've got way more.

You've seen some of the money

some people in these industries charge.

There's a lot to fix.

Another thing to pick them up on, there was a shot there of them walking into some hospitality

and the blinds weren't down.

There were people drinking in view of the pitch.

Hey!

There you go.

That's subtle stuff.

Fair play.

Wow.

That's a litany of errors.

Brilliant from you.

I'd also quibble with that that guy takes a call at the stadium and that's not, you're not getting signal.

I mean, it depends on how many people are there, but in my experience, you're not getting signal enough to take a...

clear phone call in the middle of a game like that.

That was rectified later on.

Someone did try to call someone in the crowd and they got the beep, beep, beep.

So, yeah, inconsistent is what I would say.

Oh, dear.

Yeah, a lot to play with, with Grace on ITV.

I know you've both been wondering, could Dan Burns Fortnite come three weeks get any better?

Well, it has.

Rob Goodwell has revealed the next stage in Dan Byrne's unfolding great month for.

It was inevitable, this one as well.

A brewery has brewed a Dan Byrne beer.

What's it called?

Nuki Burn.

It's a brown ale.

Nukiburn.

Nukie Burn ale.

I think it's starting to tail off a bit, isn't it, Dan?

I mean, it's nice.

It's nice to have a beer named after you, but I mean,

a local beer brewed in your honour is the real kind of petering out of someone's great month for, I think.

Is there anything that we're recording this,

you listener, will know what happens, but we're recording this before Newcastle play Leicester.

Is there anything that you could plausibly do against Leicester that would continue it?

Man of the match.

I think scoring probably, man of the match certainly would be chunky enough to keep it propelling forward.

That would be great because then they could chat to him about what a great month he's had.

And that's the crucial aspect to it.

I think this could continue to Peter out.

And what if he has a nightmare and gets sent off?

Brought crashing back down to earth.

We'd have to revise the whole thing.

It's all been a lie.

I actually want it to happen.

Fingers crossed.

By the time this episode goes out, he's had an absolute mare.

Time for footballers' names in things now.

This first one came from Adam Gray.

It's BBC Radio Nottingham celebrating the 60th birthday birthday of East Midlands Airport.

We've had a lovely message from Phil saying I used to work there in the 70s.

It was a great place and people.

Eric Dyer was the airport director.

It was like a family.

Thank you for your message.

It was like a family.

I mean I don't know why that's funny because I'm sure

like any workplace it can be like that but I don't know.

I think he'd be a good airport director.

He's quite a calm head, isn't he?

He speaks several languages.

Yeah exactly.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah, good in a crisis, Eric Dyer.

This isn't footballers' names in things.

It's Sunday league communication in things.

I was still unsure right up to clipping this up about whether it was actually an April Fall, but it wasn't.

The background to this, Nick, is a hawk has been terrorising residents in a Hertfordshire village for weeks.

And the bird of prey is believed to have attacked at least 50 people since taking up residence in Flamstead in early March.

And so it got into its habit of just attacking allegedly tall men as they walked past and sort of flying down and making residents' lives a misery.

So ITV rocked up with a film crew and just as they were filming, it happened again.

And this is so good.

Why didn't you shout me?

It went very quick.

Fucking hell, the poor bloke is bleeding from his head.

Talking, boys, talking.

Why didn't you shout me?

Ha!

Hawk on!

Fucking hell, heads up!

He should have been scanning, mate.

Why didn't you shout me?

You're so good.

I'm so annoyed.

I mean, he should be.

The poor bloke's got blood pouring from his forehead.

The fucking hawks just landed on his head.

He was absolutely covered in blood.

It was like Terry Butcher.

Whoever was filming not only didn't shout him, but they just stood at the same distance filming after...

No, no running over you're right

see what happened there the camera certainly caught it they panned around quick enough no problem there but the most pathetic response from the from the producer there oh

also that if if the if he did get the shout what's he gonna do i don't think he i don't think he's got the evasive skills necessary to get out the way of a bird of prey flying at his head it's a hawk mate

just jump straight into the hedge next one

yeah honestly where was the shout is just oh just tremendous loved it um right uh it has the hawk has been captured.

That's the breaking news.

Anyway,

continuing this

lovely series of things, this came from Rob Sharrod.

Someone tweeted, just clocked Derby County's result in the midweek.

And moreover, the fact that for the first time in months, they're out of the championship bottom three.

Is there any manager in the championship who has performed as well as John Eustace has in the past three years?

Someone replied, Nick, saying, I genuinely believe if he was Spanish and called Juan Estacio, he would be linked to Premier League jobs.

It's never going to ever not be funny.

That's Juan Juan Estasio is really quite good as well.

That's like that's a really good uh approximation.

I've chosen

this.

When Estasio is getting appointed and sacked before the team goes down,

he's come in with this brand of high-intensity gung-ho football, and he just hasn't made it work.

The players were not on board Juanastasio.

I should have gone Juan Ustasio.

I think that just translates as John Station, doesn't it?

If you know it was John Station, he'd have won three titles back in the 30s.

Yeah, just keep going.

Right, finally, it's time for Keys in Grey Corner.

Lovely little group of Keys in Grey catch-up things for us.

First up, a tweet from Richie Keys in response to an interview that Gary Lineker gave recently saying that he'd turned down Skye multiple times for good money to stay with the BBC all this time.

And Keesey tweeted, Dave, if Gary Lineker was ever offered the chance to join Sky, it wasn't in my time.

We were unscripted, which meant no auto-queue.

That ruled Lynnem out as well.

Perhaps it's changed now.

I don't know.

Lovely little bit at the end there.

I actually don't know.

Sensational couple of drive-bys in that.

Just just exceptional.

Just feels weird, Nick, for Keysy to mention Des Lynem.

Again, worlds that shouldn't collide.

Can you imagine them in the same room?

Sort of opposite sides of the same room.

Maybe at some kind of industry function or something like that.

Yeah.

Kind of peering at each other slightly.

Also, if I was Keysy, I wouldn't necessarily be making a kind of virtue of the fact that it was unscripted, because that's kind of where some of the problems came from, actually.

Yeah, yeah, if there was a bit of a work.

Yeah.

It could have saved you, mate.

Right.

Next up, it's Keys and Gray on the arrival of semi-automated off-site technology and Keysy going all coy at the end.

I cannot think of a more fitting date than April the 1st for the Premier League to make this announcement.

Yeah, you're right.

We at last are moving into a new era of automated off-site.

Match round 32.

Remember, this is something we were promised we would see in October, November of last year.

It's their own system the Premier League have created with Apple, with, wait for it,

Genius Sports again.

I can't wait for this.

I can't.

I will.

Honestly, I can't.

There'll be trouble.

Genius Sports and Apple have come up now with our own automated system, which is different to that which you can see.

Right, let me ask you, there'll be a lot of people listening to you say that.

Why on earth have we had to use another one instead of the one that's been proven for the last two years?

Well,

I mean...

Why people will be asking that?

Yeah, it's a difficult question to answer.

There are a lot of factors, Andy.

The Premier League, I think, wanted to go their own way for different reasons.

Okay.

And I can't really get too deeply into those reasons.

Why are you being all secretive about it now, Dave?

He's been banging on about this for ages.

It's the fact that the Premier League

had a ball contract with Nike and now Puma.

And obviously, the Champions League uses Adidas.

And that was the big reason that they couldn't use it.

And now suddenly he's gone, oh, I don't know why.

Has he been tapped up?

Are they collared him about this?

It's possible.

If he's got any.

Maybe he's got some

juicy inside information that he wants to save with the blog.

I could blow the story right open, but I'm not going to go now.

The story's already told us many times before.

Sam Bellis writes in next, Nick, and says, Gutted, I'm not recording it, but I'm currently watching the build-up to the Merseyside Derby on B and Sports.

Keese has just said the blue boards behind David Moyes in his pre-match interview with Skye would never have happened in Shankley's era.

What a pathetic thing to have any comment about whatsoever.

I'm sorry, the blue boards.

So sponsors.

Yeah, the sponsors.

Standard chartered.

The little boxes on the advertising board behind David Moyes are in blue, which, I mean, is slightly odd, I guess.

It is, but yeah.

But yeah,

just a mad thing to say wouldn't have happened in Shankley's era.

I mean, there wasn't any bloody sponsors' boards in Shankley's era, was there?

He wasn't doing pre-match interviews with Sky Sports in 1970.

Dame Pack Bacon behind me.

Right, finally, this is Keys and Gray's dynamic at its absolute best.

Here they are discussing, of course, Reuben Amarim.

And I love it.

I love it when Keysy gets all exasperated and high-pitched.

I don't know what you make of Manchester United.

It's very difficult to judge Amarin in the short time he's been in.

Why?

Because Emery.

Come on, the short time he's been in.

We were judging Emery in the short time he was in.

He took Villa from the bottom three to a Champions League place.

Come on.

Of course we can judge him.

He's been there since when?

November, December?

Yeah, exactly.

Six months?

It's not even six months.

It's not even six months.

It's not six months.

He's five months down the line.

That's half a season.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you say you can't judge him?

No, I can't.

No.

I can't judge him yet.

Why?

Why?

Nice little baconer tribute at the end there.

The come on might be my favourite thing that Keith has ever said.

That's sensational.

Come on, Andy.

Come on.

Anyway, thanks to you, Nick Miller.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Thursday.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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