Free-transfer pundits, Daniel Mann's woodwork nuance & ex-Spurs defenders vs. the Jonas Brothers

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Pundits available on a Bosman this summer.

Just when will Dan Burns' unspecified great period of time end?

Commentators correcting themselves about how much the ball has hit the woodwork.

Unexpected co-commentary for North Macedonia vs.

Wales.

The Maldini-Beresi myth claims a high-profile victim, going all Roy Keen on the legacy of Just Stop Oil.

Chelsea suffer a textbook club crisis moment, and the quaint evolution-proof art of pun-based FPL team names.

Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts.

This Football Clichés.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

On that panel, Charlie Eccleshare, hello.

Hello.

And David Walker, how are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

Yeah, not bad, thanks.

I want to start with this.

Headlines in the mirror and in the mail.

TNT sports fear that Rio Ferdinand could leave them at the end of the season with a former Manchester United defender yet to sign a new contract.

Bosman paranoia in the broadcasting world charlie i was thinking about this do you hear about like contract extensions of uh of pundits is that is that a thing if like running them down is a thing is is extensions a thing would you hear like you know a few years ago gary lineker had you know like four more years lunicker's contract's probably the most publicized but the idea that ferdinand is running his tnt contract down dave is a bit of a stretch well yeah apparently he's had it he's had it ready to sign for six months and he still hasn't signed it according to the reports which like just on a sort of operational level of like when you're going in every week like the boss will be just like rio have you you have you signed that you're going to sign that contract at all like you're going to sign the thing

what's he saying uh i'll next week i'll definitely do it next week would he do a big video and sort of moment if he did put pen to paper would he hold up a t-shirt saying the year of the uh contract expiry I think it's disgrace.

I mean, he's not even letting them get a fee for him.

It's traitorous.

He's been with them for a long time.

Is he a one-station man as a pundit?

No, because he does other bits.

He even does other bits already, and he's done like major tournaments.

He'll be with

BBC.

Big broadcasters.

I think that's international duty, though, isn't it?

That's club and country, isn't it?

But yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah, he's very much part of the fabric at TNT/slash BT.

But imagine a world, Charlie, with pundit transfer fees.

Like big speculation about who's going to move where.

Lee Dixon, who's he signing for?

Crossing the divide.

Yeah.

People holding up Judas signs when rio moves to skysports oh no muted celebrations um but yeah really just really strange headlines where's he gonna go if he leaves because there's all the talk around these stories that he is that he's because he's signed uh some sort of deal with wme who are a big talent agency right and i think all the talk is that they're trying to get him stuff for the world cup everyone's trying to do everything for this world cup next year right as it's jostling for positions there's only going to be so much stuff anyone can do right But anyway, but surely, like, same way that Cara and Mikey Richards do American Champions League and they still do some stuff over here, he's going to need, you've got to have a domestic deal sorted.

So, unless he goes to Sky or BBC, maybe he is, maybe he is eyeing up CBS, Charlie.

Maybe he wants a bit of that action because you see what he's done for the personal brands.

I would say that, but then, like, Dave says, you can have your cake and eat him, and you can do both, can't you?

I mean, I mean, I guess not for Champions League, but he could do TNT for domestic and then, you know, like the Carroll or Micah kind of hybrid.

But I'm also a bit sort of confused here because I thought Rio generally was considered to be not very good anymore.

Like this, I'm not sure that these paper headlines are in touch with what you read on social media anyway, where I feel like Rio comes in for quite a lot of stick for his puppetry.

I mean, like that whole ballon d'Or thing, that clip of him just saying ballon d'Or over and over again, isn't that kind of where he's at?

reputationally right now?

I quite like him.

I'm a big fan of Rio.

I don't mind him, but I wouldn't have thought that the headlines here suggest that it's accepted that everyone is going to be thinking, oh my gosh, what a huge blow this would be for TNT.

Whereas I would put him in the divisive category at least.

I don't think we've ever declared we hate a pundit on this podcast in 411 episodes, have we?

Very diplomatic about this, aren't we?

I quite like him, actually.

I think he's all right.

I've got a lot of everybody.

I think he's alright.

It's like contrarian.

Anyway,

Dan Burns, unspecified period of time continues.

He was spotted at the Darts the other night, Dave.

They tweeted Wembley Goal, Carabelle Cup win, England debut and night at the Darts.

What a fortnight for Big Dan Byrne.

I mean, we should have seen this coming.

The extension of his week to a fortnight.

Appearing at a different sporting event was so obviously the next step of this, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, obviously this is the P D C themselves tweeting this out, so like, fine.

But inside knowledge, the the the media officer is aware of the clichés pot.

It's like it doesn't really I mean, he's just gone to the darts.

Is there any honour attached to being at the darts?

No, come on, Charlie, back me up here.

Appearing at a sporting event after you've just achieved something is a huge part of British sporting culture.

It's like, it's not Wimbledon, but it's right up there.

Yeah, no, I know.

And I also, I have to say, I did really like this, the idea.

I mean, I assume it was done ironically that Night of the Darts was on a par with all of those things.

I really like that.

Yeah, I was thinking as well, how long could this go on for?

Could it be like, what, a month for Dan Byrne?

What's the cut-off point i don't know what he's got coming up next his birthday's on may the 9th so i don't know if he can keep his run going till then i mean just being good for newcastle newcastle have got nothing i mean champions league qualification but i don't know if that's enough that's too long away yeah i feel like in the net because it's when was the kid on the way or anything dan have you got anything for us anything else planned what about more of this i think

i think they're too far afield at the moment but what about being spotted on the grid at an f1 race being eaten by martin brundle and the group yeah he's going to have to throw in some other sports.

Yeah, F1 could be a great shout.

Martin Brundle accosting him on the grid.

Right, next up, let's talk about the FA Cup this weekend.

And Bournemouth versus Manchester City, Firibert, 91 on Reddit, said he was watching this game and following three missed chances, including a safe penalty by Erling Haaland, the commentator said, Haaland reminding us he's human.

Given the lackluster season City had been having, and Haaland by extension, do we still need to say this?

Or does Haaland have enough superhuman credit in the bank that we can keep saying it?

Charlie, I think we're well past this

incredulity that Erling Haaland is in fact human.

We talked about this almost exactly a year ago when he missed a sitter against United.

And that was a classic like he assumed that we debated it then.

But he's now missed three out of his last six penalties.

So that this is not the act.

That's the chilling test of that's not a missed penalty.

That's not the act of a superhuman.

Do we think he's actually gone full circle?

The moments where recently where he's played really well and like got a hat trick or whatever, he's actually superhuman after all.

He's got 30 goals this season still.

We're only in tail end of March.

No, but I do think he has slightly crossed that threshold.

He's sort of shown

a little too much fallibility for us to leave behind.

The mystique of Erling Holland has definitely faded, Dave.

We're not in awe of him in the same way as we were.

And that's not just a form thing.

I think it's a familiarity thing.

Yeah, and also shots of him hobbling out on crutches after the game.

Because he's definitely human.

yes, very much so.

Um, no super serum in those legs, but it's it's I think two seasons ago that would have been a much bigger story.

Yeah, that he was injured.

Now it's sort of like, oh, okay, I mean, yeah, that's bad news for City, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

They'll be all right.

Whisper it quietly.

Uh, this next one came from Titch Dannon from the same game.

Here's Daniel Mann on the World Feed commentary as Ilke Gundawan strikes the woodwork

tormenting Smith and feeding Gundawan

and rattling, well, kissing in all honesty, the post.

Lovely bit of self-policing there, Dave.

Very nice.

Rapid reassessment of how hard that ball hit that woodwork.

That's great to see.

And great.

I think that's an indirect influence of the Clichés podcast.

I hope so.

Do you think it qualified as a kiss, though?

I don't think it did.

It probably sent the ball at a 90-degree angle.

It was less than a rattling because it didn't come directly back, Charlie.

But it wasn't a kiss either because it didn't go out of play behind the goal.

So what are you calling?

The impact of a woodwork that sends it 90 degrees.

Troubled?

Brushed, but it's more than a brush, isn't it?

It's definitely worth it.

I mean, rattled's also about the pace with which you hit it.

Yeah.

It's not hit that hard.

Like he's kind of placed it onto the post.

Cannon?

Cannon's good.

Cannon?

I don't think it's hard enough to be a cannon, that shot.

I think that's what he's mainly policing himself about.

He thinks, oh, actually, he hasn't hit it that hard.

Denied by the.

Yeah, but that's a whole different thing, isn't it?

That's too much of a job.

It's too sensible a chance, right?

Surely.

Yeah.

If anybody's got any ideas of what verb you can use for a 90-degree woodwork strike, let us know.

Interestingly, Daniel Mann on World Feed Commentary for Bournemouth vs.

Man City, Charlie.

On in-house Man City Club Commentary Duty, Alistair Mann.

Isn't that nice?

Yeah.

I thought that when I saw when

I suddenly had that thought, are Daniel and Alistair Mann related?

We've had this discussion, we haven't got to the bottom of it.

I don't know how difficult it would be to get to the bottom of it, but we should do.

I think I've got the number for Alistair Mann.

So

might be a sore point, though.

Yeah, yeah.

Can I get a number for Daniel?

And then just hope that he might be like

talking to each other.

Man on man.

Right.

Jwayne Sinclair on Reddit got in touch.

This is Dominic Booth on the Guardian's minute-by-minute duties for Fulham versus Palace.

Into injury time.

Palace fans, you can start googling hotels near Wembley for the weekend of 26th or 27th of April.

I mean, is that logistically viable, Dave?

Just get the train on the day.

I mean, yeah, exactly.

You'd assume that many of most of them are just living

in and around South London.

It's a bit of a journey, but Wembley's not the best place to get in and out of, but you can cope with it, can't you?

But I would also add, if you were looking to stay near Wembley for that weekend, get it done earlier with the refundable cancellation policy, just in case.

Prices can be skyrocketing already.

Yeah, yeah, you've waited too long already.

Injury time, they're all gone.

I don't want to sneer at this too much, Charlie.

I'm the sort of person who lives so far out of London now, regrettably, that every time I have any sort of semblance of a night out, I now book a hotel room.

That's how pathetic my lifestyle has become.

Yeah, a friend of mine was saying he had a football tour in Adverted Commerce this weekend, but it's with two other countries, and this was the year it's in the UK.

And he rented a hostel for him and a few of his teammates, despite most of them living in London in like Mile End or somewhere just just so they could kind of be away from family and not have not have to wake up horrendously hungover and sort of do child care so that was quite smart hey look hey look when you've got bed for the night something quite appealing about that when you can just roll into it are the palace fans supposed to do you think they were booking hotels for the night before or the night of after the game because the night of night before get there get your bearings oh yeah you might want to get down there early and enjoy the whole day because Because you're taking a bit of a gamble.

If you're booking a hotel for the night after the game, if you'd lose and you've just got a night in a

you're not staying there, right?

You're going straight home.

What I would say, though, Dave, on your point about doing it before, it might be shrewd to wait because the price surging, the hotels might be thinking, oh, it's a London team.

People aren't going to be booking here.

There's no point doing the surge.

Little do they know that all these palace fans are taking advantage of that.

We're on it.

we are we are gonna we are gonna book it uh dominic booth in his defence simply says it's a long way from south london and which i suppose relatively speaking it is um

right uh i was watching north macedonia versus wales on the bbc last week um listen fair play and uh some early technical problems um right at the start meant we were unexpectedly privy to a completely random person on the phone talking about their weekend rewarded with a starting place the red player we're forcing the save an an early save from Dmitrievski.

Amanda Silber Thomas to take this quarter kick was involved in two of the three goals against Kazakhstan.

Yeah, he's brilliant.

He's a live wire, wide areas, good crosses all night, put some assists.

Daniel James

from Olyovsky.

Oh, is that a nice

performance?

But it wasn't leaking, it was an antibiotic, so that's right.

He spent five years at

Mante in Spain.

Sarapamov

Roslio,

Brennan Johnson,

Ashley Williams, and Joe Ledley were talking about the

type of forward that he is.

That seems better than

my mind.

Certainly love to get off the market.

Yes, it's fine.

Five gold calls to his name, certainly.

I love five goals to do.

Miller makes it a right window because I was like,

I mean, that would be mortifying, wouldn't it, Dave?

What?

Wow.

That went on for so long.

How has someone not noticed that?

And

how's that been allowed to go on?

Every time something like this happens on a live broadcast, Charlie, all I think is someone scrabbling around going, How?

Which wire do I pull out?

Would the commentators wouldn't have been aware?

They couldn't have heard

somebody.

Yeah.

They're a bit about antibiotics, appears.

They don't drink on antibiotics.

That's been established.

It's fine.

You get drunk quicker, if anything.

Come on, mate.

It's a 90s birthday party.

I don't know if that was someone in their 90s.

Combined esteemed.

Oh, yeah.

I just wonder.

So, was this on BBC?

It was online.

Online, okay.

It was on the, yeah, I think it was online.

Like, is it a radio frequency thing?

Is it, is it, is it, are they in a production facility and that's sort of like somebody's

calling someone up to, you know, it sounds like the sort of small talk you might have when you're sort of maybe a producer's getting someone ready to go on air and they've got time to kill.

Yeah.

I can't fathom it.

I mean, that's, that's amazing god knows uh but yeah just just charlie imagine imagine your your mundane small talk being broadcast to a you know several thousand people i wonder how traceable that is though i wonder how many people watching would have known who it was like whether that person's been identified i guess they must have been should we even be putting this clip on the pod if it feels a bit wrong anyway they will be now

it's public information mate it was on the public service broadcaster so i'm glad you had a good time or some a semblance of a good time at least now next this came from Alex Simpson.

It's from a recent episode of Match of the Day Top 10, where they ranked the best ever Champions League captains.

And

oh no.

In fact, they're all outstanding players, but one and two, like Maldini and Ramos, yeah.

If I had to pick one out, I would go Maldini with you.

As a player?

Yeah, as a player.

He was just different.

He's a great.

Could be left back and centre off though, couldn't he?

Yeah.

I saw a stat somewhere on social media that said that when Paolo Maldini played alongside Berese, who was unbelievably good as well, I think they played 196 games as a central defensive partnership

and conceded 23 goals.

I mean, that's pretty good, isn't it?

It's like unbelievable, isn't it?

Yeah.

I like the unbelievable at the end.

Another victim of the hoax, the Maldini-Beresi hoax.

how many more people are going to get sucked in by this, Dave?

Well, it is, it is quite tantalizingly believable.

It's seductive, isn't it?

It's the sort of thing you, it's one of those where if you think about it for any time at all, it quickly becomes apparent how mad it is.

But at face value, you think, well, yeah, okay, wow.

They're both good players.

What's the actual numbers?

26 in 139.

23 in 196.

196.

I mean, that is a bit mad.

Like, I know what you mean, Dave, but that, if it wouldn't have been on what I thought, then I could sort of be like, maybe.

One goal every nine games.

Like, that's just, I mean, those are records, like, one goal every nine games is like a on course to break Edwin Van der Saar's Premier League record sort of levels.

Like, that's, that's absurd.

And you're just doing that, like, again and again and again.

It's had a really interesting journey, this stat, Dave.

It was once tweeted out by Serial's official Twitter account a fact.

So Matthew Ketchell of 442, knocking on for two years ago now, really sort of investigated this, figure out how it happened and why people keep repeating it.

And what he wanted also to do was just figure out how someone came about these numbers.

And if it's not just a complete joke, how did someone mistake some real stats for this fake stat?

They played more than 196 games together.

You won't be surprised here.

They played 400 times together for Milan.

And he found that they'd conceded 298 goals whilst on the pitch together so that's the debunking of the stat complete.

How they got to 23 was quite interesting.

It turns out that of the 298 goals they conceded If you divide that by the number of seasons they play together you get 22.92 which rounds up to 23 so they conceded an average of 23 goals per season while they played together which isn't even that good really is it?

Is it?

It's Serie Ar in the 90s, 80s.

That's still pretty good.

23 is pretty good.

I think it's just league.

I don't know.

But also, it's how many get it's from how many get because it sounds it does sound really good because you think of it as a team.

Yeah, you know, if a team only sees 23, that's amazing.

But obviously, it's going to be a lot fewer games and far fewer games than that because one or both of them wouldn't always be available.

It turns out every time Maldini and Beresi play together, we get more leaky in and out of the team.

They can't play together.

Oh, dear.

Not enough tackling going on.

Poor Gary, he got sucked in.

Right, that's the end of part one.

We'll be back 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 or you can DM me on Twitter or Instagram or Blue Sky or get involved on our Reddit page which has surpassed 25,000 users, just over, which is just enough to fill Selhurst Park, Charlie.

Appropriately enough.

We could stay there the night before.

Yeah.

I hope you've got like a really raucous Holmesdale Ultras section of the Reddit thumping there.

Drums.

Yeah, I think there are corners of it that are more

rowdy than others.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the ultras are people that

are turned up to more than one live show.

Okay.

You know, we've had people that have travelled from Scotland to Manchester, for example, to

driven from Belfast to Dublin as well.

They're in the Holmstell ultra.

They're in that one.

Okay.

Andy Datson says, Dave, not sure you've mentioned this, but Football Clichez has more Reddit followers than both Messi and Ronaldo.

Nice.

I'm surprised that, I suppose, I mean, obviously, probably Reddit is just too much of a niche interest for them.

But Ronaldo, I mean, Ronaldo especially has got like an insane amount.

Whenever I hear his follower number quoted.

Like, how many he's got on Instagram?

Hundreds of millions, isn't it?

It's ridiculous.

I'm starting to think, as we do these comparisons, comparisons, Charlie, that I'm starting to think that Reddit just isn't a viable platform for certain individuals.

It's almost like they don't care about it.

You're missing out, lads.

They're too polished for Reddit.

Oh, God.

They can have great fan engagement on Reddit, and they're just not bothering.

So at least good to see we're leading the way.

Right, time for some footballers' names in things.

First one came from Popcorn Nigel, and he asks: Which rangy former Tottenham and Nottingham Forest defender turned pundit pops up in the Jonas Brothers new single, Love Me to Heaven.

You hearing it?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Actually, if you play it again, I think he actually says at the start, all I can hear is Tottenham at the start or something.

Maybe that's what the song's about.

Tottenham in the early 2000s.

Andy, where does Andy Reid get mentioned?

Famous double signing.

Hope so.

Yeah, a triumphant return for footballers' names in songs.

I've kept the bar high.

Or have I?

This one came from Simon Woolmer.

He says, if there's enough space on the pod for a new segment, hastily titled Mildly Difficult Shooting Techniques shouted loudly in Punk Anthem Corner, then the first nominee is Body of Mind by the Lambrini Girls.

I hope the whole song, Charlie, is dedicated to sort of putting people right that it has to bounce and then hit it straight away and not just bounce once.

Debating the merits thereof.

I really like with music like this, especially just how much someone must be taken out of the moment that they're listening to the, like, what, you know, the vibe of that song, and then their attention is completely diverted to, oh, this is funny.

And I'm going to have to remember this and probably stop listening and make a note of it.

I was really wondering where that was going to go because when you said mildly difficult shooting technique I was thinking

is it going to be Trevella or

something.

Vastly overstating your technical proficiency there.

Mildly difficult indeed.

Let's return to regular programming for footballers names and things.

Quite a simple one.

It came from Tom and it's from Antiques Roadshow of course.

Between all these artists, it's now a real, they had a real colony down there.

And I want you to tell me a little bit more about this artist because he was apparently a pupil.

A pupil of Lamorna Birch.

He's Dennis Law.

It's not a painter's name, is it?

No.

No, it doesn't really seem like one.

Be worth more now, though.

It's by Dennis Law, yeah.

The Dennis Law, yeah.

Right.

Next up,

I saw I saw a tweet

talking about the international break last week, and it said that Tottenham's Mikey Moore Charlie played the entire game and grabbed the only assist as England 19s beat Portugal 1-0.

I'm not having that.

This is a rise too far for the assists.

Yeah, the natural end point for the assist.

Grab the only assist.

I've not heard that before, but it's factually true.

A solitary Mikey Moore assist was enough to see off Portugal 1-0 day.

So, I mean, this is from a Tottenham account, right?

So it's they're just, you know, desperately trying to find something that Tottenham fans would engage with, I guess, about an otherwise

nondescript England under 19s match.

Even the England pod hasn't talked about the England under 19s yet.

I will not have the only assist.

I don't care what spin you're trying to put it from a club perspective.

Do things right.

Right, next up, a query from Craig McCulloch, who points us towards the BBC's report of the Women's Champions League quarter-finals.

In two of those, English clubs came back from a first-leg deficit to reach the semi-finals.

It read, there is an all-English Women's Champions League final on the cards with Arsenal and Chelsea safely into the last four of the competition.

Craig says, adjudication on the use of safely through, I noticed on the BBC article that it describes them both as safely through to the last four, despite both having had to overturn 2-0 first leg deficits.

To me, safely through should imply that you were never in any degree of danger of not going through.

Charlie, at what point does it kick in?

I agree with this.

I think of safely through as a breezy kind of FA Cup roundup or something.

Meanwhile, Chelsea, well, they're safely through.

They were 3-0 winners at so-and-so or even a 2-0.

Yeah, they were 2-0 winners.

It's breezy.

It's kind of, you know, it's, yeah, I don't think, you know, you wouldn't say Barcelona in 2017 was safely through after getting past PSG.

You know,

that was not safe at all.

It was bloody dangerous.

They sustained a lot of damage on the way.

Exactly.

Dave, you can see how this has happened.

I mean, this does need to be confronted.

I mean, you are, you know, by definition, you are safe once you've got through.

You are, you have reached safety in that respect, but you can't, you can't discount the early troubles you had,

you know, by which I mean going 2-0 down in the tie after the first leg.

It wasn't safe passage.

No.

The journey's been difficult, but yes, okay, you may well have reached the destination.

Are you in one piece, I suppose?

I don't know.

Could you lose the first leg, Charlie, and ever be safely through?

If it was nicely poised, maybe if it was one of those, like, you lose a really weird away game 1-0 against a team that's way worse than you, and you kind of know you're going to go through, and you're 3-0 up by half-time.

Right.

And it's kind of like, okay, let's forget the aberration of that first leg.

Obviously, that happened and we let it happen, but let's just forget about it.

And you end up winning 4-0 or something.

Yeah, there's a thing.

I think in that instance, you're safely through.

There's an undercurrent of anticipation before the second leg that they're going to get the job done anyway.

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

And sure enough, they do.

Yeah, so I would allow it for that because, yeah, but yeah, you basically had to mount a comeback in the second leg day.

That's not safely through.

No, absolutely right.

Big news at the weekend.

Just up oil have said they're hanging up their high-viz.

But this statement that I enjoyed most about their statement from Hannah Hunt, who made the announcement outside Downing Street in London on Thursday, Charlie, she said, Three years after bursting on the scene in a blaze of orange, at the end of April, the Just Stop Oil campaign will be hanging up the high-viz.

I don't get all Roy keen about this, but can our protest group burst onto the scene?

I was thinking about what rival charity would ask.

Borsched under this scene?

Could it be borsted onto this scene?

Yeah,

I'm not crazy about when organisations can use the language.

They've editorialized quite a lot.

Like, they're using the language in a way that a reporter should be using.

We're sort of dancing to their tune by just quoting it directly.

Do you know what I mean?

Like,

is it for them to say they burst onto the scene in a blaze of orange?

I'm not sure it is.

I think they did, though.

I mean, it's their modus operandi, isn't it, Dave?

Surely.

Well, then it's up to the journalist to paraphrase

if he thinks that.

They've certainly made an impact.

You know, whether you agree with them or not, they definitely did all of a sudden become a big thing.

But I mean, hanging up the hive is,

I would have gone, I would have gone for hanging up the paint pots myself.

That's their most noticeable thing.

I know what you mean, yeah.

I don't associate them with hive-is, I associate them with chucking paint about in

museums and stuff.

The orange is quite homestead.

It's a soup can.

Yeah, but yeah, no, the streets will never forget Just Stop Oil.

Right.

A spokesman for Just Stop Oil said on Thursday.

This came from Jamie Fryer.

I've never seen anything like this before.

A communicado official from Ossa Suna about Barcelona's alleged ineligible lineup in their La Liga meeting recently.

And after the headline, Dave, it reads, The Navarre-based club believes defender Inigo Martinez's participation in the match was not in accordance with FIFA regulations.

Why are they second mentioning themselves?

It could only be worse if they called themselves an outfit.

Yeah,

that is weird.

Is it for legal distance?

Is it like a lawyer writing it?

I don't know.

Is it a weird translation?

Is this like an English, you know, Google translating the paint, the thing from Spanish to English?

Don't think so.

I think this is from the English language version of their website.

I could be wrong.

But even so,

even if it's a translation, they're still doing it.

And I'm baffled.

I'm troubled by it.

Why have that distance?

yeah i think it's possible that the translation the original would be like a genuine term that's more accepted but i think it's also just often people write like people who are writing this just think this is kind of how you write football this is footballes this is what you do that you know you you second mention every club whether it's your own i mean i no it's not I don't know what's worse, but often what clubs do is talk about themselves as the club with a capital C, which feels like, I don't know, it's so kind of grandiose.

It's part of that.

Yeah, part of that.

But I want to see this catch on, Dave.

Next time a club sack their manager, I want to see them describe themselves as beleaguered or something like that.

Come on, give us the truth.

Give us the spin.

That's how the media would say it.

Yeah, poor old Osasuna.

Right.

Now, back in September 2021, Charlie, this podcast did a two-part special on the 12 stages of a club crisis.

And I'm pretty sure, without even having listened back, that I don't think this was in there.

Chelsea cancelled a scheduled day off for their players after the first team lost 3-0 to their under-21s in a training match.

This is so club crisis.

How have we not talked about this before?

Why do they keep losing to under-21 teams?

Well, I think it's so set up for it.

I remember at school, whenever it would be like first v seconds or A's v B's, it would be like the lower team would always win.

They'd have such a point to prove.

It's kind of like, I don't know, saying, you know, these are de facto better than you.

And it was, you know, that was their team talk right there.

And I guess there's a, similarly, like the under-21s are going to care way more about this, aren't they?

They can say they beat

they're younger, fitter, hungrier.

They can always then say, I once beat, you know, player X in a game.

Whereas, so they're kind of on a hiding to nothing.

And maybe we just don't hear about, you know, we probably don't hear about the kind of comfortable 2-0 wins for the senior teams.

They never talk about the 5-0 wins, do they, Dave?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

They wipe the floor with those little youngsters.

Little pricks.

They had to draft in a few under-16s because a few of them were off on international duty.

McRescue had to do a shift at the back with the kids.

But I mean, aren't

how many of the under-21s would be actual first-team players for Chelsea?

There are some.

And I assume, you know, some of the first team were off for international duties.

I don't know how many were left.

So it would have been a makeshift team.

Might have been some players out of position.

Yeah.

I just think anything that happens at a training ground should not really be reported.

This doesn't matter, does it?

I don't know.

Once it gets out, it's juicy, this kind of story, isn't it?

Let's face it.

I really, really want to know how many times this has happened.

But you're spot on, Charlie.

I now remember.

I played for the uni.

I think the first team I played for at the uni was the thirds, and they beat the seconds.

And it was like, well, this is a nonsense.

So I think I've moved to the seconds in the end because, well, yeah, the universe crunching into tackles.

Do you get, do you get to swap?

So we're now the seconds.

We've beat the third.

So

we now get the title.

Yeah, just move the infrastructure.

Just change the names.

It's easier than moving people around.

Absolutely.

Right.

Right.

Finally, this came from Kieran, who's directing me to a Reddit post detailing the top team names for FPL in 2025.

The headline piece of information he relayed to me is that 2,951 FPL team names have misspelled the Liverpool goalkeeper Allison's name in a pun for Alison Wonderland.

His question originally, Dave, was, is he the the most misspelled player in the Premier League?

But there's much more important matters to get stuck into here.

9,190 team did get it correct.

One L, two S's, quite right.

Had it been consistently spelled correctly, it would have gone from 18th to 12th in the most used FPL team names.

Costly error.

Big jump.

Yeah.

That's like 3 million a place in this.

What else have we got then, Charlie?

So the most popular kind of FPL-style team name, that is essentially based around a pun about a player, is Haven't Jot a Clue?

13,391.

Not really an evolving art form, is it?

The pun-based FPL team name.

It's very much stuck in its era.

Yeah, this is just such great work.

Fair play to Jamjar919.

This is some great work.

I love that Alison detail, that that many people are getting it wrong.

Yeah, I mean, this is...

I guess kind of is like pub quiz names, isn't it?

It's a very similar form of wordplay.

i mean i mean we have to i guess we have to factor in david that this is a worldwide game so you know some people might be sort of just you know signing up and 11 gills people i think play fpl roughly right so you know it's a it's a broad church of people so it might explain the sort of um spectrum of creativity when it comes to it um 10 242 people just called it dream team come on lads going route one

I love this that some of the most popular names are just Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea and Manchester United.

Who would do that?

And that's totally nice.

I do sort of sympathise in it.

I've never gone that dark.

Have you done Watford?

No, but

I don't know if I've ever done a pun name.

Maybe I did when I first started playing, like, you know, it's like 20 years ago now or whatever, when it first sort of popped up.

But definitely for

the last sort of five or ten, I have completely gone against doing puns and I just have my I just have my initials, DCW DCW United, every season.

I know it's shit.

I know it's boring, but I just can't be asked to think of a clever pun.

I just don't want to get involved in it.

There's a hint of irony to these pun names.

They're almost deliberately shit.

Of course they are, Charlie.

But I think it's classier to pick a player who doesn't play for the team you support.

It's about picking a random player, a random, essentially Barclaysman, and making a pun out of their name.

I think that sort of leans into the irony of the whole thing.

It's just a bit of fun.

Yeah, I just love, I love some of these.

Just like the pointlessness of them, like Palmer Violet

such an old school reference it doesn't mean anything that's the third most popular pun-based FPL team name Palmer Violet I guess unless you picked violet as your team colour is that a thing you do can you pick a team colour at least yeah

but it might make at least it vaguely then makes sense it is an afterthought but what colours do you do you go with your own team

I go all black because I think all black is quite formidable

I go I go I go yellow and and red for Watford.

Okay.

Sack of potatoes, Hakuna Mateta.

I mean, they're more towards the acceptable soft middle of the pun-based genre.

Do you think that once, because obviously you can sign up to the game like in June or July when it sort of officially launches, but obviously most people will sign up like the week before the season starts.

Do you think that there'll be a couple of early trendsetters for like this is the these are the puns for this season?

People will see them and then everyone will just go, I'm just going to go Hakuna Mateta.

Yeah, if you see a good one, yeah, you think you're going to be able to hide in plain sight with it.

But I mean, let's not forget, Charlie, that most people are probably just keeping the same team names they've had for the last 13 seasons.

So there is that.

No one had Hakuna Mateta 13 years ago, did they?

No, no.

Would have been well-aheaded game if they had.

But yeah, just

a slightly underwhelming selection.

Corn the copy.

They might have had...

Bakuna Matata.

Do you remember him?

Leandro Bakuna?

And then they've just evolved towards Hakuna Mateta.

Played for Watford for a bit, actually.

Leandro Bakuna pretty much only existing for the purposes of being someone's pun in an FPL team name, and that's it.

Rice, Rice, Babies, the 32nd most popular.

But yeah, none of these, none of these are any surprise to me.

323 people called their team Brexit means Brexit.

I mean, look.

I like the Cancelo culture.

That's good.

923.

Incidentally, I've got to go on BBC Radio 5 Live in an hour to talk about Brexit tackles in the playground.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Suddenly, I'm the expert on this.

Anyway, tune in.

Well, tomorrow.

BBC Sounds.

Yeah, indeed.

Right, Charlie Echo Share, thanks to you.

Thank you.

Someone said the other day that they sing it to Here's to You, Mrs.

Robinson.

Yeah, I like that.

Especially as my name does scan with it, so it works well.

Absolutely poisoning people's brains.

Cheers to you, Dave 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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