Knowing your way around the Champions League, German woodwork & England's future one-cap wonders

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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 Gascoigne gonna have a crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I say!

Brilliant!

But jeez!

He's round the goal, Keeper!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was I whip without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip oh a save

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

Liverpool versus PSG the best game for ages the knowing their way around the Champions League threshold Richard Keyes drops his new nickname for Sir Jim Ratcliffe some genuinely irritated feedback from match of the day viewers viewers back in 1972, WWE crowd technicalities, how to confidently predict a future England one-cap wonder, the most common object used to explain the off-side law, and marginal gains on the Great British menu.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Cliches.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the midweek adjudication panel.

To go through everything with me is first of all Charlie Eccleshaire, how you doing?

Very well.

And David Walker, how are things?

Things are good.

Excellent.

Let's kick off with Tuesday night's Champions League drama.

Liverpool versus PSG.

Charlie, it seemed to me a universally enjoyed game of football.

I enjoyed it in a way I haven't enjoyed a big game for quite some time.

And I don't mean this in a kind of, oh, it's like how football used to be or anything like that.

It just, it felt like it hit a sweet spot between some impenetrable chess match that loads of tacticos find interesting, but the rest of us are slightly befuddled by.

But nor was it kind of a chaotic basketball game that was kind of dramatic because it was all over the shop it was just a great spectacle from start to finish like a really tidy great football game yeah it was i really enjoyed this leg and the first leg sort of as a whole piece i thought it was really good i i think as well psg previously yeah i used to find the the sort of i didn't find watching them frustrating i found the commentary of them frustrating because all british commentators seemed to do was go on about how neymar wasn't tracking back and all of this sort of stuff whereas like there's no baggage with any of these psg players really A lot of them are fairly unknown to a British audience.

They're just they all seem to be young, exciting, really.

Yeah, we're discovering them together.

Is that what you're doing?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Kind of, which is a really nice thing about the Championship.

You know, there's no, there's no fatigue with these players.

Yeah, and obviously, we care enough because it's Liverpool and they're, you know, that they, there's a lot of emotion around Liverpool for good and bad from kind of non-Liverpool fans.

So, yeah, it was kind of the perfect storm.

The game itself went exactly as you want it to go.

You You wanted PSG as a neutral.

You wanted PSG to score early,

but for not either team to run away with it or whatever.

And it was, you know, all the way through was on the proverbial knife edge.

And the freshness of it, Dave, I felt was enhanced by, and it didn't even feel weird either, by not having to hear Fletch, Ali McCoyst and Rio Ferdinand shouting at me for 90 minutes.

It's just a little change of scenery.

John Champion, Alan Shearer, Gabby Logan.

Yeah.

I have become quite fond of Fletch and the gang over over the years because I do kind of really associate.

Obviously, you associate them with those big Champions League matches.

In some ways, I think he's a little underappreciated, Fletch, actually, as a commentator in some of those big moments.

But I think another thing about this match, which made it was sort of was perhaps surprising to us, was that basically this is a Champions League quarterfinal, maybe even a semi-final, but it's happening a stage earlier because of the new format.

Again, the Champions League gets a lot of, there's a lot of discourse around it sometimes, and people have their grumbles about the formats and all that thing.

But generally, once you get to the quarterfinals, like the matches are usually pretty good.

Yeah, the format plays no part at that point.

It's just good teams playing each other at night.

I do know what Adam means though about the change in commentary because there is a risk that Champions League get can all slightly sort of merge into one from season to season.

And so I do just making it feel a little bit different was quite helpful.

I need all the help I can get to remember individual games and not and not have them all merge into one.

So I was happy for the change of scenery.

You know, we we laugh at classy touches, Charlie, but Arna Slott said it was the best game of football I've ever been involved in.

So, which I think is a really, really good way for a manager to smooth over a big Champions League exit.

Just to say it was a great game of football.

Not saying we deserve to win, they were lucky, or even over-praising the opponents, just saying it was a great game of football.

Really happy to have been involved in it.

Privileged to have been a part of it.

Yeah.

Are you

genuinely interested in that?

But I guess would the retort be, well, yeah, you've come from the area to visi, mate.

I'm sure in the less charitable corners of Twitter, that was probably the stopped response.

I have to say, but fair play.

Yeah, I suppose there's logic there.

I mean, it was all happening, Dave.

I made crispy chili beef in the air fryer at half-time.

Like, so well-timed.

It came out amazingly.

Okay.

It must be like Keesy felt when he first cooked steak aupois.

Crispy chili beef aulet.

Yeah.

Do you think Keesy's got an air fryer in Doha?

I

don't know.

I'm not trying to touch on air fryer other than Adam.

I know they're a big thing, but I very much associate them with you.

I'm a massive evangelist for them now.

But yeah, having kids definitely pushes you over the edge, so I'm amazed you haven't got one yet.

Dave, you watched it in the pub, of course, and

you produced a very subtle observation, something that I'd never even considered before, and it immediately struck a chord with me.

Yeah, so there was, I was watching it in Philomena's, which is a great football pub in Covent Garden, and there were mainly Liverpool fans in neutrals, but there was this one guy in a PSG shirt who was going going through the ringer through the whole thing.

And he stood up to watch the penalties and he was right in my eye line and he was just rocking from side to side, from one foot to the other, very gently throughout the shootout.

And it just struck me as like, yeah, I do that too.

As soon as I saw it.

Yeah.

Really hard to describe, Charlie, but there was something about it.

I mean, I imagine it all comes down to, you know, the same principle, really, trying to feel like you're in control physically.

yeah i mean i think it's the it's the sort of final step of i know like what i'll i'll sometimes become aware that i might start watching a game and i'm sort of lying down on the sofa casually and then i'm like no i'm way too tense for that i can't possibly do this i need to sit properly yeah and then if i yeah if it's really nerve-wracking then i might start pacing and then this is just you know penetration that is is the peak of tension isn't it as a fan like you yeah i don't know yeah you just can't you can't sit still standing up as well but i mean you can't sit down in those moments if you're supporting one of those teams and you're in the pub.

I think standing up definitely makes you feel Dave like you're you're primed for it a bit more.

Yeah, definitely because you know you're obviously and also you're ready for the for the celebration if it comes.

But it's yeah, it's like obviously shitting yourself inside, but trying to keep a cool head on the outside, but the nerves just transpire in such a way that there's just inevitably a bit of movement.

You cannot be still.

No.

But on a more serious note, please stop filming people in pubs watching their team in high-pressure moments, please, Dave.

I would have thought better of you as a veteran pubsman as well.

Well, look, he won, so I didn't feel as bad in that case.

On the other hand, pleased that you're spotting things out in the wild and documenting them for our purposes.

Meanwhile, on Amazon Prime, Charlie, they were squeezing every penny they could out of Mark Clattenberg just before the first ever penalty shootout ever held in professional football.

But it's down to the referee.

It's the referee's call on which side it is on the coin.

So it'll be one side, that coin, side of the coin, and the other side of the pitch for the other side of the coin.

And then the captains will decide.

So

one of the captains will decide, and if he's the lucky one, then he'll either decide the first or the second penalty.

But it's the referees calling the first coin toss at which ends it'll be.

And just briefly, no safety issues.

The police can't intervene and say no, we demand their particular end.

Of course they can, but at this late stage, without any trouble, I can't see that happening.

But the other side, it could be.

The plane service could be badly damaged as well.

That has a factor, but tonight that isn't an issue.

Okay, penalties up coming down to you, Gabby.

This whole thing was extraordinary.

I was going to text you guys about it while watching.

I was just like, what?

It was so weird.

Like, I often find with referees when they're brought in, they make things less clear than more clear.

Like, they kind of raise more.

I had quite a few questions after hearing this.

And also, the champion thing was great because some

listeners may remember there was a Pro Evo game where one of his weird intros was, I think it was like, insurance policies have been checked, ambulances on standby.

And it was like, what are you talking about?

Like, why are you getting into like the logistics of the game?

And here he's sort of doing that.

He's sort of talking about like, and any safety concerns?

Can the police get involved?

Yeah, I mean,

it's just so life-rotating art.

Almost got to the point, Dave, where Kazemberg was reading out the laws of the game.

It got so hypothetical in the end.

It was very, you are the ref.

He's managed to make a coin toss sound so complicated there.

Yeah, I was really baffled.

A lot of people were baffled.

A lot of people really don't know what happens with coin tosses, so maybe it was useful information.

By the way, Dave, completely unacceptable attire on the PSG bench.

At the end, when everyone sort of ran on, it looked like a load of random people had invaded the pitch in civilian world green puffer jackets.

I mean, I don't know.

They looked too generic.

It was like Ronnie Radford 1972 all over again.

I know what you mean.

Yeah, I definitely noticed it, but I...

I didn't mind it.

I didn't mind it.

It's not a bad look.

I'm just saying

there should be a clear delineation between playing staff and members of the public at all times elsewhere uh this is from barcelona versus benfica charlie is any champions league night now complete without this

another good moment down that left-hand side for barcelona and alejandro baldec

Yeah, he does well, Balde, doesn't he?

Go on the outside and cuts it back lovely.

And I think you're right, Sam.

I think he's just stretching a little bit.

Just cuts it back lovely.

I will never take this for granted.

yeah i know i always think like do because we do it so often on it does it actually still happen and so it's great to hear that it still does it's not just in our imaginations and i think the perfect is that he cuts across it lovely so there's a bit of like technical insight as well which he loves dave i'm happy to posit that glenn hoddle doesn't think of this as his thing it's just something that naturally sort of oozes out of him i don't think he treats it as a catchphrase is what i'm saying no i'm sure he yeah maybe he talks about other things in his life like that as well maybe when he's cutting some some vegetables in the kitchen yeah he's got that lovely chopping that what just dicing that carrot lovely

he suits it so well ross fj writes in charlie and says how many times do a team have to win the champions league to know their way around it do you even have to have won it oh yeah i was gonna say i mean athletico madrid they know their way around the champions league i think they probably do they definitely do yeah and they've and they've not won it have they i mean or have they won it they've certainly not won it in recent times no not so not in this era yeah based on that logic, Dave, knowing your way around the Champions League is essentially synonymous with having been around the block a few times, which Athletica Madrid certainly have.

I don't think you have to won it, but Athletica Madrid seems such an extreme case because they've gone so far so many times and they always seem to be the bridesmaids in the Champions League.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you could even take it a step further and say, you know, they know their way around the knockout stages, the latter stages.

I think you would hear that.

There are plenty of clubs who qualify for every season, but, you know, perennial group stage exits.

Last 16 men.

Yeah, yeah, who they

equally they know their way around it.

They just know that eventually they're not going to be in it for much longer.

Do PSG know their way around it?

I mean, that's the thing that should be

where this quote came from, Charlie.

PSG, I mean, but they're a new PSG.

Did this PSG know their way around the Champions League, or maybe they're just unencumbered by the baggage of it all?

But it's the club, isn't it?

It's not the sort of the T.

I mean, a club in a sort of at least, yes, it can be be an era like like we're saying about Athletico Madrid but I don't think it's like the individual team yeah the yeah just the whole vibe of the club yeah everyone involved okay yeah okay Mia so you don't have to have won it to know your way around the Champions League meanwhile by Munich Dave eased to a 5-0 aggregate win over Bayer Levakuzen Tim Lawrence picked up on this quote from Harry Kane very Harry Kane afterward it's never easy to start with a 3-0 lead but the intensity we showed we had the better chances we knew the game would open up in the second half and we took our chances I mean you could just get away with saying anything like that now

It's never easy to start with the 3-0 lead.

How many times has he started with a 3-0 lead in a second half?

Well, he made it for Spurs against, he's actually against Dortmund for Spurs on their way to getting to the final that year.

He does have some experience.

Yeah, was that sound?

They won the game 1-0.

So,

with a goal from him, it had been difficult up until that point.

Then, that goal did.

That was in the away goals here as well.

So, that really did.

His track record is flawless.

It's one of those things, like, I remember once, um,

all it needs is for it to happen once that it is a bit awkward starting with a lead like that, for that then to just completely overtake the fact that on the other 50 occasions, it's fine.

Oh, do you think this was at least partly evidence-based?

I just thought it was, oh, you know, they came here and they made it tough for us.

No, that's what I thought.

No, no, no, no, no.

Not evidence-based in this instance, but I remember like Bayern Munich had a 3-1 lead against Arsenal.

And then they went to the Allianz for the second leg.

And Arsenal weirdly won it 2-0.

Bayne still went through and away goals, but Bayn did seem a bit frazzled.

And it was said, like, well, you know, it's never easy because you don't know.

Do you know how do you see this?

Not at 3-0, though.

But even at 3-1, it's like, yeah, that is a bit awkward.

And maybe one in 50 that will bite you in the ass.

But realistically, it's an enormous advantage that basically never gets overturned, even if it does confuse you a little bit.

I would accept that there is an element of second guessing that goes on in those circumstances.

Like, how do we approach this game?

But yeah, it just seems like a really throwaway line.

News cycle-wise this week, Dave, just a perfect situation.

A relatively absurd, gigantic off-field issue, which was then rightly overshadowed by some actual football that went really, really well.

But that off-field issue was Manchester United revealing their stadium plans, or their hoped-for stadium plans.

They're going to knock down Old Trafford and create this just an absurd situation next door, really.

And it reminded me of this country's real national pastime, which is deciding what proposed new buildings actually look like.

Everyone's got a view, haven't they?

It looked like a circus tent.

The theatre of memes, someone called it.

Very good.

But it is fair to say a completely ludicrous structure.

Yeah.

It took me a little while to had to look at it a few times to really sort of get my head around the whole sort of thing.

And

what always happens as well is you get like the big wide shot.

And yeah, there's this sort of big tent-like structure with the three sort of spires, which kind of looks impressive.

Kind of looks like something you'd expect to see in the Middle East, really, in terms of some of those designs you've had for the stadiums in Qatar and in Saudi.

I think they're designed by the same people, so that sort of makes sense.

But But what's always interesting is the difference between the wide shot and then when you get the zoomed in shot of like actually in and around the stadium, the two things look completely different.

As with all stadiums these days, Charlie, you know, there is this theory that we've reached peak stadium and that all new stadium designs adhere to some hyper-modern rules, the big stand behind the goals.

And once you get beyond the struct the absurd structure from the outside and you get into the stadium, it kind of looks exactly the same as everything else that's been built.

It does look like a World Cup stadium, very much so.

It's of that scale, clearly, because it's 100,000 plus.

But yeah,

it's designed by Norman Foster.

Is it 100,000 plus?

Have you just added the plus in there for no reason?

Have a van.

Why do we always do that?

It's 100,000.

That's the capacity.

100,000, 101,000, 102,000.

But regardless, it is designed by Norman Foster, Charlie, who I think is the Dr.

Richard Stedman of architecture.

He is the go-to guy.

He's the guy.

He's 89.

Yeah.

Is he a bit like Hans Zimmer?

He doesn't actually make any of the music.

He doesn't actually design any of the buildings, but his name's on the project.

Getting underlings to do it and then signing it off under his name.

I said, yes, I see where you're going with this.

A bit like Damien Hurst, I think.

Sort of, is that what you're saying?

But I think he's earned the right, Lord Foster, to not be hands-on with this sort of thing.

He's not going to be laying the bricks.

But I mean, as you say, Charlie, he is 89 years old.

I reckon he must be in kind of how do you find the energy to keep going territory now, like a manager who's done a thousand games.

Do you reckon it's just, yeah, my wife just wants me out of the house.

I was just going to say, I built it.

She wants me out and about designing for the United Stadium.

23 years his junior, his wife, as well.

So

listen.

Fair play.

We should bring in Richard Keyes here, Dave.

Keyes' reaction to Sir Jim Ratcliffe's media appearances this week, and he dropped a whole new nickname, possibly one of his best nicknames yet.

He's decided that Sonny Jim is too dated a political reference, so he's called him the Jim Reaper.

I mean, it is quite good.

He always gets it.

He always gets the mood just right.

The Jim Reaper, that is so good.

He's going to stick to that one, Charlie, for a long time.

Yeah, that's got, I think that's got more longevity than Sonny Jim, probably.

I hope so.

It's great work.

Yeah, I don't know what he's going to come up with next.

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like this next thing from Colin Moore.

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Now, this is peak Nord VPN for me here.

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Sounds like sound effects on a a keyboard.

It's two metallics like chainmail, both of them.

Awful.

Really weird.

Yeah.

What's going on there?

But David's mad the variety of woodwork sounds.

Like, what's going on?

You're a sound man by trade.

Yeah.

I mean, is it like a sort of steel drum?

Depending on which part of the frame gets hit, you'll get a different sound.

It was actually quite steel drummy as well.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to football clichés.

Now Charlie, it didn't feel like a slow news week particularly, but up popped the old perennial

courtesy of BBC Chairman Samir Shah, who has said that match of the day should show fewer highlights and more analysis.

The show should not be built around highlights.

It should be built around analysis and examination of the match to give you as a deeper insight.

Now, this kicked off, this kicked off the most half-hearted of culture wars.

I saw a couple of opinion columns about it, and then a bit of chat, and then everyone just went, I don't give a shit anymore.

I'm sorry.

I can't muster up the energy to pretend I care about this.

It just felt ill-times.

It almost felt like a match of the day controversy that had been that had been scheduled by mistake, and someone had put it out.

Oh, no, I wasn't supposed to go out on Tuesday.

Oh, now we've moved past this.

But I mean, it's sort of the opposite, isn't it, to what is often said by Match of the Day detractors, that there should be less analysis and they should just stick to the football.

But maybe obviously this guy is the chairman of the BBC, so maybe he's sort of looking at it from a value for money point of view in terms of providing the audience with something that, yeah, I don't know.

But

it was a bit weird to see this suddenly pop up.

You're absolutely right.

It did fly in the face of what the audience seems to think is...

Match of the Day is strong at and what they want it to deliver.

Which leads me on to this.

This is from 1972.

It's from the BBC Archives.

and it's a program called Talk Back and it's a studio discussion between members of the public and the head of BBC Sport at the time, Brian Cowgill, about the quality of sports coverage on BBC television.

It is essentially in many ways the first ever Mesa Harlan Dicks for people watching sport.

It's really fascinating to hear the minor bugbears of TV for Ball Watchers 50 years ago and a lot of it translates really, really well to the modern day, Charlie.

Let's hear from the first member of the audience.

They're all really stern people.

It's fantastic.

What an incredible array of people here.

This is the first bugbear from them.

Because commentary is so often unnecessary.

And when they talk through above and over a match, particularly at the climax of that match, it becomes extremely irritating.

So, Charlie, this is the first glimpse of us moving into a sort of...

relatively modern commentary era where commentators were becoming a thing.

And I guess we should sympathise with the sudden like, oh, what?

They're talking over everything.

What?

No, please don't.

Yeah, it's weird because the clip, they show a couple of clips at the start of the programme as examples of the sort of thing that have pissed off viewers recently.

And it's very sort of standard comms.

And what seems to have annoyed them is kind of the volume of, you know, how much they're saying, how overexcited they are.

So whereas a lot of the things that a lot of the complaints are quite universal and still were relevant today, I think that one is,

you probably hear that l I mean, obviously there's the whole thing of like, let the picture speak for themselves but that's in the kind of deeper what makes great commentary rather than a kind of core bugbear you do still hear this opinion nowadays from time to time when when these sorts of debates come up around formats of match of the day or or the coverage of football in general it's not uncommon for some people to go well I just turned the commentary off anyway I put it on mute

that's but that's more sort of particular commentators that irritate them, isn't it?

Well, the next one on the same theme, this is Claire Pernet.

I imagine if she's still alive, she's definitely muting the commentary on Amazon Prime.

Well, I wonder why we have to have a sound radio commentary, because that's what it amounts to.

And if I watch sport, I watch it because I want to hear the sounds of the crowd, the yes, the crowds, the audience there, the oohs and the ahs and the groans.

And I wonder if the commentator really wonders if we can't hear when there's a goal, because we'd hear the shout.

Instead of that, we get this awful non-stop gabble.

She was so close here, Dave, to say that they've never played the game.

I bet she'd love a really good you-ship bastard.

Ah.

I mean, sort of delivered in good spirit there, Charlie.

The intentions are good there.

She wants to get closer to the visceral sort of concept of football, really.

Which isn't really something I've ever thought of that commentators particularly detract from that.

Because they...

Because you can still sort of hear, you can hear it in the moment.

But yeah, maybe we are losing.

You know, we talked about the sounds there.

Maybe, you know, we're losing crossbar sounds and things like that with all the commentators talking over it.

The thing is, though, and obviously this is partly because we're just so used to it, but occasionally, say you're going through some highlights or you're looking for a goal or something on YouTube, and occasionally you'll happen upon a commentary-less

highlight reel, and it's just the crowd sounds.

That's really weird.

I know, but I quite like it, I'd have to say.

It's quite refreshing when you do experience it.

Throughout this kind of 40-minute kind of interrogation, Brian Cowgill, the head of BBC Sport,

he doesn't give them short shrift, but he gives them a massive glare halfway through each question, which is quite intimidating.

But here is his response to those first two complaints.

Of course, we can see all these things for ourselves.

In fact, in the moment of actuality, you'd be quite surprised how much you rely upon the confirmation of the commentator that a goal has been scored or not.

I do sympathise with this partly, Dave.

I mean, we mentioned how it's nice to watch highlights every now and then with just the crowd sound sort of undulating with the action, but when you're watching it live, you do need a little bit of confirmation in your head.

We've become accustomed to commentators confirming what we can already see.

Yeah, definitely.

And just, you know, the general information about who's scored, like, who's on the screen?

Like, your brain doesn't have to do the work, even though it's already there in front of you.

Yeah, I was speaking to a friend of mine actually recently who has just started doing commentary, radio commentary for the first time.

Right.

And he was telling, you know, he was, it was interesting to hear someone sort of taking their first steps.

And he was saying, actually, like, I turned up at this game and I couldn't see any of the numbers because,

you know, because of the colours of the back of the shirts, and that was the same thing.

That would be my least favourite part of being a child.

I had to write down the colours of all their boots next to their names on the team sheet and like try and think of something

in the moment so I could immediately identify

certain players.

And, you know, so if you have to do that yourself, like just in your brain while you're watching football, you know, the commentator's doing it for you.

Also, you know, a mere eight years after this, there was the Clive Allen ghost goal.

Imagine not having commentary for that.

What the fuck's happened there?

It's in the station.

Oh, dear.

Okay, so some commentary sort of irritations to kick us off.

And then now we get into the real path news merchants who just can't handle modern TV.

I think the action replay is so stupid.

I think it's

come down to the level now of stupidity because a sports night with Coleman comes along and then the goals could be discussed at length without having them pushed in after each goal because I think it makes it rather ludicrous.

Claire doesn't like action replays now.

Bloody hell, Claire.

What do you want?

It's ridiculous.

I'm trying to sort of reverse engineer my footballing brain day 50 years and trying to think how could I possibly be annoyed by being presented with a goal again in slow motion after I've just seen it live.

It's funny how

the sort of language and the way she's saying it is very reminiscent of what you would hear people say today when they use the phrase, you know, I don't mind this or that, but I don't want it rammed down my throat

I don't want this goal rammed down my throat again.

I don't want to be reminded of it.

Moving on, Charlie, this is someone who just can't handle more than one camera.

Well, I think sports coverage is ruined by excessive use of the close-up camera.

I think it's common sense to me that to appreciate any sport, you must be able to see 50% of the field.

To me, it's more like a mannequin parade.

Well, now we're out of the way.

I mean, with the clip that we've just seen, I mean, I'm curious now when he shot for that goal,

was there a better position where he could have passed to someone else to put it in the net?

How do you know?

I mean, you've got to be able to see the field of play, surely.

Do you know what, Charlie?

I think there are times in modern football where I do sympathise with this.

Like, show the whole game.

I want to see where that ball's going to go.

Yeah, I mean, he should try watching Premier League years 2001, 2002.

Just a string of crap camera angles.

I'm with him.

I'm with him 100% on this.

I hate Premier League years.

Just show them from a good camera angle where you know what's going on.

Who wants those fancy camera angles where you're like, how far out is what's going on there?

Rubbish.

Why do we need a summary of current events every month?

They got so close to blaming the match director there.

Thankfully, Brian Cowgill wrote to their defense anyway.

Television has attracted that wider audience by not showing the tactics of a match in

chessboard fashion.

But it has, by closer cameras, been able to show that outside of the tactics, there is a clash of wills and temperament going on down there, of drama and emotion,

which to many people, not necessarily the specialists interested in sport, has become one of the most attractive features of this coverage.

Spot on, Brian Cowgill.

Absolutely spot on.

That's proper TV man's response here.

And now, just to show this is the most timeless football TV bugbear of all, Charlie, this guy is, I'd like to appeal for a wider coverage of teams and personalities on football matches on the television.

We seem to get a great deal of Manchester United, Leeds, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester United again.

And we see these managers, Don Revy, Joe Mercer, Don Revy, Brian Clough, Don Revy.

Can't we have a wider selection of teams and a wider selection of personalities interviewed on matches and on sports programmes?

How do you select the teams and the people that you televise?

Such a great complainy voice.

I love it.

Yeah, I mean, what would Alan King make of the current news cycle?

And, you know, the Manchester United run of FA Cup pits.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, they're on again, are they?

Be turning in his grave.

May still be alive.

Who knows?

Maybe.

Next up.

Why can't they show Bradford Park Avenue?

Scarborough.

I love it.

That's what you've gone for.

And then finally.

A child pipes up about, well, I think it's the only thing that a child cares about when it comes to match of the day.

I think with children of my age,

10 o'clock we can usually see the first half but then have to go to bed.

But with children even younger than ourselves that stay up to watch the match in school next morning, they've got bags under their eyes down the age.

Well, there's a straightforward criticism.

And I do sympathise with you, believe me, because it is a...

It's one of the most frequent sources of complaint and correspondence that we get.

However,

the football authorities, again after many years of

discussion and negotiation with the television authorities,

believe

that

football on the screen before 10 o'clock in the evening of the day the match is played is likely seriously to affect the attendances at the football grounds.

I didn't know the blackout used to be 10 p.m., Dave.

Wow.

And did you know that child, Anthony Jones, grew up to be a football commentator?

Did he, really?

No way.

Indeed.

He's on the world feed.

He's a world feedsman.

Wow.

Wow.

Fair play.

So, yeah, the circle of life.

I mean, I do remember being quite, you know, when it moved, when the premiership took over from Match of the Day in 2001 and it moved to 7 or 7.30 and shit, and there was a huge culture war about and everyone was up and I was like quite up for that.

Yeah, fair.

But

on the other side, it's funny to hear a kid say that it should be on earlier because that was sort of part of the excitement.

Like, getting, I mean, depending on whether you were allowed to watch it, but if you were allowed to watch Match of the Day when you were, say, seven or eight years old, it's like really exciting thing.

But you would often fall asleep for the second half of it.

That's why I remember when it was set, I was like, oh, that's quite good.

And also, because sometimes you'd have to wait, and the recording wouldn't always work.

And oh, when do you have a mistake?

You missed the last minute.

I remember like VHS recording some, and that was obviously a bit sketchier.

And when it did, waking up on a Sunday morning and it hadn't recorded was just so devastating.

Yeah.

But on that one occasion that you made it through to Gerald Sinstadt at Hillsborough

at midnight.

Yeah, a real arduous task.

Right, that wraps that one up.

Yeah, fascinating.

Look back at 50 years of TV watching Bug Bears there.

Let's stick with Match of the Day, though, because University of Cambridge ace Dr.

Joseph Powell was watching MOTD on Saturday.

Crystal Palace versus Ipswich Town and recent clichés quiz brute Mark Scott on commentary.

And here's his mind as a

Dr.

Powell says, Charlie, something in me feels this doesn't work for a team taking a 1-0 lead.

Even aside from Palace's superior possession and XG, surely it's more appropriately employed after an unfancied away team sees their 1-0 lead turn to a 2-1 deficit when a centre-back bundles the ball over the line from a scrappy corner.

In summary, Charlie,

were Ipswich's hearts really broken by a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace in the 82nd minute?

It's maybe a touch on the hyperbolic side, but if I'd heard it, I don't think I'd have thought too much of it.

Just in the sense, like, they've had a really crap season, Ipswich, haven't they?

And this would have been, I have to say, I haven't seen the game or any of the highlights, but I'm guessing they were battling really hard.

Looked like they were going to come away with a creditable point, which would have been a...

you know, a really big result, not to avoid relegation, but just a rare positive result.

And then to concede late on,

that's pretty gutting for a team, I think.

Is there a compound effect if you keep having these sorts of moments happen to you?

Okay.

Does it make it a bit more heartbreaky?

Because it's just unlucky in love again.

And I suppose if you have your resolve broken, then your heart's going to get broken soon after that.

But in Mark Scott's defense, I really liked his Barry Davis quip earlier on in the highlights, which was a really classy touch.

All even.

Maybe.

All was even.

I do think...

There's enough time left.

It's 82 minutes.

There's definitely enough time for some unbreaking of hearts to take place there yeah possibly i just i didn't feel like it was a grand enough stage didn't feel like a sort of you know cataclysmic enough event but yeah okay we move on footballers names in things just one for you this time

i love it it comes from jacob it's from a very very old episode of traffic cops as an italian chap gets booked for stopping his van in the wrong place my mum hasle road can you do me a vehicle check please jim had done some checks on the van it's a white far transit man he pnced the registration and got the keeper details.

Pasquale, what?

The registered keeper was the only person that was insured for the van.

He'd given his name as Paco or something, and he said he was the keeper's brother.

Right, what's your boss's name?

Steve.

Steve what?

Copel.

Steve Copel.

Why is it funny the way he says it?

Steve Coppel.

It wasn't where I didn't go where I thought he was going to go.

No.

To be fair, he looks like he could have played for Palace in the 90s.

Yeah, Pasquiar.

El Piero sort of leads to him.

Oh,

fantastic.

Next up, Dave, you're going to like this.

It came from Liam.

It's from the latest edition of WWE Raw on Netflix.

Okay.

Xavier, I should say, still

seeking his first singles championship in WWE, the former king of the ring.

And now, LWO is going to get the Madison Square Garden Faithful what they want.

A knowledgeable crowd.

A knowledgeable crowd in Madison Square Garden.

I can tell you that much.

Liam asks, Dave, the commentator referred to the New York crowd as the Madison Square Garden Faithful.

Can a crowd be described as such when attending a touring show without a geographical tie to a local team?

Well, not really these days, but historically, Madison Square Garden was very much the home venue of what was then the WWF.

That still only makes it the Wembley of WWE, doesn't it?

I suppose so.

Yeah.

I mean, you could still have the faithful of a certain...

I mean, they're all rooting for certain wrestlers, though, right, Charlie?

Yeah, or I mean it could work if it was just you know Madison Square Garden regulars who just go to everything at the vent you know they're just kind of the public

shoulders.

Exactly.

Right next up this came from Coldmine on Reddit.

Now I mean the the headline writing of of local online journalism has clearly gone to shit.

It's all algorithm driven.

There's lots of dirty tricks being pulled, but I've never really seen this before.

It's a story in the Sunderland Echo about Hollywood star Karen Gillen, who has revealed that she has Sunderland roots.

And the story continues, says, the Scottish actress is said to be worth a whopping $8 million, according to Spanish publication Marker, which is funny enough in itself.

So that leads to the headline, Charlie, of £6.1 million Hollywood and Marvel star delights fans with surprise Sunderland allegiance reveal on social media.

I've never seen anybody other than a footballer have their name or status prefixed with some sort of financial financial sum like this.

It's mad.

We should extend it to all sorts of things.

Yeah, it's really very news now, sort of describing someone in this way.

Yeah, and just think like, could you do like cumulative wealth that you've had over your whole career, like a sort of all your transfer fees added up together?

Although I suppose that's just what it is.

That's what your wealth is.

I want to see headlines, Dave, like 29.6 billion Sergei Ratcliffe reveal stadium plans.

Yeah.

But I like the fact that we've got the 0.1 because they've converted it from dollars into pounds.

It just makes it feel like a more sort of 90s, late 90s transfer, doesn't it?

6.25 would have been absolute class.

But 6.1 certainly lends it a football-y feel for the Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Who Star.

Right, we'll take a quick break and back very shortly.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to football clichés.

Thomas Tuchel Dave is going to name his first England squad.

on Friday ahead of the World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.

I'm duty bound to say ahead of the tournament X games against country Y and country Z and coincidentally coincidentally you are relaunching your side project with not the top 20 aces George Ellick and Ali Maxwell the England pod it's back and you haven't had your fill it's back and it's back for good yeah so we we had a bit of a trial run in the summer around the Euros and that was over on the not the top 20 feed but now we've got our own podcast feed it's on YouTube it's everywhere you get your pods.

I'll put the links in the description of this podcast.

So right now, as you hear this, get in the description and follow us and download us and listen because we're starting from scratch.

We're starting from rock bottom.

So we need all the help we can get to get people listening and following.

We're going to get to the very top.

Yeah, Charlie, this is Dave's official side project.

And I've always wondered what band members think about when on and when their bassist or whatever goes off and makes the music they actually want to make.

But I don't feel offended.

All the best.

Good luck to him.

Yes.

I want him to be happy.

I want him to be happy.

Dave, you're going to be covering the men's team, the lionesses, and the under-21s on this pod.

What about England B?

Giving us an England B episode.

Well, we'll be calling for it to come back for sure.

I think we are going to do England C at some point.

Oh, class.

Would listen.

Which is, if you don't know what that is, that is the non-based non-league England.

I love England C.

I just, I love the concept of it and I want to know everything about it.

Right.

I asked on Twitter recently which currently uncapped player is going to be England's next one cap wonder.

Now, it felt like a throwaway question at the time, Charlie, like, who's going to win a cap?

But it's such a precise thing, winning one cap and then never getting capped again.

And then having to predict that in advance, which has never really been done, let's face it, is really tricky.

Like, who are you picking?

Yeah, it is a very different thing.

And the way I did it was to sort of break down some of the

kind of broad themes that you get of one cap wonders.

And yeah, obviously it's hard because you don't know, you don't always know in the moment that, you know, these guys aren't going to go on and have great careers.

You look at One Cat Wonders.

Some you do, yeah.

I mean, so broadly, I think some of the One Cat Wonders are the kind of lifetime achievement, all right, go on then, have a cap kind of character.

Someone like Kevin Davis was like, you've earned this, like, you've been toiling away, like, you're never going to.

It's time to see what all the fuss is about.

Yeah.

Have your cap, be out your depth, and then we can all kind of move on.

Right, okay.

And so that that's one category what another is that they just were quite an exciting player and for whatever reason they didn't kick on the other is when they're part of a good upwardly mobile team and it's kind of felt like well we should pick someone from there like they are yeah they've been a real breath of fresh air this season so let's get one of their lads in at least um and then that this is the sort of wild card but this is particularly relevant to Thomas Tuchel coming in is the Chris Powell, who did actually get five England caps, but the kind of, well, I need to show I've been watching everyone and it's been worth me kind of travelling up and down the country.

So I've got to pick one sort of random character.

So those are my

broad categories.

Some kind of appear that way.

So those were my broad categories, and from there, I was able to kind of think about who would fit into each of them at the moment.

So I had sort of promising young talent given his chance who then, either through injury or dramatic loss of form, just never gets anywhere near it again.

For example, Nathaniel Chalabar, Ryan Mason, John Flanagan, Dean Ashton.

And they're obviously the hardest to predict as well.

Dean Ashton only got one cap.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah, because he got it, just the injury just did for him.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeah, I think, yeah, your lifetime achievements.

Yeah, that's a really good shout.

Sort of late developers.

You have this kind of consistently well-performing Premier League players.

They get a chance, but then it just becomes apparent immediately that they are just not going to cut it at international levels.

Oh, no.

So Lee Bowyer, David Dunn, Joey Barton, Ryan Shawcross, Lee Henry.

Shore doesn't exist.

But you know,

those sorts of players.

Unfairly, though,

it's an unfair perception of that, though.

Well, I don't know, but they don't go.

It's not like they then go on to not be any good anymore.

Their career continues on the same trajectory domestically, but they just never get called back to England.

And maybe that was more of a thing in the sort of noughties and 90s than it is now.

But there is another one as well, which maybe could be relevant to the moment we're in now.

So if you have a spell where there's a caretaker manager for England or an interim manager who has a couple of games, they sometimes pick a random player that then the next permanent manager is just not interested in.

Sending a message to the FA.

Seth Johnson had one under, I think it was Wilkinson.

Fraser Campbell was picked by Stuart Pierce for his one game in charge against the Netherlands.

And beware, Taylor Harwood Bellis.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We'll get on to the potential pending One Cat wonders in a moment, but let's have some names for our future one-cap wonders.

I've got Jacob Murphy, Max Kilman, Keene Lewis Potter, and Leif Davis because he's left-footed.

But then other players will come back and sort of he won't be needed.

Donnie and Mui said Trevor Chalabar, who I was stunned to find hadn't been capped for England yet.

Dan Byrne, equally so.

I think they're like two caps or something by now.

James Garner, Jack Harrison.

These are all exactly the right sort of strata of players, Charlie.

Yeah, going through some of my categories.

In the kind of lifetime achievement, all right, go on on then ones i had dan burn i also this is a wild card and i don't think we're necessarily i think he's i think he got too badly injured but solely march is 30 has been a solid premier league player plays for quite a you know a good has played for a good premier league team i like it uh could he sort of work his way in and then in the kind of um part of a really exciting team we should probably pick someone up i have got marcus tavernier at bournemouth um who's having a really good season and you know is part of this really exciting team and then looking at the brighton players, because they're sort of in that category a bit as well, Jack Hinchelwood.

I don't know if he's too highly rated.

I think he's quite well thought of, so might get more than one cap.

Still quite young.

Yeah, and then another, and I don't think this guy's necessarily right, but you do get quite a few goalkeepers knocking around.

Yeah.

And I just wondered, I know he's falling out of favor, but if Jason Steele, because he plays in quite a specific way, could there be an England manager at some point who's like, we've got to be playing out from the back?

Need a different dimension on the bench.

Yeah.

and Steele, who's quite

continental, I suppose, in how he's been told to play out from the back.

Might he be one?

And then, because then the other team is Forrest, but they don't really have it, like Ryan Yates, but he's

City Grand against Senegal, though.

Yeah, I just don't think he's really good enough.

He doesn't even pull that lever.

He doesn't even play, you know, he's home to the normally off the bench for them, I think.

Well, I've got Elliot Anderson, who is more of a vibe, but I think

he'll get more English.

Every background I read about him just makes him sound like fucking unreal, like an absolute machine.

I had Jacob Murphy and Leif Davis.

Yeah, Lee, like we've already got a few injuries at left back going into this camp.

Like Lewis Hall is out, so

you know, Chilwell's not replaying.

It'd probably be Miles Lewis Skelly.

But yeah, Leith Davis, like not completely out of the question for him to get a cap at some point.

Murphy, like he's no, he's not a young, he's not a young player anymore, but he just he's sort of having a good, he has good spells where he looks like he's a really dangerous player.

But we have got so many options.

That's the

problem for him.

But all it takes is a couple of injuries.

And as Charlie said, with like Chris Powell, just the new manager, if he just wants to try, if he just spotted something that maybe us as sort of seasoned England fans just wouldn't look at, he might just chuck a wildcard in there.

Also, Jacob Murphy scores 100 out of 100 on his Top Chops card for being a good sort of, you know, presence around the dressing room like he's clearly a great lad as well um okay so yeah love these names and one of them will come to fruition we're going to need to monitor this we need we need like the turkish tracker for our turkish super league 11 someone to monitor how their fortunes go but let's look at the players who currently are on one cap and look at their prospects of staying there eternally i've basically worked my way back dave chronologically through players who currently have one cap.

Taylor Harwood Bellis is the most recently capped England international.

He is ripe for this because through no fault of his own, although he is a little bit on the short side for a centre-half as far as I can see, we're kind of relatively blessed in that position.

I don't think he's going to get his way back in.

Yeah, and he might be affected by being part of a historically bad Southampton team as well.

Definitely.

We did score on his England debut, which is a nice, maybe that's a nice thing.

One cap wonder and scored on his debut.

You don't want another cap you've scored on your debut.

Yeah, you you can start a podcast with David Nugent and Francis Jeffers.

I wonder what they'd call it.

Yeah, a bit of a slam dunk.

Moving back, Tino Liveramento, no, he's sorted, I think.

Jared Branthwaite is probably okay.

He's young enough and sort of well thought of enough.

Adam Wharton, England's Euro 2024 hero in Hypothesis is going to be fine, you'd imagine.

Edion Ketia is next.

Yeah,

I saw him on the list and the only thing is he is quite streaky and it's possible he will go on another run.

I think there was talk because he only played in a friendly, didn't he?

And there was talk of him playing for another country.

If he remains a one-cap wonder, he'll have,

he could potentially find himself in quiz question territory in the future.

Because one-cap wonder, but also the record goalscorer for the under-21s.

Oh, I like it.

Yeah, especially if he does then go on to play for Ghana and we kind of forget that he was ever, that he ever did really play for England.

That puts him so close to the threshold, but I'll tell you who's right on the cusp of the threshold.

It's 27-year-old Leicester fullback James Justin.

He is teetering on the edge of one cap wonderness forever, isn't he, I think?

He can play both sides.

I know.

Just helps his case a little bit.

Might get him into the 28 or 29 man scored, whatever it gets to, by the time we get to, I don't know, the next World Cup.

No, no, probably too late for him then.

But after that, you move one person back chronologically and you get to Patrick Bamford.

Definitely one cap.

The most recently capped one capper whose OCW status is essentially confirmed, surely.

Like, this is not even a debate, is there?

Has to be.

He's nowhere, yeah, he's nowhere near it.

You just can't see, you just can't see him unless, unless, like, Bamford,

to a lesser extent in Ketio, but if they have sort of a late-career spell, like Danny Welbeck is having, and there's some calls for, like, you know what?

I know he's 34, but we could do worse than getting Bamford on the plane to the 2030 World Cup or something like that.

If the Bourne falls a penalty area.

Yeah.

He just he scores goals.

That's what he does.

Yeah.

Harvey Barnes.

I mean, I'm surprised he's only got one.

I think he'll get one.

Yeah, he feels a bit better than that.

Late sub in a friendly, just to get him his second cap.

He's still only 26.

Yeah.

I think he's got a chance if he can just get himself fit.

If he stays at Newcastle, certainly, because they'll presumably on a relatively upwards trajectory.

But there we are.

As I was looking through some of these one-cap wonders, I sort of, if you just just expand it to two and three caps, and if you have two and three cap wonders, all of these people essentially, they are spiritually one cap wonders.

Ben Godfrey, Dean Henderson, Paul Konchesky, Zach Knight, Nikki Shorey, Bobby Zamora, Leon Osman, Wilfred Zaha, Richard Wright, Danny Drinkwater, Tom Heaton, Danny Ings, Aaron Cresswell, Callum Chambers, Gabby Agbonlahore, and Jack Rodwell.

They've all got two or three caps each, but basically they should be in the one cap wonder club.

Just goes to show it's so easy to fall off the one cap wonder cliff into a two or three cap wonder territory.

So yeah, it's a very precise science.

So there you go.

England knowledge from the England podman.

Get on it.

Rights.

Next up, Richard writes in and says, tonight, Charlie, I witnessed a man earnestly and on request explain the offside rule using napkins, straws, and other bar paraphernalia.

Have you ever seen this organically happen in real life?

I don't know if I have.

What's the problem?

I have a vague memory of doing this once to be used for this.

I think it is like the salt and pepper shakers.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's because you're imagining doing it kind of

slightly human-shaped.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, yeah.

You can kind of.

But that was more, wasn't that more like Ron Greenwood doing the tactics in the calf after West Ham games or whatever?

That was like that sort of the salt and pepper pots are

most referred to in that scenario.

But it works there offside as well, for sure.

I actually

very recently found myself in a situation having to explain the offside rule to my girlfriend's mum.

And we were in a car.

So

I used,

I was referring to the people around us.

So I said, so if I'm, if I'm here,

I'm on side.

But if I was ahead of the person in the passenger seat, I'd be offside.

it's great you've just adapted to the conditions around you that's fantastic

that sounds a bit like getting Mark Clattenberg to explain coin tossing quite yeah it didn't quite land I don't think she really came away from it any wiser on a salt and pepper shaker tangent I was on holiday about six seven years ago and and the salt and pepper shakers were made by Peugeot really bad I know who knew they were in that racket turns out as I understand it salt and pepper shakers predate car manufacturing for Peugeot so fingers in lots of pies The Tesla of their day, presumably.

Anyway, speaking of off-side explanations, this came from Senior Big Head on Reddit, and it's an old video of English referee Ken Aston of Battle of Santiago 1962 fame, and he also invented red and yellow cards, of course.

Here he is explaining to an American where the term off-side came from.

I never knew this.

And these boys in the game of soccer who used to shy away from where it was all happening used to hang about near the opponent's goal.

The law originally called them sneakers, and then the law called them loiterers.

And

the law said that a boy, a player in that particular position,

defined in the law, was out of his team.

He was out of his side.

He was off his team.

He was off his side.

He was offside.

Am I going out of my mind?

Because that just seems like I just never would have considered that that was the reason.

And yet, fair enough.

I mean, offside just implies he's, you know, off the side of play.

Like, now it makes no sense to explain it that way.

But yeah, cheers, Ken Aston.

And so well explained as well.

Mark Clattam

could learn a thing or two about succinct explanations.

Just to round this off,

the late, great Ken Aston.

Everyone who's listening to this needs to visit his official website or purportedly his official website, kenaston.org.

It is the most old-fashioned website I've ever seen in my life, and it's amazing.

You should visit it immediately and enjoy it for at least 30 seconds.

Right, next up, Adventurous West writes in Dave and says, I was talking to a friend of a friend in a pub the other night.

Naturally, we used football as a conversational starting point.

After learning he was a Manchester City fan, it wasn't long before we were talking about that Aguero moment.

Astonishingly, it transpired that he thinks the Guy Mowbray version is the iconic version that everyone refers to when simply saying Aguero, whereas I was firmly in the Martin Tyler camp.

I'm right about this, aren't I?

Or am I going insane?

Can we just reassure this guy?

Of course he's right about this.

It's Martin Tyler's most iconic moment, arguably the most iconic moment in Premier League history.

You know, Guy Mowbray, I mean, I could even tell you what the Guy Mowbray moment was.

I'm not sure I'd even be able to say, I mean, I could probably make an educated guess that it was Guy Mowbray who did the Batch of the Day commentary, but I wouldn't know that.

I mean, because also then there's the whole drink it in stuff from Martin Tyler.

That's incredible.

No fault of Guy Mowbray's own, of course, but that's just,

you know, Tyler was on the live game.

Yeah, he was seven hours behind.

But I don't,

I guess this is roughly analogous, Charlie, to someone thinking that a version of a song is the original.

And it turns out it was like the Bee Gees actually did it 30 years earlier.

Oh, actually, no.

no, it wasn't West Life.

Well, I remember on

Boyz Own was not their original version.

Um,

I remember on They Think It's All Over,

um, they had the commentator who did,

who wasn't Kenneth Wilson home, who was doing the other, I think, BBC and ITV.

It was on, it was broadcast twice.

And there's all, there was also, there was obviously another live commentary of that famous Jeff Hurst goal, which has been completely forgotten about, um, but does exist.

You know, it is out there, but

who knows?

You know, no one remembers what he says.

And I fear the same fate, apart from this one guy, has happened to Guy Mowbray.

This guy's just supposed to be going around telling people about that famous Guy Mowbray moment.

God, awful.

Anyway, I want to end today's adjudication panel.

With this, it came from Chris Coyne.

It's from the great British menu on BBC Two.

Hi, Chef.

Hi, Johnny.

How are you, Johnny?

Nice to meet you, Marley.

First time for everyone.

This is my second time.

Didn't do so hot the last time.

Being a returning chef, I think you're expected to go a wee bit further.

If it comes to competition, I would say Marty's going to be the one to beat.

Marty has a bit of an advantage because he's been here before.

He knows the kitchen.

He knows the layout.

He knows the kitchen.

Are we ever going to get bored of this?

No.

Look, in a big professional kitchen like that, I think it's very important to know where things are.

Maybe in a professional context, you need instinctively, Charlie, to turn, like scanning.

You need to know where everything is around you because you've got to work quickly.

Yeah, I think this is a literal use of it where it is really an advantage.

I think what's good about football is that it's so kind of vague and meaningless.

Like, you know, he knows his way around the place or whatever.

I appreciate this might sound like I'm making it up.

I swear to you.

I swear to you, I'm not, right?

I did sort of have this situation at Christmas this year.

So we went round my cousin's house at Christmas and my sister cooked the Christmas dinner and she didn't use those particular words, but she did talk about how her unfamiliarity with the kitchen hampered her efforts.

It's a huge deal.

You're so instinctively accustomed to your own kitchen.

You know what you can turn, you can open a drawer, something's there.

If you're in an Airbnb or something, it's all over the shop.

Where's the fucking sword?

Mikel Arteta used that analogy.

He said something like, as a manager, what you're trying to do is when you first come in, it is like you're in a new kitchen and you don't know where the knives are and whatever.

You need to get it to a point where it's all so automatic, like when you're in a kitchen you're comfortable with, so the players know where to be at different moments.

So it works perfectly.

Then you find Lewis Skelly and Winery in a drawer, tucked away, a little pull-out bit, and you're away.

Yeah, it's right.

There's loads in here.

There's loads of lift backs in here.

It's fine.

Don't worry.

Oh, cool.

We're sorted.

And well, that sorts our podcast too.

Thanks to you, Charlie Equishaire.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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