xG's latest victim, Jamie O'Hara vs the RAF & football's goldfish bowls

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

Is Gas going on out of a crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I see!

Brilliant!

But jeez!

He's round the goalkeeper!

He's done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and kung fu kicked a supporter who was eye without a shadow of a doubt getting him lit.

Oh, I say!

It's amazing!

He does it tame and tame and tame again.

Break up the music!

Charge a glass!

This nation is going to dance all night!

The final ruling on which David Brent sound was emitted by John Champion.

Ali McCoyst's San Ciro vindication.

Jose Mourinho going through the Stamford Bridge motions.

Martin O'Neill versus Jamie O'Hara in the incredulous footballing disdain stakes.

The scoring for fun threshold.

threshold, footballers' names in leading 1930s entomologists, loyal bus depot servants, football's archetypal goldfish bowl, and the godfather of football idioms threatens to make a comeback.

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 joining me.

Charlie Eccleshere, how you doing?

I'm very well, thank you.

And David Walker, how are are things things are good four days to go lads until cliché's live tour kicks off in brighton at comedia on monday the 6th of october um dave we've had some anxious correspondence about what the post-london pub will be we haven't addressed that yet apparently can you confirm yes well the fact it's a sunday night does complicate things slightly in that some of the pubs will probably shut a bit earlier there are some really good pubs in and around the hackney sort of central area but i think for convenience sake and for the crucial extra hour that you get with the weather spoons, it's going to be across the road to Baxter's Court.

It's literally across the road.

So I think just pile in there.

It's big.

It's a spoons.

You know what you're going to get from it.

It's going to do a job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Across the road.

Can't beat across the road.

There could be a little splinter group that might go to the Cop Tavern just down the road or something if they really do prefer.

Splinter groups are fine.

That's fine.

Do what you like.

Do what your heart tells you.

If you're coming to the live shows and you want to contribute, get your questions in.

There is space for us to address your concerns about the language of football.

But if you just simply want to come to the shows, go to tickets.footballcliches.com.

Right, the midweek adjudication panel starts with this.

We enjoyed John Champion reacting to Graeme Lasseau's joke about Nick Voltamada.

And we received dozens of messages about this from very proud office heads trying to find the exact David Brent noise that we thought John Champion sounded like.

Here is a reminder of Champions' reaction to Graeme Lasseau's Voldemort-themed quip.

So far, he's more of a hero than a villain.

I mean, it instantly rang bells, didn't it, Charlie?

Yeah, there is actually a clip as well that I thought of that has slightly been cancelled, I think, as a clip because it's got a not very nice word in it.

But there's a kind of perfect ah from Brent after that, as well as some of the other candidates that I've seen.

And that one was sent in as well, I think.

I've studied it and it didn't quite make the top three.

Here are the three candidates from the office that sound a bit like John Champion's reaction to Graeme Lasseau's joke.

So far, he's more of a hero than a villain.

Ah.

Just click on that.

That's.

I feel like it's just a combination of all three, Dave, in the end.

Yeah.

I'm annoyed, actually, that I didn't manage to pinpoint at least one of them when we were thinking of it.

It has been a long time since I've actually watched the original Office, but Christ, I watched it a lot in those years.

I'm quite quite office-coded, Charlie, but I'm not office-coded enough to just pick these things right off the top of my head.

But this was a challenge, and I'm glad we got there.

And what piece of mid-week adjudication panel content this is, by the way?

Yeah, yeah, there are a few, and I guess because that noise is so

it's almost like almost pinning the exact moments because there are so many variants on that noise that he makes.

But yeah, those are those are some good attempts.

Over to the Champions League now.

Here's Ali McCoyst, Chelsea versus Ben Fica, lamenting the imminent demise of the San Ciro.

Just remembering Maurinio's time, it into that news today, Ali, that San Ciro, it would appear, is going to be demolished.

Yep, or at least 90% of it, anyway.

Well,

that was to play football.

I'd watch football.

So when I heard this, Dave, I suddenly felt very compelled to go all Corel Prince HMRC of football about this because I thought to myself straight away, has Ali McCoyst ever played at San Siro?

Because I thought, how could he have possibly ever played there?

World Cup 1990.

they were all in Genoa and Turin.

I just checked.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Good work from you.

So I thought, hmm.

So

I checked the Wikipedia page for Rangers in Europe.

There, I found the second round of the UEFA Cup 1984-85, Intermilan 3, Rangers-nil, and Ali McCoist on the team sheet.

So he has played at the Giuseppe Miazza after all.

Nice.

Yeah, okay.

Fair play.

Yeah, Ali wouldn't lie.

Ali wouldn't make this stuff up, would he?

Yeah, never doubt Ali McCoyst, Charlie, I think, is the moral at the end of this story.

Yeah, I wouldn't have leapt at that as being like, oh, you know,

he's got that wrong.

Yeah, he

seems pretty straight.

I mean, again, unless he just had wildly confused something, which is possible.

I had a moment last week, actually, where I won't say which one.

It might become clear in time, but

I was with a notable footballer, and I felt like I was Carell Prince in real time because he was talking about cup finals, and he was sure that he'd played against Man United in a a FA Cup final for Spurs.

And we were all like,

I don't think that happened.

Are you sure?

And it turns out it was a League Cup final.

Was it Jamie O'Hara?

It wasn't Jamie O'Hara.

A bit better than Jamie O'Hara.

More on him later.

It's funny, isn't it?

Like it was saying, you know, you just sort of think,

how could you not remember that you were in a League Cup final rather than an FA Cup final?

But it's a real problem for these guys.

Hey, look, in 20 years' time, you might be getting the Marcus Lipton Cup mixed up with, you know, whatever.

With the Donovan Thomas.

The Fred Savage Cup or whatever it is.

There's a lot of cups in Sunday League.

Anyway, the big story of Chelsea versus Ben Fika Charlie was, of course, the return of Josem Rinho again to Stanford Bridge, not for the first time.

In the build-up to this game, I swear I saw that 2004 press conference of his about 15 times in 24 hours.

I'm trying to think of a press conference more looks back on than that one.

Maybe, maybe his football heritage one.

I mean, like in both of those, I can picture very clearly what he's wearing, how he looks, just the general kind of aesthetics aesthetics of the room.

But yeah, I mean, that one's got to be right up there

that moment.

He gave a very long press conference in the day before the game, Dave, which was which was lauded as box office and blockbuster, by the way.

Just him talking about Chelsea.

He said he wasn't a blue.

Then he later clarified that he is still a blue, which was really good for him to clarify for the massed ranks.

It just simply was not box office.

I'm sorry.

It wasn't.

And I was actually watching it and we we covered this a bit in the Dreamland episode, which went up this week.

And I sort of felt a bit sad watching it.

There's sort of a melancholy air to Mourinho now, especially sat in that seat at Stamford Bridge.

And you just, you remember what he was like when he turned up and in those glory years.

And it's like, you know, it's fine.

He's got old.

He's just got older.

And you lose that.

that fire that you have in your belly.

No question.

But you'd think, Charlie, that Mourinho could allow himself like a Mick McCarthy, Steve Bruce phase of his career where everything just becomes he becomes really philosophical about everything and just laughs everything off.

I think that's what we need from Mourinho now, not just

this, really charming.

He's actually really charmless now.

There's not a lot of charm there, which I'm quite surprised by because

he's still inherently got it.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because a lot of it, Michael Cox was saying this earlier, a lot of that, like the press conference and everything was geared towards trying to make him seem charming and classy.

I mean, like, they wheeled out an old guy, didn't they?

You wheeled him out.

Not literally.

They wheeled his fine.

They brought out an old bloke who, you know,

beloved member of Chelsea staff for Mourinho to kind of talk to and show how.

Yeah, there was one on match day minus one and one after the game as well.

They bookended it with old friends.

Yeah, exactly.

So everything seemed to be geared towards making him seem charming and classy and down to earth and all of this stuff.

Poor old Mourinho though, Dave,

he felt obliged to play up to it.

He got booked for remonstrating with the referee.

Then he came on the pitch about five minutes later to gather the ball.

It's like, oh, I've got to do something.

It's not soccerade.

Oh, I've got to look box office.

How do I look box office?

Fucking box office.

Right, next up, Charlie, this is an absolute gold standard knows a thing or two.

It's from a story about Union Saint-Gilois captain Christian Burgess, once of Portsmouth, now gearing up for the Champions League.

And on the BBC, the intro goes, as a history graduate who studied World War I, Union Saint-Gerois captain Christian Burgess knows more than most about the importance of Belgian resilience in the face of a richer opponent with greater resources.

This is class.

Yeah, I wonder if it was pointed out to him that not long before the First World War, Belgium themselves didn't treat some weaker nations especially well.

So

they might also know a thing or two about repression and those sort of things.

I like that, Charlie.

Your continued come and get me plea to the rest is history.

Yeah, I know.

They have actually, well, they've done two really good series recently.

One was on the First World War, but one was also on Belgium and the Congo, which I would, I genuinely would really recommend.

It's definitely what you need in your life, Charlie, to be on more podcasts at the moment.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think I've quite hit saturation point.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Fair play to you.

Can you do an episode about real tennis or something?

Continue with them.

Yeah.

How do you think about real tennis, Charlie?

Is there any snobbery there?

Real tennis is a, I mean, it's a bit of a joke of a sport.

It's a joke.

The old paddle.

You mentioned Jamie O'Hara moments ago.

We'll get on to him in a second.

But what a head-to-head this is.

Martin O'Neill and Jamie O'Hara within hours of each other with their very respective disdain for a certain concept.

We'll kick off with Martin O'Neill.

Here he is on Talk Sport talking about XG.

Why is expected goals

and the criticism of expected goals outdated?

It's straightforward.

Well, it's good enough for Pet.

Expected goals.

What do you mean?

Does he agree with that?

Does he?

Well, if he does, well, then he's not the manager I think he is.

Why is it expected goals?

Why is it clueless?

It's clueless because it doesn't mean anything.

The game's about football.

It's about winning football.

It's counterintuitive, actually.

What?

It's counterintuitive.

It's actually counterintuitive.

Because it means nothing.

I mean, what's it basically?

Do you know what it is?

Because I'm not sure how it is.

Do you agree with me?

I'm agreeing.

I've got to say that.

But at the end of the day, if Brian Clough or Bill Shankly came in at half-time and said,

Peter Wood, you've just missed two goals.

But do you know what?

You've got an expected thing.

He wouldn't even be on in the second half.

Never mind anything else.

It's nonsense.

Charlie, speaking of once great football figures sort of losing their charm, what happened to Martin O'Neill's charm?

His face at the end, which obviously you can't see on this podcast, like screwed up in fury about his absurd interpretation of not only XG itself, but what everyone else thinks XG is.

Where are we with this?

Yeah, also he's not big on XG.

Pep never talks about XG.

I mean, doesn't talk about it.

I'm sure he acknowledges its existence as a fairly helpful statistic.

But what's so funny as well about that Cluffy or Shankly thing is that at its heart, I can well imagine a story whereby something like, you know, we went in, it was amazing actually, because we went in 3-0 down and I'd missed, I'd missed two or three chances.

And Cluffy said, you know, I'd rather you were missing the chances.

You keep getting them, you'll score.

And I went out and got two.

Which is basically what XG is.

It's just saying you're getting the, you've got, you are creating chances.

That's good.

You're doing it.

It's like, it's.

It's when you don't get the chances that I'll be worried.

Exactly.

Like, Martin, you've basically been saying, we've all, football men have been promoting kind of what XG is saying for years without realising it.

And do you know what?

If you, if you gave him that cold, hard logic, Dave, I think he'd be all right with it.

I think he'd be fine.

I think he'd accept that, yeah, you know, if you framed it that way, you think you'd find some common ground with him there.

But why does it have to be so, why does it have to be so

furious, though?

Like, his face at the end was genuinely genuinely terrifying like it actually felt bad for him it's really strange yeah so i think this they were talking about this because o'neal mentioned it in an interview that he did with the guardian at the weekend so they've kind of revisited this and just added a bit more oomph to it and it's just

it got a bit talk sportified but yeah for sure but i've watched the whole clip and like o'neal does say he says i like data you know i've used it i've got no problem with it they're just pinpointing this thing of xg that it's nonsense.

I mean, he is demonstrably one of the more intelligent football managers of his generation, you would say, Martin O'Neill.

And the way he behaves and the way that he talks about stuff.

And yet this refusal, so obtuse.

It's ridiculous.

Really obtuse.

I do think, and we've had, you know, we've had this before.

We've spoken to people who've like blambasted expected goal.

And I think the expected element does make people...

because they've actually said this not in so many words think that it's a kind of like predictive thing it's not a real thing it's a kind of phantom like imaginary imaginary goals almost.

Yeah, obviously the main crux of this, Dave, is Martin O'Neill railing against XG.

But

I think it was almost completely overshadowed by Simon Jordan.

Just going, it's counterintuitive.

And then the sudden look on his face.

That was actually one of the most annoying 0.6 seconds of my life.

It's just what's what does he mean by himself?

It doesn't do it, doesn't it?

It's counterintuitive.

Sorry?

Don't explain it.

Because it's total nonsense.

Right, right, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

No, that's right.

Okay, so that was semi-serious, that passage.

Let's go into just sheer ludicrous territory now.

Here is Jamie O'Hara on Sky Sports News reacting to a story about Mikel Arteta planning to consult RAF fighter pilots on how better to communicate on the Arsenal training ground.

Right, Jamie, your thoughts?

Well, do RAF pilots know how to defend?

Sort of.

Do they know how to deal with a set piece?

Do they know how to come for a cross?

Do they know how to tell your winger to tuck in?

Do they know how to communicate.

I mean, yeah, alright, but all footballers know how to communicate.

Surely, they're Premier League football players.

You know, how hard is it to say, get in, tuck in, get tight, stop the cross, get back?

I mean, keepers

away, clear it.

I mean, these are phrases that have been around for 100 years.

Don't tell me an RAF pilot's going to come in and rip it all up and say, oh, no, this is how you need to communicate.

What are you talking about?

RAF pilot is an incredible person who knows how to fly a plane.

What about...

He doesn't know how to defend a set piece.

What part of that isn't utterly brilliant, Dave?

That is actually so good.

It's so good.

I mean, there are many ways we could get into this, but, you know, I think RAF fighter pilots actually do know a thing or two about defending in set pieces and getting someone to tuck in next to them.

Yeah, that opening eye, like, do they know how to defend?

Like, yeah, they defend this very nation.

But it's so telling.

I mean, and that's the first parallel with the O'Neill clip, Charlie, is that he went straight in with, oh, what do they know?

Or how do they know?

It's if he was like threatened in some way.

Why does it have to be so threatening?

Obviously, it's ludicrous.

It's a ludicrous story.

It's a ludicrous reaction.

And it's semi-ludicrous from Mikel Arteta.

All of those things are, to a certain extent, ludicrous.

But in that sense, it's a perfectly packaged setting for this for Sky Sports News to get into, but my God, Jamie O'Hara is just a perfect person.

He is.

And the difference between, I think anyway, here between O'Neill and O'Hara is O'Hara does know what he's doing here.

Yes.

I mean, O'Hara hosts the sports bar.

Part of their whole shtick is to just sort of have a bit of a knowing glance and being wind-up merchants, but not in a too poe-faced way.

So he's fine with this, and it sort of is, it's funny, it's entertaining.

There's no suggestion at any point that the RAF are coming in to teach them how to do set pieces.

Not Clive Woodward coming in from rugby to teach them how to do corners.

Charlie, the moment that he started listing various football shouts and just couldn't stop,

it's just genius.

Yeah, it's like it it took over him, wasn't it?

He was possessed.

So, yeah, Dave's right.

He absolutely knew what he's doing.

And the reason I don't mind that is because it's completely low-stake story.

There's nothing, there's nothing to worry about here for anybody.

So, well done, Sky Sports News.

Actually, eight out of ten from me, I think.

One thing we should point out, I think, they do have a football team, the RAS.

Right.

And their men's first team, senior first team, are unbeaten so far this season.

They've beat

Padgett Rangers 7-1.

They had a 2-all draw with Noel FC.

They beat Stafford Town 2-1.

They beat Hampton FC 1-0.

And I haven't been able to find the result for this yet, but this week they played Loughborough University.

So they might have lost to Loughborough University, but before that game, they were unbeaten this season.

And you never get like it's all gone quiet boys shouts in their game.

Their communication is elite.

Bruce.

What's your nickname, Dave?

I don't know.

I can't find it.

It's not a Wikipedia page for the moment.

No, this is, I'm on the Royal Air Force FA website.

They're playing the fire service in a few weeks.

Wow.

Bloody hell.

Clash of the Titans.

Next up, Electronic Donkey sent this in, Charlie.

An enjoyable Instagram comments back and forth about Ollie Burke scoring a Bundesliga hat-trick, the first ever by a Scotsman, to help Unium Berlin beat Eintracht Frankfurt.

And someone wrote, Oliver Burke and Shanklin both scoring for fun.

And then someone replied with, Oliver Burke scored three.

His last goal before that was in April.

It's hardly scoring for fun.

I said scoring for fun now.

Hat-trick in the Bundesliga against a good team and all goals good finishes.

But it's not really for fun now if it's only one game.

One incredible exchange.

And to be fair, I sympathise with the complainant.

Yeah, I mean, the complainant is the overdog in this situation.

The only way this would be sort of

remotely workable.

We said late doors the other day, so it's open.

Would be if a commentator was like,

oh, you know, he's scoring for fun now, as in, like, it's when he gets his third goal.

But it's a very in-match thing, just like, oh, everything he's touching now is turning to gold, but not over, but

it's used obviously typically in a more broader than just one game kind of context, to be sad.

Yeah, it's a medium-term.

It's a medium-term thing, Dave.

Scoring for fun at the moment.

The obvious question here, Dave, is what is the threshold for scoring for fun?

I mean, I hesitate to always go back to him as the example, but Harry Kane is on a particularly hot streak at the moment, isn't he?

He scored something mad.

He can't stop scoring.

17 in nine.

Or something at that level.

Yeah.

In fact, is there a difference?

Is can't stop scoring more than scoring for fun?

Scoring for fun does imply a slight...

Yeah.

Scoring for fun does imply a slight that they might have not been having a great time, but now they are scoring for fun.

Okay.

And can't stop scoring, of course, Dave, does imply that they actually would quite like to, but that's just like an affliction.

Everything else upsets the goals.

Doesn't say can't stop scoring, man.

Yeah, superb.

Right, a couple of footballers' names in things for you.

Chewy Narwhal writes in, Dave, and says, I live in South Florida, and I go to my local bar.

There's a married couple in their late 40s that are locals too.

They're called Graham and Taylor.

I've known them for a couple of years, never said their names together.

And then it just hit me, ah, that's nice.

Hopefully, they've got a son called Carlton.

Next up, Not the Buddha sent me a book cover, Principles of Insect Morphology, first published in 1935, Charlie.

It's still the standard reference for this subject in the English language.

And it's written by the masterpiece of the topic, one of the leading entomologists of his day, Robert Snodgrass.

Nice.

Yeah, isn't it?

Nice, nice.

And it's quite a

entomologist-y name, isn't it?

Yeah, it's not.

It always did feel a bit strange.

They might be saying more insect morphology names in football.

I hope there's a podcast for this.

Morphology clichés.

Yeah, imagine if there's just a mirrored podcast.

It'd be fantastic.

Anyway, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN.

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Indeed, let's travel slightly back in time and all the way over to the US to the Ryder Cup.

Now, there was a big amount of discourse, Charlie, about football chants infiltrating the Ryder Cup and the general sort of atmosphere and the toxicity at the Ryder Cup.

But it culminated in this, the triumphant European team, singing this at the US president.

Are you watching Donald Trump?

Are you watching Donald Trump?

Right, Charlie, there are two issues here.

The first one I can handle, I can make peace with, the lack of synchronicity.

Because it's, you know, when you're filming a video and someone says, now go and it's already started, I get that.

And it even happens in stadiums as well when that you know that you have the lack of synchronicity in in you know the verses and things like that.

So it's terrible, but I can make my piece with it.

What I can't make my piece with and I respect him hugely as a sportsman, especially as a local man to me, Justin Rose.

His delivery of that is so tweet.

It's the tweetest thing I've ever seen.

It's like he's never heard the chant before in his life in a football context.

But can we just hear it again?

It's his voice at the start.

Are you watching?

Are you watching Donald Trump?

Are you watching Donald Trump?

Are you watching Donald Trump?

It's too jaunty.

It's too jaunty.

Oh, you're watching.

Yeah, you're watching.

We wish you a Merry Christmas.

It's so bad.

The thing that really annoys me, like, or not annoyed me, but I just, the ads that really annoys me is like a lot of them have kind of like faux American-y accents anyway, because they're so like transatlantic with how much golf they play, including McElroy, whose voice is very prominent and then who does tries to go, which is to the synchronicity point.

And I get that's kind of an occupational hazard, but he tries to go again and then has to merge it into a kind of like, ah,

there's something about the whole

Ryder Cup.

And I quite like golf.

I do like watching the Masters and the Majors quite enjoy that on a Sunday when they come round.

But the Ryder Cup this year, especially, I just, the whole thing is, I i just can't get on board with it even all the nonsense about how you know abusive the americans have been and all that and it's like i don't know what it is i'm trying to put my finger on it but i think it's it's almost there's a lot of people there that maybe aren't quite used to behaving like this enough so they can't quite do it because because golf is normally so sort of buttoned down all of a sudden they have this weekend where they get to let loose and they all get a bit pissed and they all get a bit shouty and they all turn into football hooligans and not enough of the people there can really pull it off and also the ones that can pull it off and do really go over the line compared to like football they're too exposed they're in the light they're on a golf course whereas in the stadium they're sort of in the shadows a bit and you don't see it as quite as nakedly spot on if you want to try nord vpn for yourself go to nordvpn.com slash cliches and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan it's the best discount available there's no risk with nord's 30-day money-back guarantee and the link is also in the podcast description if you need it.

We'll be back very shortly.

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Welcome back to Football Clichés.

Dreamland episode 8 is now out.

I'm singing the Champions League anthem in the wrong key.

Charlie Eccleshaire is flexing his Euro speak voiceover muscles and we go deep into the microculture of match day minus one.

It's all about the Champions League and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dave, what an episode.

I would encourage anyone who does listen to make sure you listen right to the very end.

Right to the very end.

To the brilliant.

You can always rely on Dave for some masterful editing.

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Right.

Stefan writes in from the weekend actually, Charlie.

He says the ITV EFL coverage of the Wrexham vs.

Derby highlights described Ben Brereton Diaz's goal as the goal of the game.

It was 1-1.

I think you need at least four goals to warrant a goal of the game.

I'm sure we've discussed pick of the bunch before.

I couldn't find it on this infairplay.com.

But this is exactly the same concept, right?

It's completely equivalent to pick of the bunch, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, 1-1, yeah, there are two goals.

It's just which was the better goal.

You know, it's an either or.

I think you could have, in a 2-1, if there were three really exceptional goals, I think you might be like, you know,

what was your favorite out of those three?

That's reasonable.

Yeah.

So, okay, interesting.

Now I think about it, that is an appropriate bar to place here, Dave.

Three goals in a game, and that's okay to select the goal of the game.

Yeah, but I guess the focus is naturally going to be on the winner in a 2-1, isn't it?

And I mean, but maybe if the one in the 2-1 and it was the, and it was, and it came came before the two for the other team was a spectacular goal and the other two were pretty nondescript, you would sort of focus on that one a bit and call it the goal of the game.

But it still feels like it's not the main story.

But I think even if the game, if the mood is fairly jaunty and you're kind of just like, oh, wow, you know, what a game, you know, what a game that was.

And there was an amazing equalizer in amongst a really good winner and a really good opener.

I think it would be a legitimate

point to raise.

I'm stunned it left anybody's lips, quite frankly.

After three or two?

Oh,

for a two, a one-one draw, yeah.

No, no, I would.

Sorry, that was for a three.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm still on three.

No, two, three.

So close to being sacked there.

Yeah, right.

No, two, two, two would just be, if you really wanted to ask that question, you wouldn't be talking about like goal of the game or pick of the bunch.

You'd just be asking, and I don't think you would, which goal was better.

You'd only ever hear someone really describe pick of the bunch or goal of the game, really, I think, in a sort of EFL highlights round.

The pick of the bunch came from.

Yeah.

It's not really a question, is it?

You're not going to turn to your pundit and go, well, what was the pick of the bunch for you today?

I mean, yeah, I'm inclined to side with Stefan here.

It needs to be four, five, six,

to really establish the bunch before you pick the pick off.

But goal of the game, yeah, not a 1-1.

Right, Jason Button writes in next Dave and says, just had this press release through at work.

This is from Stagecoach, The Bus Company.

And the headline is, Long-serving Slatterford driver takes the depot's first electric vehicle into service.

Underneath.

So there's a very proud picture of this guy with the first electric vehicle at his depot.

And a bit of background information.

A one-depot man.

Norman not only met his wife while they worked at Slatterford, his youngest son Adam is also a driver there.

A one-depot man!

That is class.

That is class.

Cut him open, he'd bleed Slatterford.

You know, you just don't see it these days.

You get a lot of bus drivers going over to Saudi and Turkey.

The thing is, he actually had a loan spell at another depot, Charlie, and it's all this very grey area when you have a loan spell.

Ah, Norman, great stuff.

Big news in the betting industry this week, Dave.

Rachel Reeves has hinted she will raise gambling taxes in the autumn budget.

She says they should pay their fair share of taxes and we'll make sure that happens.

That's caused uproar amongst some of the betting heads.

And someone tweeted, everything we have built in our entire industry and sports future is depending on the decision of someone who has never betted in their life.

Ah, what a great variation on never played the game this is.

Amazing.

Never betted the game.

I mean, semi-seriously, Charlie, would that actually help the decision-making here?

I actually do know what it's like to have a flutter.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and God, yeah, it is maybe the sort of thing that a politician would pretend that they

remember.

Yeah, we'd all gather round and the Grand National every year.

We'd pick them out from the paper, and I'd just pick the ones that I like the colours of.

Within 24 hours, Starmer will be in a betting shop with his sleeves rolled up because that means he's out on out on official casual business.

I think Starmer develops a a crippling chronic gambling habit.

Finally, he's a man of the people.

Yeah, exactly.

Actually, he probably go over quite well.

He was

in the bookies every half.

Finally showed he was

real side.

Ben Palmer writes in next.

It's, I'm reading Jürgen Klopp's interview in The Athletic, in which it describes the Premier League as a goldfish bowl.

It seems too big to be a goldfish bowl, although admittedly, Premier League Aquarium doesn't work either.

I always think of Glasgow as the most obvious example of the goldfish bowl.

Cheapossel for me really yeah i partly because it's the first time i ever heard the expression and i remember being a little bit confused as to what kieran dyer or whoever it was was talking about uh but yeah so that will always stick in my mind as like the the original one because newcastle's the one club city i was gonna say that enhances the goldfishness of it you're always in the goldfish quite an odd phrase isn't it it's quite an odd phrase to describe what the phenomenon is like you're always under scrutiny are they are goldfish always being stared at i don't know or is it the trappedness or is it a bit of both is it always being watched or not being able to go anywhere?

It is a bit of both, isn't it?

Right.

Okay.

You're sort of trapped and yeah, you're sort of trapped and being ogled at, whatever you do.

And a decent goldfish bowl, Dave, will actually have a little castle in it.

You know, a little sort of castle structure.

Yeah, exactly.

That does help.

Maybe a little seahorse.

Glasgow could be second in the goldfish bowl stakes.

But yeah, the Premier League not a goldfish bowl then?

Okay, well this is being referred to in comparison to, I guess, Germany, Spain, Italy.

And they always say, I've heard Lineker talk about this a lot, that, you know, you get left alone a bit more.

You could walk down the street and no one will bother you.

Like, you know, a goldfish can't do that.

I'll swim it around.

I'll switch it.

Let's sit right.

No one bothers you.

No one comes and gorps at you through the glass.

What they do have in Italian goldfish bowls is they've got three daily newspapers

digging up stories and all the fish.

But yeah, because isn't that the thing?

Isn't it that the other one, isn't it often said about the Premier League?

Oh, you think the Premier League's bad?

Wait until you go to Spain or to Italy or something.

So the Premier League League is a goldfish bowl then.

Yeah, that is more intense.

American goldfish though.

Yeah, it's the dream.

Brilliant.

Right, an anonymous listener writes in next.

I once went on a Tinder date with a girl who said her stepdad was a butcher by trade.

And I said, oh yeah, what's his job now then?

And she went, a butcher.

I mean, that's true.

It implies that he's no longer a butcher and he's doing a makeshift job for someone else in another way.

Doing a shift down the fish monk is a good one.

What a start to a Tinder date that is, by the way.

Not together anymore as far as I know.

Writes, MZ writes in with a great combined stat here, Dave.

He says, I had my daughter's year 13 parents' evening yesterday, and her form teacher said she needs to be more punctual as her combined late attendance since start of the school is two hours and 13 minutes.

What does that mean?

I've asked my daughter and of course she says everyone else is much worse.

You can't tot it up like that, can you?

Well I think there is some logic to it.

You have missed two hours and 13 minutes of

actual lessons.

I mean to be clear, is she late for lessons or is she just late for like the form bit at the start?

That that's pointing.

Poisonous rigmarole.

The cardboard.

I have more sympathy for this as actually like illustrating a thing because you're probably getting to the point where you're like, you've missed half a day of school.

That's like, you know, that would feel quite sick.

If you just were inexplicably not there for half a day, that feels like quite a lot.

Turned up for double geography halfway through.

Yeah, it's like that, you know, I think that that actually kind of works.

Maybe she's like a mercurial talent who just, you know, know, I'm not going to warm up.

I'll turn, I'll just do my talking on the pitch.

Terrible in training.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Terrible in training.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

Right.

Finally,

you know, in many ways, this podcast coming home here.

Here, this came from Alex.

Here is Middlesbrough's Alfie Jones being interviewed by his club's in-house media after their goalless draw with Stoke.

Alfie, the unbeaten star, continues.

What did you make of tonight's game?

Yeah, I think that was the positive.

Sort of a game of two halves.

I think we were the better team first half.

We had more control and I think we had some good chances.

Obviously, had the penalty shout, which we didn't get.

But yeah, I thought we were the better team first half.

And then second half, we just sort of didn't get going.

Charlie, a footballer unironically deploying a game of two halves and then going on to explain it in almost perfect textbook terms.

I mean,

have we come full circle, discourse-wise?

What's happened here?

Yeah, it is really rare you hear that.

I don't know if the in-house media element is a factor.

I don't know if sort of whether he would do it, whether, because he might know the person doing it and it's a bit more casual.

It's comfortable, right?

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I think he's just using it quite earnestly and honestly there.

Yeah.

And it is often if I'm ever trying to describe the podcast to someone, you know, like a relative or someone who just really doesn't get football, but is being politely curious about the podcast.

Yeah.

And I sort of say, well, is it's football clichés and we sort of talk about the language of football and like the weird little phrases and they go, oh, what do you mean?

Like a game of two halves.

It's always the one that like it's it's it has this place in the football cliches landscape that sort of everyone knows it.

And it's nice to see it being brought back here.

It's the absolute godfather of football cliches, isn't it?

I mean there's nothing beats game of two halves.

I mean that's literally what my dad would say to me about oh football game of two halves is it yeah yeah exactly.

But yeah great to see a footballer just using it earnestly and went and not prefacing it with you know I know it's a bit of a cliche but it was it was the classic classic cliché game of two hours.

But yeah, wonderful to see.

Maybe this podcast mission is complete after all.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshaire.

That's it.

With that,

463 episodes.

Job is done.

Didn't quite make it to the 500.

I'll still sign up for Dreamland, though.

That'd be good.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

If you're coming to Brighton, see you there.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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