England's 25th-choice right-back & the definitive Movement XI

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Your ring, your way.

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

Is Gas going to have a crack?

He is, you know.

Oh, I say

brilliant.

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 eyewit without a shadow of a a doubt getting him lip.

Oh, I 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!

Casually overestimating Watford's Watfordness.

LBC bundling home the football politics crossover analogies.

How many people are required to rally around someone?

Thomas Tuchel's single biggest selection headache before next summer.

Former Premier League managers in university challenge answers, a very tedious sounding projected World Cup group for England, Lampardian transitions from 94-year-old grandfathers, and backpedaling, waltzing and darting our way to the definitive Movement 11.

Brought to your ears by Goalhanger 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 Eccleshare, how are you doing?

I'm alright, thank you.

and alongside you is david walker how are things things are good news emerging this week dave that watford are set to sack their manager paola pezzolano and uh sky sports understand that javi gracia is the number one target to replace him now um let me get my ignorance out the way straight away i thought javi gracia had done at least two spells at watford he's only done one that blew my mind so i was posting this on our reddit page last night that i'm i'm sort of surprised that that is the most common response to this from everyone who i've told or or who's spoken about it to me so far goes, oh, I can't believe this is only a second spell.

I know.

We've only reappointed one manager in this whole ludicrous Potso era.

We've had loads of managers, loads of random ones, but we've only reappointed someone once before this, which was Kike Sanchez Flores coming back for a second time in 2019, replacing Javi Gracia actually at that time.

So this is, we're going back to the well again here, but less common than you think.

To be fair as well, Gracia did like a really good job.

He wasn't like a sort of gag manager who popped in for a little bit.

This is quite healthy.

There's a healthy amount of irritation in Dave's voice there, to correct me, and a healthy amount of just acceptance of my own ignorance there.

So I think we've all come out of this very well.

But Neil Ewing writes in, Dave, and says, Has a club ever done more to take a metaphor from a football cliché to a statement of indisputable fact?

The managerial merry-go-round is, in fact, a managerial merry-go-round at Watford.

Same people, same place, differing stop times.

We've got Javi Gracia, we've got literally Dave.

You're in dreamland here, mate.

Yeah,

it's not a very enjoyable merry-go-round, but a merry-go-round it is, nonetheless.

Speaking of places where you could potentially get on a merry-go-round, we had a great time in Brighton on Monday night.

Some lovely feedback as well, Charlie.

On the Reddit page, someone said they got some early laughs, which settled the nerves, then went from strength to strength.

Another person said, Charlie stole the show for us.

Is that better than running the show?

Or is that even better than the Charlie Eccleshare show?

Or where does it sit in the hierarchy of the show?

Well, running the show would have to be you.

Or could be Dave, I guess, because Dave's in charge of clicking on the slides.

So

literally, Dave is definitely...

Maybe we all ran the show.

That's exactly how we want it to go.

The post-show HHG, Dave, some of the most intense happy hunting groundsing I've ever seen in the flesh.

A cabal of very intense Fulham fans, completely dominating proceedings.

Not necessarily in a good way, I'll be honest.

Lots of colluding, which is very much against the spirit of live HHG, but some incredible knowledge there.

They had knowledge of matches they had no right to to know anything about.

So I sort of left you to it this time and was on the other side of the pub talking to some lovely people who'd come from far and wide, from places such as Stavanger in Norway, Galway,

and many more.

And every now and again, we'll just hear an eruption.

of cheers from the other side of the room.

Huge.

There were eight pointers, there were six pointers.

Cardiff has a lot to live up to.

This pod will reach you, actually, after the Cardiff show on Wednesday night.

Let's assume, Charlie, that it has gone well and that standards remained high.

Yes.

Although, again, I don't want to tempt fate.

Let's assume it happened.

I don't want to tempt fate by saying it went well.

But I think.

You've got to follow it up, Sam.

Yeah, you seem

difficult second album.

Charlie is allegedly running something of a temperature, so

we'll monitor his situation.

We're not bringing everybody else in.

Late fitness test, which you will have to pass.

You're still going to go for a five-mile run before the show, so I'm sure you'll be fine.

But yeah, the big one is on Sunday night, the Hackney Empire.

A reminder for all shows, really.

Doors will open at 6.30.

The show will begin at 7.30, finish about half past nine, and straight to the pub.

Go to tickets.football cliches.com if you want to join us at the Hackney Empire, The Old Rep in Birmingham, Helix Theatre in Dublin, and all the rest are sold out, I'm afraid.

Right, the midweek adjudication panel begins apace.

Can it begin a pace?

Or do you have to continue a pace?

I think continue a pace.

I've not heard begin a pace, but.

Okay, right.

Eddie Mush writes in first and says, I don't really know where to go with this, but this feels worthy of investigation.

It's Kemi Badenock with Nick Ferrari on LBC Radio.

We had a historic defeat last year.

It's going to take time to come back from that.

But what I am doing is making sure people understand what conservatism is again.

But if this was like football, Mrs.

Badenock, you need to look across to Old Trafford, the Manchester, the manager of Manchester United, Ruben Amirin, who keeps saying, give me time, give me time, and keeps losing matches.

You're losing counsellors, you're losing support, you're losing members, and you want what's up.

you are the Ruben Amarim of politics, Mrs.

Badenock.

Well, that is certainly not the case.

Now, Charlie, there are two prongs to this.

It is the kind of desperate reach for a football reference here when it really wasn't required, and then there's the kind of completely non-plussed reaction from Badenock to that football reaction, despite the really kind of sort of optimistic end to it, as if she was going to react to it in any way with any humour.

So, nothing, nothing worked here.

No, I thought with Amarim it was going to be more the kind of sticking to your philosophy and not changing, not adapting.

Maybe that would have been another level,

a little too tricky to comprehend.

He'd be completely befuddled if he got into tactics chat there, Dave.

Three at the back?

She's a strange operator, Badnock.

It wouldn't have surprised me if she did pull out some sort of reference to the beleaguered 3-4-2-1

system and the two number 10s.

She's not going to be seeing number 10 anytime soon.

Wow.

Is Nick Ferrari a footballman?

I don't think he is.

Not on the basis of that delivery, you know, all the way through.

It felt like he'd never said the words Manchester United before in his life.

Yeah.

Nor Ruben Amurim either.

So, yeah, again, no one covering themselves in glory there.

Over next to The Pinken, which is a Norwich City website/slash newspaper.

And a headline, Charlie says, ex-city teammate rallies round Martin after Jerz Axe.

This is Russell Martin sacking by Rangers.

Well King says, can one person rally around?

Yeah, I don't know about this.

I mean, mean,

I think they can.

It's just you're used to it being a kind of group thing.

I mean, it's purely figurative, so I guess there is some leeway.

I mean, it's not like mobbing, Dave.

One person couldn't mob you, but could one person rally around you?

There is an implication of kind of joining together, isn't it?

Exactly.

If one person turned up to a political rally, would it still be a rally?

If there's just one person there, maybe.

Make enough noise.

It's not officially a rally.

No police will be required.

Okay, okay.

Charlie's sticking up for that, and that's quite right, too.

This next one came from Litter on the Breeze, surely the world's number one podcast on the band Suede.

They're talking about an example of just how long the man versus mun debate has been going on.

Here's Tommy Vance counting down the official UK top 10 for Radio 1 on the 10th of February 1991.

His pronunciation of the number one record didn't catch on, but maybe it should have.

Up one to this week's number three, I want to give you a devotion nomad featuring MC Mikey Freedom.

At number two, down one, 3 a.m.

Eternal by KLF.

Going up one place on the Simpsons.

Do the Bartman are.

Imagine.

Bartman is.

Bartman's just insanely good, Dave.

Imagine if he just simply that's how it became in the UK, and that's how we pronounce it.

All the Americans must go, what are you saying that for?

Do the Bartman are.

Yeah, one for the massive Venn diagram of Simpsons fans and clichés fans there.

Bit big for my liking.

International break, so thoughts inevitably turn to this, Dave, from Rab282.

Who is England's 25th best right-back?

It's prompted by this quote from Craig Bellamy.

The simple fact is they don't just have one team, they've got two, three, four, and France of others have the same level.

England have loads of great players, and that's the honest truth.

One right-back went out injured the other day, and there's only 24 more to go.

So, various methods have been deployed to work out England's 25th best right-back.

Jinge'Proud, Dave' says, according to transfer mark transfer values, it's a three-way tie between Rau Walters, Cody Drama, and Ethan Laird.

I mean, that's a fairly strong sort of layer to get to at your 25th option, isn't it?

I consulted my England pod colleague, George Ellick, on this one, and he saw that same response about the transfer marked values, and he reckons that those three players would all play for Wales.

To feed it to Craig Bellamy's narrative.

They're all very Wales.

I mean, we'll go into some of the other methodology here, Charlie, but of course a lot of it ignores the the fact that you can just have makeshift right-backs.

I mean, in my head, Jordan Henderson is probably arguably England's 10th choice right back because he'll do a job for you there.

He'll play for you quite diligently.

He would, yeah, for a game or two, and then you'd probably get found out.

But yeah, obviously, centre-backs very in vogue for them to just the Guandiola hybrid centre-back, fullback.

Curtis Jones has played for England at right back in the last few months.

He's probably still top 10, isn't he, though?

Insulin Junkie says FC26 has it as AEK Athens star Moses Odobajo.

That's a real thought it was a wind-up call-up, Pat.

Turns out it actually was this time.

Some red page.

With a heavy heart, Dave, I went to ChatGPT and it says England write-back power rankings, open brackets, subject to violent disagreement and pub arguments.

I don't like how ChatGPT does this.

It's not been all matey.

Just tell me what I need to know.

Rather worryingly, as of late 2025, it still has Kyle Walker as number one, Dave.

It says still elite like a Tesla with a V12 engine.

No, definitely not.

He did not look like a Tesla with a V12 engine against Senegal.

Yeah.

He's out of the picture.

So it goes through the tiers, Charlie.

Kyle Walker's in there in tier one.

Kieran Trippier in tier two.

Kyle Walker Peters leads the third tier of also Rands.

Then there's the fringe hopefuls of tier four, Rico Lewis down at number 11, which I'm very surprised by, actually.

And then it really starts to unravel.

Tier 5 is solid championship level, Ryan Niambe, and Brooke Norton Cuffy.

And then Tier 6, the You Forgot He Was English club, Luke Ayling, Sam Byram, Darnell Furlong, and Kyle Edwards.

Not really a right back, but close enough.

I mean, Chat GPT actually do sound like a cliche's correspondent there.

Yeah,

they have found a tone here, definitely.

Luke Ayling.

Yeah, I mean, that would be.

What a turn of events.

I mean, there's a period like 20 or so years ago, like when Sven first came in, or maybe when like Peter Taylor had the game and Howard Wilkinson, that maybe that kind of player would suddenly pop up.

With Chat GPT on Luke Ayling, with each player, it's given like three sort of descriptive terms of each player.

Luke Ailings are veteran grit, leadership, and hair.

It's true.

I mean, what is his hair these days?

I'm sure he'd scaled it back, actually.

So ChatGPT, very much out of date.

This is enough, ChatGPT, obviously, but it signs off with a follow-up question, Charlie.

Would you like me to do a comedic scouting report for the top 10 or the bottom 10?

E.g., why Johnny Smith would be England's cult hero in Euro 2028?

No, thanks.

Chat GPT.

Got that sort of podcast.

Thanks very much.

I was reading the Reddit thread on this.

There were some great responses, and there was one that caught my eye.

Somebody floating the possibility of Everton's James Garner as the candidate for this, because he has played right back for England under 21 to some success.

But when they were talking about James Garner, they referred to him as Jim Garner, which immediately aged him about 30 years.

That's definitely Jimmy Garnet in the 70s for Jim Garner, but he plays 700 times for Everton.

So we Jimmy Garner.

We Jimmy Garner, yes.

Right, time for footballers' names in things for this midweek adjudication panel.

This first one comes from Don Jalgan.

Here comes Darrow Walsh with the penalty for Turlock Moore from the 20 meter line.

He lives, spins, and strikes the shot.

Save by Dagoca for Jack Grealish.

I mean, I am distracted by the mid-level superbness, Charlie, of Jack Grealish being in goal for a hurling championship game, but I was distracted completely by the fact that who wants to be a a hurling goalkeeper?

That looks brutal.

A penalty save.

I was like, when I started watching this clip, I was like, how the fuck is he going to save this?

And he did.

Yeah, it's very impressive.

Incredible.

Plunged himself to his right, Dave, to keep out a very, very tiny hard ball.

What sort of protective gear do they have on the keepers in this?

I can't see, to be honest, but it's minimal.

I mean, there's a mask?

Yeah, we're not talking ice hockey here.

Fair enough.

But it's up from the tiny shin pads that the 21-year-olds are wearing these days.

Next up, this is from University Challenge.

It came from loads of you and it is in its own way superb.

Secondly, a philosopher and political theorist who advocated for a great refusal of commercial society and whose works include Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man.

Marcus.

Marcuse.

Markeys.

Yes.

Classy touch as well.

This would have been while we were on stage in Brighton.

So nice of them to think of us.

Oh, right.

Yeah, it's...

I just, it's the build-up, Charlie, I really liked.

You've got a real, sort of, really intellectually hefty build-up.

And then it's just, just, yeah, Mark Hughes.

Muggy, Muggies.

Yeah, lovely delivery.

Great bit of aiding next from Ben Telfer.

Trent Alexander Arnold turns 27 amid Liverpool birthday post-backlash.

What that?

I mean, so much going on there.

There's so many elements that don't fit together.

It's like a really bad jigsaw puzzle.

And then the...

But my final take on this is to him turning 27 should be amid his own birthday.

It should be the other way around, if anything.

Like, the turning 27 should be the thing that it's amid.

Yes.

Birthday, backlash, amid birthday.

Yeah.

But honestly, it really has all gone to shit.

No one can write a headline anymore.

I don't know about you two, but this is a real good case of you seeing a player turn a certain age and you go, 27?

Is he 27?

He can't be 27, can he?

He'd been 26 for a while, to be fair.

A good year.

I mean, there is a conversation to be had about this sort of thing, Charlie.

I mean, it it harks back to playing sort of football manager as a kid.

And whenever a player turned 29, I was like, that's it.

They're out.

I've got to get them out.

I would never sign a 29-year-old.

And I do think that process has accelerated.

I think we get a bit sort of low-key anxious about players entering their late 20s as if they're finished.

Because we are so obsessed with 17, 18, 19, 20-year-olds.

And how precocious they are.

I think there's an anxiety.

When you see one of your favourite players on your team turning 27 or 28, you think, oh, no, clock's ticking.

But also in the age of PSR, and you're kind of like, well, we can't sell them anymore.

Like, you know, once they're 27, 28,

no one's going to want to buy them.

Speaking of PSR, dave i left it out of footballers names in things but someone sent in a taylor swift song in which one of the lyrics goes pure profit yes i heard so i heard this and i was like i'm sure other people are gonna have picked up on this but i heard pure profit and i was like that's apps all i can think of is yeah psr selling a youth team a player came through the academy i mean she's a very very knowledgeable pop star i wouldn't put it past her to have her she name checks real madrid doesn't she in the album so

could well be interesting right uh this came from dom clemonson who heard the clip of commentator Mike Minet's Champions League Vibrato on Tuesday's pods, and he says it goes surprisingly well with the Idols track, Never Fight a Man with a Perm.

I've attached a clip for my sins.

Rhinders, Lighty Diaz,

yeah,

tune-wise, Dave, it's just right up there with my Champions League red dish in the other day, actually, on Dreamland.

Yeah, that wasn't the direction I was expecting anyone to take it in, but yeah, I can see I can see where they're coming from.

Yeah, I'm not an idolsman, and nor has that persuaded me to become one.

So that's just noise.

Oh, God.

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Indeed, over to the US we go and indeed into the future, all the way to December the 5th and the World Cup draw.

Dave, someone has coded, probably not a massive challenge, a World Cup draw simulator

and uh it spat out England in Group G with Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Burkina Faso.

This is very World Cup 2014, isn't it?

Yeah, there's two World Cup 2014 for my liking.

I've just done it myself quickly here, and I've got in Group I, England, Switzerland, Algeria, and UAE.

God.

These aren't thrilling groups, are they?

Group I as well.

That's sobering.

It harks back to a very depressing World Cup for England.

Also, the retrospectives are going to be so shit.

I'm not going to want to read any of that.

Well, I'm so sure as well.

i mean you know is it gonna the story of england 0 costa rica 0 as told by relive the 2014 world cup i mean that costa rica nil nil was just one of the worst games it was up there with the algeria one obviously no steak so there was no swearing at cameras after but it has given me a group h though a tantalizing group h of portugal japan jamaica and ivory coast oh that's fun what combination of those teams are you not watching at 2 a.m and and thoroughly enjoying it exactly with one commentator that's brilliant oh yeah okay I'm sold by this World Cup now.

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We'll be back very shortly.

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Big question from El Luchador, Charlie, right up your street.

He says, what's the most Premier League year song of all time?

And why is it, Why Does It Always Rain On Me by Travis?

That's a great shout.

As a sort of counterpoint to that, and from a very similar era, I give you, so have a nice day, ba ba bada,

which is the kind of jaunty, things are looking up for team A as they put together a winning run of four games.

The why does it always rain on me is the more managers getting sacked.

Things have gone badly.

In terms of song matching nuance on Premier League Years, Dave, there's really only two gears.

Hyper-literal song titles matching the fortunes of person X or Team Y, or just a general vibe of the song, is it sad or is it happy?

And that loosely correlates with the fortunes of the wider world.

I think we overplay the literal matching.

I think it does happen now and again, but probably not as much as we...

as we think to remember.

As you say, it's more of a vibe.

Now, I don't know whether either of these two songs are on the playlist or were featured, but I can just imagine Babylon by David Gray

and whatever Dido's big song was.

These are all from exactly the same era as well.

I can tell you that

you

forgiving me.

The best day

as is Spaceman by Babylon Zoo.

I wonder what Spaceman was for exotic foreign signing or something like that.

Oh, God, I came down from Pilot Zarg.

Dido is not on the Premiership Years playlist as curated by Agama Santee.

Is Stan by Eminem on there?

She gets in through the back door.

So to speak.

Don't think it is.

The only MM track is Lose Yourself.

That makes sense.

Again, you know, we're at the mercy of the playlist.

Right, a welcome resurgence for this phenomenon, Dave.

Adventurous West said, here's a textbook Lampardian text message for my granddad on his 94th birthday this morning.

He messaged him, happy birthday.

Have you got any exciting celebrations planned?

Of course.

Clearing the leaves off the front garden for a start.

Hours of fun there.

Seriously, though, we may have lunch out somewhere, I expect.

At the age of 94, still got it.

That's so good.

Yeah, fair play.

Possibly trumped by this, though, Charlie.

It came from Ek.

A news report of

some sex toys that have washed up on a beach in the Firth of Clyde.

Barmaid Leslie McDowell, 59, who works at the Newton Bar, said it was a load of sex toys that washed up.

The village has been buzzing ever since.

Maybe it was an early birthday present for me.

But seriously, lucky it happened when there was quiet and kids didn't find it.

just to have an impact on me.

I think it's just, it's the gear change, it's just so wonderful.

It is so good, yeah.

It's like people, and it does just happen so often.

Like, I notice it often in interviews I do, as soon as someone shows, like, I don't know, they feel nervous, I think, about seeming to

trivialize anything.

A little bit like in Tuesday's episode about the haircut, you know, you just you don't want to like you don't want to be criticizing anything.

So, as soon as you kind of have a laugh at something, it's like, but I've got to make clear very quickly, but seriously, literally leslie there the village has been buzzing ever since i was next to washed up she knew what we were doing didn't she leslie mcdowell oh what a name that is i want to end we haven't we haven't done a sub-episodic themed 11 for a while and i've had this on on the back burner for a while but um it's pure cliché so i'd like to do it it's the movement 11.

i want us to come up with a perambulative definitive verb for each position in a 4-4-2 Classic.

So let's start in goal.

What do we want our textbook goalkeeper to be doing movement-wise?

I've got backpedaling, Charlie, or perhaps scrambling.

You can on rush.

I like an on-rush.

Before we get stuck into this, when I was going through mine, I was unsure sometimes as to whether to go for...

So backpedaling is an act.

Is it perambulative?

You could backpedal.

If you're backpedaling, then that's as good as it is.

That might be my ignorance of the term, but I've gone for more...

I've gone for things that I, you know, a way of moving as opposed to something that you're doing, if that makes sense.

All right, give me your goalkeeper once then, and we can either celebrate them or ridicule them.

Again, I don't know if this really, which side of the line this actually falls onto you on this.

Goalkeeper was the last one I did, but Herring, I've got.

What scenario does a goalkeeper hair?

Well, they've come hairing out of his goal there.

He's come hering out.

Does that ever end well, Dave?

Herring out?

He's come hering out.

I don't think so, no.

He's come flying out.

He's come hairing out.

He's seen the danger and he's dealt with it.

Oh, what?

But no, Dave, you're on the right track.

Herring is fine.

On rushing, I probably can't really allow Charlie.

But backpedaling, is that not really, that's not really in their remit?

They don't want to be backpedaling, do they?

No, but

they do often find themselves doing it.

Come charging out.

Charging.

Charging out, flying out.

Just come flying out.

But yeah, this is all very desperate.

But I suppose, yeah, goalkeeper's a desperate situation.

You don't really want to be moving anywhere.

I mean, plunging.

Oh, woo.

Is that a movement?

I suppose it is.

Plunging.

How does a goalkeeper plunge?

Plunge down to his right.

That's right.

To make a smart stop.

That is the only situation in which a footballer plunges you're absolutely right quite like plunge over to right back now i mean i don't know where we are with fullbacks these days day but i'm going to stick with the sort of mid-to mid 2010s vibe and i'm going to go with marauding slash rampaging i want a very direct aggressive route one right back okay i've gone for a more defensive type more tenacious scuttling scuttling i had this reserved for one of my central midfielders but i don't mind scuttling for a fullback charlie because it's because they're often quite short and that really lends itself to scuttling well on the subject of short, I had jockeying.

Wow.

You're really going sort of avant-garde with this stuff.

Plunging, jockeying.

Well, jockeying is really important for a defender.

You need to get away from that.

Is that an A to B situation, though, jockeying?

Because you're basically just in the same place, aren't you?

Debatable.

I mean, and this.

I jockeyed over there.

It was fine.

This is more of.

I don't know if this is more of a kind of tactical thing, but inverting.

Obviously, you are moving,

you are moving yourself into a central area.

Are right or left backs more likely to invert, Charlie?

I actually think it's fairly even.

I feel like it started as more of a left back thing, maybe.

But

Trent did it and popularised it there.

Pedro Porro did it for Spurs.

I guess

there are more right-footed players, so more likely, if that's a thing, to be put at left back and invert

so the lack of left foot becomes less of an issue.

Spot on, to be fair.

Okay, let's go safety first with our right back and go for scuffling.

Left back, more adventurous.

If they're not inverting, Dave, I want them bombing on.

And they're the only two options here, inverting or bombing on.

I think you need a balance.

Bombing, yes.

I also was considering, and for some reason, specifically, Andy Robertson comes to mind with this.

Ferreting.

Ferreting.

That sounds like something you'd be arrested for in the 50s.

Arrested for ferreting.

And

very tragic.

I can't have ferreting.

What does ferreting look like?

You know, just sort of getting in and out and sort of hunched over.

Getting up there.

buzzing around.

Julio Arca was a ferreter, perhaps.

No,

ferreting.

Bombing is our left back.

I'm thinking Roberto Carlos.

Now, centre-backs, all sorts of options available to centre-backs, depending on the scenario, Charlie.

For my first one, very specific scenario.

When they get a corner, I want them to amble up on

a corner.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then the more adventurous buccaneering, swashbuckling runs, that sort of thing.

Which is more adventurous, Dave?

Buccaneering or swashbuckling?

You're a centre-back

by trade I think buccaneering is more specifically about charging up the pitch whereas swashbuckling can be a bit more of a all-encompassing term got a forward element to it but it's also just a bit more of a vibe yeah I think you bang on actually and you could even add a layer here Charlie that buccaneering is a single act more more specific to single act where swashbuckling is just a general vibe is swashbuckling David Louise or something like that swashbuckling can be attacking all defensive oh oh okay.

You know, in a sword fight, waving your sword about, not necessarily forward runs.

Bang on, actually.

What would be sort of swashbuckling defending?

Lots of diving in, but heroic

blocks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not staying on your feet.

Can bring the ball out, can run back.

I've got a centre-back, a complimentary, if not wholly effective, centre-back pairing of sauntering and lolloping.

Once again, 1950s offenses there.

No sauntering here, please.

Lolloping.

Who's a lolloper?

You have to be massive, don't you?

Yeah, you've Permert Saka.

He's a lolloper.

He's a lolloper.

Yeah.

Like six foot six, nothing on him.

Yeah.

Centre-backs are good for this.

I enjoy this, but yeah, I want them to dovetail.

So I would have a lolloper and then a swashbuckler, definitely.

Over to the left wing.

Wingers will be interesting because it could be just pure pace, Charlie.

But, you know, in the spirit of invertedness, I want my left winger to drift.

Because he's got that license to just drift.

Drift.

Yeah, just not.

You know, sock out there, he can drift.

Do you know what I mean?

What would be a sort of just outright pace?

I mean, again, flying winger is sort of a thing, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, there's all sorts of words for pace, but not enough words for the actual act of being quick.

Like, you know, the motion of doing it.

Flying.

Flying is probably the one.

Yeah.

Galloping.

Gareth Bale was a galloper.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah.

I like galloping.

That's good.

He was sort of

Ryan Giggs.

He sort of goes.

He was sort of a glider, Ryan Giggs.

He moved sort of in that.

He had a really nice, fluid, easy movement to him.

He just glided up the wing.

He glided.

Imagine if it was Glids.

Glid's awful, isn't it?

Glide.

Glide's good.

Yeah, it's a very specific form of player who gets the praise, Dave.

He used to glide around that pitch.

You don't really know it until you see it, do you?

I had gliding for one of my central midfielders.

Why?

a lot of competition

a sort of rolls royce-esque kind of yeah composed glider who can yeah just glides around the pitch like i don't know if was glenn hoddle a glider i don't think he was he i don't know yeah maybe not quite quick enough charlie perhaps well the thing with midfield central midfielders is you tend not to think about their movement so much that's not that tends unless they're sort of box to box or someone like george graham who was stroller wasn't he that was his nickname you know

bellow was a glider right yeah Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

But there are those central midfielders that sort of strolling, who are known for the fact they can make the game look so easy.

They don't have to sprint because they're just sort of getting it.

They slow the game down kind of to their...

Capoo is a bit of a glider in his Watford heyday for us.

Generous, but okay.

Okay, let's go old school with our left winger as a bit of flying winger.

Over to the right then.

Again, let's have a bit of kind of complimentary situation going on.

If our left wingers, you know, just chalk on boots flying up the wing, I want my right winger to be a bit more subtle, Charlie.

I want them to ghost.

I want them to ghost into the back post.

Yeah, or you could have, if they're more skillful, it could be jinking.

Jinking.

So they're kind of just, you know,

it's less about what they do.

They're not really quick, but they're jinky.

Who's the right-winger?

Is he right-wing or is he left-winger?

Played for Redding and Burnley, and he's sort of the sort of winger you don't get anymore.

Glenn.

Glenn Little.

Glenn Little.

Scorer of some insanely good goals.

One of the best complete videos videos I've ever seen.

I think he's a good player.

He was a jinker.

Yeah.

And I like, the reason I'm going to have jinking here is because we haven't got enough on-ball perambulation here.

A lot of it is off-the-ball movement.

And so, yeah, jinking is good.

Let's get some possession into the equation here.

Okay, jinking right-winger.

Again, very old school.

You don't hear much about jinking wingers anymore because I guess you have to be, you know, actually, it almost works against you to have pace to be a jinker, doesn't it, Charlie?

Because it takes the emphasis away from your kind of lateral movement.

Yeah, I think so.

One of the last times I think I did hear it, and those Dreamland subscribers will have listened to our football game commentary episode, but John Champion, I think, said it's a super jinking run, which is, you know, just nonsense video game commentary speech.

Super jinking.

Into the competitive central midfield fray we go.

I want my dog's body midfielder day to be a scuttler, a scurrier, a scamperer, and a shuttler.

Are they all basically the same thing?

I had shuttling, yeah, shuttler.

Shuttling, I guess, is about as glamorous as it gets amongst all those things, because you're basically shuttling shuttling means you're doing a very important job rather than simply being a physical little mover.

So yeah, shuttling is good.

But there's an there's also an shuttling suggests that you don't move too far away from your position.

You're not box to box.

You're not all over.

You're not every blade of grass.

You're just sort of in the middle sort of just running an airport shuttle.

Terminal to terminal.

You're not going anywhere else.

And crucial as well.

Like an airport shuttle is massively important.

Hugely important.

Yeah, the whole thing would fall apart without that shuttle.

100%.

Like shuttling.

shuttling's good um but we want some glamour in our central midfield uh um a potential glider but what about waltzing charlie again a potent you can't waltz without the ball i would say so this is waltzing through they just allowed him to waltz through

he's waltzed through jeff and it's two now

The only thing with what, yeah, waltzing off the ball, would you be very and he's waltzing back

is really not what you'd want to be doing.

Imagine waltzing without the ball, Dave.

That'd be insane.

What's he doing out there?

Just dancing around concussion

god okay but yeah waltzing is good but um very rare scenarios that you can have a waltz but i do like it he's danced through he's just danced through the lot of them he's dance waltzing is more

waltzing's probably more leisurely than dancing through charlie yeah i think dancing's more skill like your feet it's sort of the quick feet

whereas waltzing you've been allowed to do it whereas it's not within your power necessarily spot on great nuance from us um up front i mean i don't know if if I've scratched the surface here.

A great emphasis on pace, really, Dave.

I want my striker to race through, but that usually preempts being fouled.

You don't race through and score.

Well, maybe you do.

Yeah, you could race through.

I think you could, yeah.

Yeah.

Jorge Burachaga in the 1986 World Cup final, perhaps.

But yeah, Jamie Vardid, king of the racing through, Dave.

Yes.

Streaking through.

Don't mind it.

I had another one for a big forward, barreling.

Barreling.

Again, that's an ongoing thing.

It's not a single act of barreling.

He's like a barreling number nine, like Kevin Davis.

Was he a barreler?

I think he was.

Barrel tasted.

But I think in an individual moment, it can be one of those where he's just barreled his way through and he said, I'm having this.

I think it's quite a good, inviting, and imaginary conversation because it's like you,

a few defenders, and you're just barreling, you're just charging, you're getting rid of them with your elbows, and you're getting the ball.

Darting.

Oh, I like darts.

But is that not more of a kind of midfielder making making a late run situation?

Or can strikers dart?

You can make a darting run to the near post, right?

It's like a lineke

near post run.

I like darting.

Let's get rid of.

Oh, I don't know.

Racing, darting, barreling.

You want all three, really?

I think barreling and darting is a nice combination.

Yeah, that is.

Chalk and cheese all over again, isn't it?

Gary Chalk.

I can't remember which way it was.

Steve Chalk and Gary Cheese, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed that level.

It's like 2021 all over again.

That's it.

Who's the manager?

Patrolling.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Pacing, patrolling.

Stalking?

Stalking his technical area?

There's definitely something we're missing here.

Something in his technical area.

Pacing, patrolling.

Stepping outside of it if he's Mikel Arteta.

Yeah, I was going to say Artetaing.

Dead man walking, perhaps.

That's brilliant.

Great.

The movement 11.

dictated by us.

Right, thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

We're jumping on a train to Cardiff.

Everyone else, we'll be back on Tuesday, or indeed see you at the Hackney Empire on Sunday.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.