Mbappé sparkles as Manchester City fail the Real Madrid test – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Rail Madrid Overwhelmed Man City at the Burner Bauer, an exhibition of finishing from Killian and Bappe with Vinicius Bellingham and Rodrigo being brilliant behind them.

It could have been more.

City didn't lay a glove on rail.

How will Pep season play out from now?

Also, in the Champions League, another win for the Low Countries over Italy as PSV beat Juve.

Won't someone think of Il Coeficiente?

In the Premier League, delete as appropriate.

Liverpool get a good point at Villa.

Liverpool dropped two points at Villa.

We'll try to work out which one it is.

There's a Premier League preview, including Manchester City against Liverpool.

Also, today, some Cambridge United news that might be interesting for not just me, as they hire their previous two managers at the same time.

As always, we'll take your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, hello.

Hi, Max.

Hi, Nikki Bandini.

Morning.

And from the racing post, Mark Langdon, good morning.

Good morning, Max.

Darren says, is Pep now underthinking things?

Ian says, have Ineos bought Man City as well?

Manchester City's 13th defeat of the season across all competitions.

Now the most ever by a Pep Guardiola side in a single campaign in his managerial career.

And, Mark, this was so comprehensive, wasn't it, from Real Madrid?

Absolutely.

Yeah, you know, I think from sort of Manchester City's sort of point of view here, the questions were around Pep Guardiola.

That would have been as chastening a defeat as what he could have had, I would imagine, because they've lost by more goals before.

He was lost by more goals before as a manager, but it was the manner of the defeat where, like you say, they just didn't get near Real Madrid for know, just the entire 90 minutes, really, the consolation goal at the end

was merely that.

And

Real Madrid were in, it felt like second gear.

And if they would have wanted to have sort of really stepped it up, they could.

You know, from Man City, the defending was poor, the midfield was non-existent.

With Haaland injured, there was very little up front.

They spent a lot of money in January.

It's early, but certainly from the defence and midfield point of view, it doesn't look like anything has changed to me and you know Mbappe was electric but even if he'd kind of just played six out of ten rather than kind of a nine out of ten performance I still feel like Real Madrid would have won easily and the lack of athleticism in that city side

just quite embarrassing really at that level from you know these two teams have played a lot in the Champions League in recent years and like from where city were to where they are now um yeah just didn't see that coming at all really say this time last year.

We have, Barry, we've discussed this, and we've had correspondence from people who all know that Killian Mbappe is really good, but I've never seen him be really good.

And I think last night he was really good, and we saw him be really good.

Yeah, he was outstanding.

He's really hit his stride at Real Madrid now.

He's scored 14 goals in his last 11 games,

28 so far in all competitions this season, which is not bad for a player who

you know everyone's saying oh he's not performing he's he's really letting himself down after getting this dream move um but as uh james horncastle pointed out on bbc last night maybe it's a case that he was so up for this move because he's such a has wanted it all his life that uh because he was you know obsessed with rail madrid when he was a kid that you know he was sort of overwhelmed by it so anyway he's he's really got in the groove now.

Uh, that was the 21st hat-trick of his uh career last night.

And

you know, you could be really mealy-mouthed and say, Well, he wasn't up against much.

Um, I felt so when I saw that city line-up, and I saw that Abdugadir Kushinoff was

in it right back.

I just went, oh, Crikey, that's going to be trouble.

Like, that is so unfair.

I don't know what was it his third or fourth game for for city

um and i think his agent should have had it written into his contract you know you cannot play my client out of position in that game that's coming up against real madrid at the burnabout um

but uh

yeah it was

uh men against boys really last night and

some brilliant performances from assorted Real Madrid players.

And

City looked so old, and tired, and slow, and sluggish.

I'd say Real Madrid probably couldn't believe their look at how bad they were.

And when

Nico Gonzalez scored that tap in near the end, when Omar Mamouche hit the bar with a free kick, it was almost apologetic, the manner in which he tapped it in, as if to say, look, I'm apologizing to the burnabau for taking a small bit of gloss off an otherwise easy victory and i suppose there was no harland in the city lineup jamie carragher has accused him of feigning injury basically cowardice which that that's going to blow up or will have blown up by the time this goes out um

yeah i'm not sure it was a wise thing to say uh i wouldn't agree with him i'd say harland if fit would have liked to play but apparently he went to pep yesterday and said he wasn't fit so we we'll find out more in due course i suppose but he's never really done much against rael madrid has he no i mean a couple of things one i think if you're not a right back

yes that is true he was very good in the first leg i mean just on kushminov i think if you're not a right back of all the places to be a right back when you're not a right back it's up against vinicius and if vinicius isn't there and bappe's there i just think that's just suck i think that's on pep i think that's sort of terrible i mean maybe he didn't have any other options but i mean rico lewis i guess might not have been fit on On Haaland, I thought, Nikki, and I don't know if this is true or not.

There are those games against big clubs where he doesn't do anything and he has four touches, but he does occupy people.

And if he's not there to occupy them, then those Real Madrid defenders, you know, have time on the ball.

Like, he is a presence, even if he's not doing anything.

I know you can always read too much into players being better when they're not on the pitch, when a team are bad.

But I did wonder that about Haaland.

Yes, it's a different...

I want to temper this because I'm not for a second suggesting that there's any other winner if Haaland's on the pitch, but it is a different game if Haaland's on the pitch.

Obviously, I think the threat he has and specifically how he can unsettle that Madrid line was seen in the first leg.

And yeah, he hasn't always done great against them, but he did in Manchester.

And very nearly, it looked like it was going to be a Manchester City win, a first leg until Madrid did the Madrid thing and woke up at the end of that match.

I think

it's actually kind of what I was thinking when Barry was talking about Mbappe just now is

because it is totally absurd that anyone is looking at him and going, oh, has he had a good first season?

Yeah, of course he's had a good first season.

He scored only 30 goals.

But actually, in the end, we will judge Mbappe entirely.

Not saying, I say we, I mean the football community at large, not necessarily us individually or the people listening to this, but the football community at large will judge Killian Mbappe almost entirely on how he does in a very small handful of biggest games for Real Madrid.

That's what will get remembered.

Does he go on and win the big competitions there?

Does he score the goals in the big games?

And I was contemplating that as I was watching this last night because it was such a completely dominating performance.

And I thought to myself, does this count as one of the big matches or not?

Because I genuinely don't know, because it should.

It should, because it's Manchester City against Real Madrid and the rivalry they've had and how close they've been in some of those games in the past.

But this was such a one-sided game of football, and the city was so far away from that good Manchester City we know.

I just don't know if it's going to

register in people's brains still

as one of those big night performances that we demand from a player like Mbappe or like a Harland.

Rodrigo was brilliant last night, Mark.

Bellingham afterwards said he's so underrated.

For me, he's probably the most talented and most gifted player in the squad.

Clearly, he is not as underrated as Mark Albrighton, as we know, the most underrated footballer of all time.

However, it is quite interesting.

Obviously, if you're in a team where Mbappe Vinicius and Bellingham are sort of wandering around near you, you're not going to get coverage.

And maybe it helps him, but he is a total dream.

His balance is something else.

Yeah, I think he's not the most gifted player in that Real Madrid team.

I will dispute Bellingham's claim there.

But what he does do is balances the team out.

He works exceptionally hard where maybe a couple of the other forward players.

You know, that's not one of their strengths.

And I think we're in big games.

he is sort of the person Ancelotti sort of nearly always goes to and

we've seen Real Madrid really unbalanced at the start of the season it wasn't quite working with Mbappe and Vinicius and Ancelotti was was working it out himself and you know one of the strengths I think of Ancelotti is that he's not wedded to an absolute system in terms of you must play like this he just looks at the players he's got and then figures, you know, how do I play to all of these guys' strengths?

And, you know, not many managers, I would say, in the modern game actually do that.

You know, they've got this way of we have to do this, and you know, you either fit into it or you don't.

And with Rodrigo, he just enables Vinicius and Mbappe to be slightly lazier out of possession.

And what we've sort of seen in more recent times is that in defensive situations, they defend 4-4-2, and that means that Rodrigo will really shuffle back into a right-midfield role.

Bellingham on on the left-hand side has to sacrifice himself.

He probably doesn't want to sort of play left-midfield out of possession, but he's doing it for the greater good of the team.

And it will require, from Real Madrid's point of view, sacrifices from certain players to enable them to fit in as many gifted players as they can.

And I'd also give a shout out to Ascensia, the centre half, who

defends so aggressively.

And I always feel like Real Madrid are sort of better when they've got a player like that.

If you go back to the Galacticos, it was the Zidans and Pavons was the nickname of that team.

And then you had Nacho that just did it for years, really.

And now it looks like they've found their kind of new Nacho.

And while City didn't offer that much going forward, I really enjoyed these aggression at the back as well.

Every listener is thinking, I wonder if Mark Langon likes...

nachos and I think that's the interest

yes even if there might be some I mean guacamole is the interesting question.

Yeah, I tried to either ask for no guac or just kick around.

Okay, yeah.

I thought as much.

Barry, City are capable, right?

We saw that against Newcastle at the weekend.

They're in the top four.

They're in the FA Cup.

And clearly, good seasons, bad seasons are all relative.

And this is a terrible one for them.

But

where do you think it will go?

I don't think they'll win the FA Cup, and I think they will struggle to finish in the top four.

They got three

tough league games coming up.

Liverpool at home, Spurs,

who are their something of a bogey team away, and Nottingham Forest away.

I mean, you you wouldn't be massively surprised if they won all three.

You wouldn't be massively surprised if they lost all three.

It'll probably be somewhere in between.

They've got a home game against Plymouth in the Cup during that run as well, which you would expect them to win.

But

they're so up and down,

more down than up.

I thought they'd sort of, you know, after spending 200 million on new players,

two of whom have looked good, one of whom is struggling a bit,

Kushinov.

Although it's very, very early to write him off, and I'm not doing anything of the kind.

Yeah, and after that, such an emphatic win over Newcastle at the weekend, I thought, oh, maybe they're going to get their act together now.

But

they were so bad last night.

There was one stage when they were 2-0 down,

and Real Madrid were just hogging the ball, fizzing it around hither and yon.

And it looked like Real Madrid had about 18 players on the pitch because

City just could not get near the ball.

So

I just don't know.

I can't emphatically or confidently declare, oh, they'll be fine.

They'll finish in the top four.

I think now a top four finish would be a good end to the season for them.

Or maybe fifth will be enough, you know.

All this has to be caveated by the fact that they could end up with an 80 points deduction and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

I was just going to pick up on what Buzz is saying there about how they looked, because it is not just about the scoreline.

It is not just about, oh, Mbappe scores a hatch against against you at the burner bear because that can happen to any team that can happen to a really good team but I I was watching the replays on the second goal and it just felt like on the on the ball that comes across there's this mob of city defenders

turning all at once lost in the middle of this action and it felt so much like when you watch a group of kids on playing in a in a playground who are just chasing the ball running after it hopelessly with no plan to it the whole thing just felt so structureless for them last night i think that was what felt so striking about it it's not losing it's not that they got beat by someone good the whole thing just felt like it didn't have a plan and if there's one thing with pep you always expect there to be it's a plan sometimes in europe we've criticized him in the past for for over planning and overthinking and going crazy but it just felt like everyone was out there like headless chickens last night yeah yeah i mean in that second goal krishmanov first of all is just sort of paralyzed by not knowing what to do and then mbappe sends vardial to andora basically just knew with that drop drop of the shoulder I Mark are you surprised that Pep has the stomach for a rebuild or I mean because he I mean he says that he does he signed this contract clearly like he's you know they spent a lot of money in January but are you surprised that he is

up for this or do we think he is up for this he didn't look up for it last night um there was an air of sort of defeat just around the whole sort of squad as soon as that first goal went in.

I wonder if he hadn't signed the contract, whether he would sign it now.

Maybe he didn't think things were going to be this bad.

The drop-off has been astonishing.

I don't see this can't just be a Roderie thing anymore.

I mean, Roderick will make them better when he comes back from injury.

But maybe Guardiola is looking and thinking, well, Stones have just been injured all season.

If we can get Stones back to full fitness, Diaz has been injured for a lot of the campaign.

If we can get him back to the levels that he was before, but you know, De Bruyne is not trusted anymore in sort of these big games, like physically, maybe isn't capable of doing it.

Was that drop-off anticipated?

I didn't see it coming this soon.

I mean, I think we all knew at some stage De Bruyne would slow down.

I didn't think it'd be now.

He maybe thinks that there are some younger players coming through that he can get the best out of.

And Haaland signed a long-term contract.

And like, where else do you go?

If you're looking at club football,

he's not really realistically going to manage Real Madrid.

He's already managed by Munich.

He's already managed Barcelona.

Don't seem really going back there.

So you know it's that or a break and maybe he doesn't want a break at the moment.

There's been a lot of talk about national team

for Guardiola but I'm not sure that really suits his style of coaching either.

Yeah, so I don't know if that answered the question.

I don't know if he's up for the fight, but I suspect to round it off, I think if the contract was put in front of him again, I'm not sure he'd be signing it quite so quickly.

Before we move on to the other games, Jude Bellingham's got a two-match ban following that red card that we've kept going on about F off and FU.

But

since we spoke about it last time, there's been this depressingly but unsurprising backlash against a ref who's had threats and harassment towards him and his family.

He expressed distress over the situation.

And that is something that, you know, everybody, players, managers, coaches, fans, should be thinking about.

On a slightly different tack, Paul writes in to say, a few years ago, my son yelled, play to the feckin' whistle, excuse my accent, at a teammate who'd paused in anticipation of the ref blowing up for some instant or the other while he was playing in the United States.

The American ref clearly wasn't aware of this particular Irish phrase and gave him a straight red.

So there we are.

Let's go to PSV Juventus.

They won 3-1.

First time they've won a knockout game in the Champions League since 2007.

And Barry, Ivan Peresic, no sign of tiring.

Like that first touch and finish for the opening goal is so good.

Yeah, this was kind of the Noah Lang show.

And he was instrumental in setting up that first goal for Perric.

Sort of cutting side to defenders, suddenly seemed to be in just this vast expanse of green with nowhere, no one near him.

Fizzed a really

you know, high-velocity, low diagonal across towards Peresic, who took control of the ball at full speed.

Wonderful, wonderful touch.

Because it's Ivan Perisic, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he definitely meant that.

And the ball sat up for him beautifully, and he just smacked the volley into the far corner.

It was beautiful.

And even though I saw him playing for PSV last week, I'd forgotten he played for PSV.

A touch of the Jeffrey Schlupps.

That's

And yeah, he's still got it, hasn't he?

Great.

I'm going to guess he didn't play the entire 120 minutes because he must be at least 47 by now.

But great finish.

And

I didn't watch all this game, but I did see all extra time.

And I don't think I've ever seen two sets of players more knackered.

by the end of extra time in a game.

But

Juventus obviously become the third Syria side to exit the tournament in just over 24 hours, and Nikki probably has something to say about that.

I don't know if it's a sign of a deep malaise or just one of those things.

Nikki?

I'm just feeling bad for poor Ivan Peresic, who I'm pretty sure is younger than anyone on this Zoom call.

So

36, I believe, is how old he is.

And yeah, he did come off in the 85th minute.

So yeah, it was magnificent, as was Lang, as Barry should say.

What a sad world where ivan perisic is a spring chicken compared to us that is brutal isn't it

i think i look younger than him even though i'm 14 years old

you run less i mean

i was gonna say yeah

it's true yeah yeah your stats i think your running stats are lower than his yeah but i i i appreciate i'm not as fish as he is but i still think he he yeah he he looks like he had a tough paper round

yeah maybe anyway to the to the uh the disastrous two days nikki for italian clubs yeah it's it's really it's really fascinating because i sometimes wonder if uh this is just a sign that um you've been doing something for a long time because i i saw all of the the heat and the fury and the desperation about how disastrous this is for Serie A that was going across social media and again then the next morning in the papers this morning

and it's real there's all this talk about it being this point of of of nadir and and it's it's not to dismiss because i don't mean to be dismissive of it at all it's just that i remember writing about seria's year zero in 2009 um i i i just double-checked it i've when that column was written but i remember writing about that because there was no italian teams that got through to the champions league quarterfinals and and and how this was the low point italian football has been uh rigimensionato it's been redimensioned it is not what it was in the in the late 90s early 2000s and if anyone thinks it is then they haven't been paying attention for a very long time um this is still

it feels like a desperate week because all of the teams that knocked the italian teams out that they weren't losing to rail madrid and and barcelona they were losing to teams that you looked at on paper and thought yeah they should be able to find a way a way past that and

there's there's different threads because i i think i can talk through each of these ties and I think each of these ties has its own dynamic as football football ties always do, that is not actually about the big picture.

It's about individuals making good and bad decisions.

It's about teams not being at the best of the points they could be.

All of the top Italian teams are going through a rough patch right now.

Atalanta were brilliant for a period earlier this season.

They drew with Empoly at the weekend, with Cagliari, sorry, at the weekend.

They're not in a good moment right now, whereas they have been at other points of the season.

Milan should have won their tie, but Teo Hernandez is a massive idiot, and the whole team got punished for it.

I mean that that is that just is the story of that tie.

This one was actually I thought

a really impressive performance from PSV and I don't think that needs to get lost in the wash.

But again Tiagamota hasn't got a handle on this Juventus team.

There's already been talk of him getting fired weeks ago.

It had sort of come back the other way recently because they have had some good results.

They did beat India, but they aren't a team that looks fluid and like it's all together.

So there's individual stories.

And then yes, there is a big picture.

Italian

football is vastly poorer than it was.

Financially, you cannot draw comparisons between where most Italian football clubs are and where most Premier League clubs are anymore.

It's a different world.

And even the fact that Cosetta de la Sport this morning was lamenting how, yes, this hits the coefficient makes it less likely there's going to be five teams from Italy in the Champions League next season.

They said, well, that's going to cost the league.

That could cost the league 35 million euros or so.

I can't remember the exact number it was about that and i thought to myself 35 million euros spread across the league in the premier league is a drop in the ocean it's a meaningless figure whereas in italian football it isn't and and that is the the the the blunt reality of it um now that there is layers and layers to that and there are things that you could go back to 2009 when i'm writing about year zero that haven't changed right

New stadiums are needed and almost none have been built.

That's simply been an area of almost no progress because,

and it's not completely no progress.

Again, Atalanta have rebuilt their stadium and that's been an ongoing thing.

Urtineze got their new stadium built.

Obviously, Juventus got the Juventa stadium built.

Those things have happened, but across the board, it's still way less than it should be.

The leadership of Italian football is so constantly beset by internal bickering that very little gets done in terms of promoting the league internationally.

The fact that rights deals are being negotiated on the eve of seasons and then even into the seasons for international rights deals and then resolved, I would say, deeply unsatisfactorily.

With in England, for instance, or in Great Britain, it's not got a major television partner.

It's being broadcast on one football with just a couple of games on TNT, with the CBS deal in the United States, which has been seemingly a good partner for them.

There's been lots of positive noise about it.

The fact they couldn't get that deal done until the eve of the season and for much less money than they thought they were going to get.

It has been mismanaged horribly and all of these things are true i guess just these things didn't become true for me last night yeah so i've been paying attention to this for a long time it's been true for a long time and so this sudden shock of oh these things aren't great well yeah they're not and it's also possible to get carried away with that because of one awful week because just to remind everyone Atalanta did win the Europa League last season and they beat that Via Levakusen team that everyone thought was the best thing since light spread comprehensively in the final.

Inter were in a championship final two years ago so it's not like there's nothing good happening.

But yes, the big picture is worse and it has been for a long time.

Adela Malukman

after Gasparini said he's one of the worst penalty takers I've ever seen took to social media to say it saddens me on a day like this to have to write this statement, most of all because of what we've achieved together as a team and as a city.

Being singled out in the manner I have been not only hurts but feels deeply disrespectful, not least because of the immense hard work and commitment commitment I have always put in each and every day to help bring success to this club and to the incredible fans in Bergamo.

In truth, I've dealt with many difficult moments during my time here, the majority of which I've never spoken about, because in my opinion, the team must always be protected and must come first.

This makes what happened last night even more hurtful, along with our incredible fans.

We as a team are hurting too.

With last night's result, during the match, the designated penalty taker instructed me to take the penalty and to support the team.

I took responsibility in the moment to do so.

Life's about challenges and turning pain into power, which I'll continue to do.

I mean, mean, he's got a point, Barry, I guess.

Like, it was funny what Gasperini said, and maybe you laugh about it later, but it would piss you off.

Yeah, it would piss me off.

I think,

and I'm an awful lot older than

Adam Ola Luckman, I'd probably just suck it up or else go and have a word with Gasperini.

in private afterwards but yeah it's a bit unedifying to have this you know

completely reasonable.

I can see both their points of view, but it's a bit unedifying to have this

earring of Dirty Laundry in public.

But good fun for us, I suppose.

I'm sure they're just completely different generations, aren't they?

Gasperini and Luckman and

oh, by the way, I've checked.

Ivan Peric didn't have a tough paper round.

He spent his childhood working on his father's chicken farm, which is probably far more tough than a paper round.

God, I imagine it is.

Yes, yes, Nikki.

Yeah, I just wanted to come in on Lukman and Gasperini, because there is backstory there.

Luckman

was

trying to get out of

leave, yeah.

Yeah.

And Gasperini, I think, didn't take well to that at the time.

There's been some tension between them through the season.

There was a bit of a story around a substitution, I think it was against Venezia early in the season, which led to a fallout.

And Bercassi,

who

has a figurehead role at the club, came back

and tried to smooth everything over.

And

the relationship has been breaking down for a while.

And I expect probably ends with Luckman being sold this summer if they can make that happen.

And to me, it still seems like a very odd way to handle it.

I think to air your laundry like that in public, like Gasparini does, seems very odd.

But actually, As I was thinking about that today, it crossed my mind that it's not totally dissimilar to what happened with Papu Gomez, because Papu Gomez was Atalanta's best player at the time when

their relationship soured and got chased out in the middle of a season.

And to my surprise, because I was a huge Papu Gomez believer, the team got stronger.

And there's been this long-standing comparison in Italy with Gasparini being a Seradix Ferguson type.

And it did cross my mind again, this is exactly what Ceradix Ferguson did sometimes.

flame out your high play profile player tell tell tell the world that they're the problem with everything and somehow even though it doesn't seem intuitive to me come out the other side of it with your team stronger.

But, yeah, on a personal level, I think it's a horrible way to treat Lookman, and I feel really sorry for him.

Raphael Chorley, you must have been delighted.

Yeah, he must have been.

Look, I'm conscious of time, so we're not going to go deep on PSG 7.

Breast-nil.

Shame that Brest went out in that manner after they lit up this competition.

But seven different goal scorers.

Could this be PSG?

Yeah, well, I think it might be.

But like,

really impressive.

Really, yes, yes,

I agree with Barry in terms of being impressed, but next up, it's Liverpool or Barcelona.

So, yeah, the draw gets tougher.

It does, yeah.

Dorman 0 sporting Lisbon 0.

I mean, it shouldn't.

They just should have said, let's not bother with this.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Even because the highlights, nothing happened in that game.

You mentioned the draw there, Mark.

And actually, there are some...

It's going to take place tomorrow.

And it's kind of like there's...

There's sort of either ors, aren't there?

But there are some absolutely fascinating possible games.

Yeah, there are.

I i mean real madrid or bayern will play levacous and or atletico madrid so you just can't get a bad um sort of um four um sort of sort of teams there um i think in terms of inter and arsenal they'll be really happy that it's psv or final i know what um those two air devisi clubs have done this week but it still would have looked harder i think on paper before um the round and aston villa or lile will play club bruges or dortmund dortmund is the one that villa will,

again, on paper, you'd want to avoid, but not playing well in the Bundesliga.

And last night it was a very comfortable game for them against sporting, but it's probably not as difficult as what it sort of feels like.

And then, yeah, that PSG against Liverpool or Barcelona is going to be great.

And, you know, I think from Liverpool or Barcelona point of view, you'd rather play Benfica.

Yeah, all right.

That'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do Aston Villa 2, Liverpool 2.

Hi Pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the Remarkable Paper Pro.

We already know that Remarkable's the leader in the paper tablet category, digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper, but with the power of modern technology.

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable paper pro move.

Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

Yeah, it's their most portable paper tablet yet.

It holds holds all your notes, to-dos, and documents, but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin, so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket.

Perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office, like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, man.

Exactly.

Too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Week, Cleeso Villa 2, Liverpool 2.

A brilliant game this Barry, I thought.

I feel like both sides will be disappointed not to win.

I cannot work out if this is a good point for Liverpool or a continuation of their sort of not really blip.

Yeah, it is a a sort of not-really blip.

I don't include the Plymouth FA Cup exit as part of a blip because that wasn't

Liverpool.

It was Liverpool second and third string,

pre-season-friendly 10 days after a major tournament line-up.

It feels like a bad result for Liverpool, but Villa are a very good side.

They're a very good side at home.

And Liverpool have increased their lead at the top of the table by a point.

But given the Darwin Nunes miss, the Jotta misses, they will certainly feel like they should have won the three points and the game.

But

in the cold light of the day, it is not a bad result, but they will feel they should have won it and they will feel they did enough to win it.

But I, like yourself, I thoroughly enjoyed this game.

It was basketball-yeah and

end-to-end, two good teams playing well, and there's certainly no shame in drawing away at Villa.

Yeah, that's the perfect description.

I don't know if any team ever had real control of this game, Mark.

And that it's funny because the Jotter miss

is not as bad as the Nunes miss.

And Jota probably missed more chances, but you just view them so differently because of who those players are.

Yeah, I mean, I think the Nunes one was definitely worse.

Yeah, it was.

No, you're right.

There was at least a goalkeeper in the way of Jotter's first miss.

I felt like Liverpool, in isolation, this is not a bad point at all, really.

It's because it's come on the back, particularly the Everton draw last week.

But the performance was much better

than what we saw against Everton or Walls.

I felt that Liverpool had good control of the game for at least the first sort of half an hour of it.

It worked well with Kurtz Jones just on the sort of left-hand side there.

So Boschlai was making constant runs in behind, and Villa was struggling to cope with it

until the goal went in.

And then Villa's equaliser then sort of changed the dynamic of the match, and then Watkins put them in front.

And from that point, I think it is a good draw for Liverpool to be trading 2-1 and to pull it back.

But yeah, Nunez,

I've probably been one of his biggest supporters.

I always feel like it will turn for him, and there is

you know a very top player there but just the more you watch the more you just think that there isn't and

I think to play up front you need to have a certain calmness in in front of goal and he just doesn't have that and there was even a moment when it was 2-2 and Liverpool countered really well and Salah had I think it was long ball from Alison Salah had run through he passed it to Nunez couldn't sort his feet out and then tried to play a ball to I think it was Saboshla on on the right-hand side, and he just passed it out for a goal kick.

And like the Liverpool players were just sort of looking at him, and

sort of last one to be picked in the playground type, sort of look, really.

Of like, you know, just not in the same wavelength, maybe as some of the others.

The last man to stop supporting Darwin Noones, Mark.

This would be a

hammer blow for him.

There's got to be a player in there, Matt.

I agree.

I agree.

I think Liverpool fans

are running out of patience with him.

I think they really want him to succeed, but I think that miss might have been

one of the final straws hitting the camel's back as far as he's concerned.

Mickey,

are you with your Arsenal hat on staring at the league table again?

No.

This is the thing.

When we're talking about points gained and points dropped, there's this presumption that Arsenal with no centre-forwards are going to win every game to catch them.

And I think that's the fall-down point for me.

It was a really entertaining game.

It was a weird night for me.

I don't know if this has actually been mentioned since we started recording, but I'm away from home at the moment.

I'm actually in Japan, and I was watching

flicking from one game to the next to the next because I didn't have as many screens available to me as I normally do.

And so, going back and forth between this and the city well, the city game against Madrid didn't feel as compelling after a pretty quick amount of time, but this game stayed compelling all the way through.

I think as entertaining as it was, Liverpool were probably still the better team.

They certainly conceded twice on pretty much the only two chances in

that first half, didn't they?

So I think even though Villa could have nearly won at the end, Liverpool didn't look like a team that's about to blow a lead to me.

They look like a team that played well against a good team and got some

clinical finishing meant they didn't get the three points.

But I don't think they look like a team that's about to blow that lead.

I think if you're in Japan, you're duty bound to flick through the channels looking for for me and Peter Crouch on these stupid people

doing stupid things television show.

There's a chance, Barry, it's not repeated every day.

I mean, we don't know, do we?

What do you make of Villa, Mark?

I mean, like, Raspberry Laccentr started.

Does give them depth.

You know, Donio Marlin comes on, he's so close at the end.

He sort of felt like Liverpool were hanging on at the end, only right at the end.

But like, that strength in depth should, I think, Mark, give Villa a real chance to push up the table.

Yeah, I think that was the

biggest issue for them, sort of, in the first part of the season, was that Emre was looking at his bench and didn't feel like he had enough to change games.

And their record after Champions League matches is not good enough, really, for a team that wants to get back into the Champions League next season.

And that I think lends itself to this belief that fatigue

has played its part in this season for Villa, as it has done for a number of other teams.

They've had a lot of emotional games in the Champions League as well that maybe just take more out of them than maybe it would ordinarily.

I thought Rashford, there were bits of sort of good play from him, that maybe Villa didn't have enough of the ball for him to really sort of shine for the full 90 minutes.

But I think that's probably unrealistic anyway against a team like Liverpool.

There were

some threats from there.

I just think with Villa, the way that they play, and this was what Liverpool tried to counteract, nearly everything goes through that middle section and Rogers feels so important to the way that they play and try to create opportunities.

And as Aston Villa gets better and more respected, teams are going to look to sort of nullify that threat more and worry more about what Villa do rather than sort of their own game.

And that might just be the next step for Villa.

And having strength in depth on the bench is one way of changing matches.

And they're still very much in in the hunt for um sort of champions league we think the premier league will almost certainly get five spots um next season so um yeah they're in that mix and they're going well in the champions league as well and they're still in the fa cup so i i think they could be reasonably pleased with um the season so far it's worth pointing out the moment where emi martinez really helped tyrow mings out when mings just you know lost was sort of dillying dallying with the ball whichever one you want to choose and then martinez came out like a train Was it who?

I can't remember who was through.

Was it Soberslai?

But it was just an incredible bit of goalkeeping.

I think it was Nunez, I think it was.

You're right.

No, you're right.

It was Darwin Nunes, yeah.

Who's unlucky he wasn't up against a keeper who's not as good because he'd have had a chance.

I'm not saying he would have scored it, he probably wouldn't.

Man City Liverpool on Sunday, Barry, is fascinating, isn't it?

It is fascinating.

You would, on the face of it, expect Liverpool to win, even though it's at the Etiad.

If they are in a blip, and maybe they are, RN Slot reckons they aren't, but said he can see where people are coming from,

then

City could cause them problems.

It depends which Man City turn up, and we just don't know which Man City will turn up.

We have a fair idea which Liverpool will turn up, and

I would expect them to win the game.

I would also not be surprised if they didn't.

So there's my incisive analysis right there.

No, no, it was.

I've heard you say, I don't know before.

And you know,

I like it when you do, which is lucky for me, isn't it?

What do you reckon, Nikki?

I was honestly thinking about, are we going to see Haaland and what difference will that make?

And I don't actually know.

I was trying to do a

quick little squiz on the internet while you were chatting to see if there's any extra information about how likely he is to play in that game.

Because, yeah, I think without him, I'm a lot more sceptical that City could pull off something with him.

Maybe there's a smash and grab in there somewhere.

But there's no, we're not talking about, and this is what's crazy about this conversation, we're not talking about these as two equal teams.

They're not, they're not two equal teams.

Liverpool are a significantly better team than City at this moment in time.

And so the expectation for me is that Liverpool will win.

Everton Man United is an interesting one, Mark, isn't it?

In the sense that I would be, I would almost be astonished if United got anything from this game.

Yeah, I mean,

I mean, I always wonder, like, if Manchester United stuck with David Moyes just from thick and thin, given him

the whole time,

would they be in any worse position?

We probably wouldn't be in a worse position.

Yeah, I think it's difficult to sort of trust Manchester United to win any game

really at the moment.

The injuries against Tottenham clearly was a problem.

I'm not sure how many of those players will be back, but even before that, the the injuries,

not enough of their performances have been up to scratch.

And Everton have sort of been woken up by Moyes.

And it's going to be a hostile environment for Manchester United to go into.

And yeah, I probably fancy Everton, I think, to win the game.

Arsenal home to West Ham, Nikki.

I mean, look, we've established the fact that this, you know,

do you think Mikhail Marino will start up front?

It's a good question, isn't it?

I mean, it feels like that's the point where I honestly don't know.

It feels like no one has prepared for this, no one has planned for this, and how you make that attack look is a bit of a mystery to anyone.

But

yeah, it should be on paper.

It's a good game, but I'm so skeptical about where the goal is coming from at the moment.

And I find it hard to feel optimistic.

Yeah, I think you should be more optimistic.

I think this title race is totally alive.

I think Liverpool are in a blitz.

I know they're really good.

I know they're better than Arsenal.

But confidence, like we see it with City, like you see with Grealish and now Foden.

And like confidence is such this sort of really unquantifiable part of the game and i just think if liverpool have a tiny slip you just never know i think arsenal are capable nick i think you should have some faith or maybe you're just trying to you're just trying to you know brace yourself well it's it's funny so my my mum's husband is uh is a liverpool fan and he has been telling me for ages that they absolutely are going to blow it it's absolutely all going to fall apart he's absolutely convinced of it but honestly i'm just convinced that he's doing right the double bluff trying not to the reverse jinx it exactly but uh yeah i don't know i just of course arsenal are a good team and and we should expect to win most of these games it just it really has felt like and it felt like even before some of his injuries that put scoring goals sometimes has been pulling teeth and there's some nice stuff on the pitch right it's really fun seeing my neri out there playing and and doing well and um and seeing

uh even for me it's fun seeing a bit more of of califiori for instance it's fun seeing marino come come out of nowhere and score two goals it just doesn't feel like there's anything that you look at at the start of the game and think reliably that's where the goals are coming from with the team in its current state.

And in the end, as we saw in that Villet Liverpool game, scoring goals kind of defines games, doesn't it?

It does.

Bournemouth will beat Wolves and stay fifth.

Fulham played Palace, Southampton Brighton

on Sunday.

Newcastle Forest Barry is an interesting one in the race for the Champions League.

Newcastle going to this one on the back of that.

I would say worrying now defeat at the hands of Man City last weekend.

Forrest lost against Fulham

and I think lost more heavily than the scoreline suggested.

My concern for Newcastle about this is that

it is only natural for their players to be preoccupied by the Carabao Cup final.

And I think that may have been a major contributing factor to their defeat last week.

It's it's up to Eddie Howe to tell them to you know get rid of it out of their minds.

That's easier said than done.

On their day, both these teams are perfectly capable of beating the other.

Uh, Newcastle are at home, so

yeah,

take your pick.

Yeah, I think that's a Newcastle one-up forrest, didn't they?

In a kind of when Forrest won that really amazing run.

Actually, Forrest picked it up afterwards.

Um, Mark, uh, Spurs go to Ipswich, just with your Ange hat on.

I I mean were you did you have a big tattoo of Daniel Levy out at the weekend?

And two wins and two clean sheets for Tottenham.

How are you feeling?

Yeah,

slightly better.

I think seeing a healthy bench was

the biggest pick-me-up that you're able to bring on, Odder Bear and Johnson.

But yeah,

I'm not going to go for that.

There's a clown banner, isn't there, of Daniel Levy.

I won't be getting that across my back.

You don't have to worry.

I was at the reverse fixture when Ipswich beat Tottenham.

That seemed to start a lot of the panic because around about that time, I suppose they've just beaten City

and felt quite good about themselves.

It was certainly around that time when the sort of inconsistency started before they then just become consistently bad.

I think Ipswich are a threat, you know, a great point for them at Aston Villa last time out, you know, with 10 men for so long.

He's been mentioned a lot on the pod, but Liam DeLap caused Tottenham so many problems in that first game.

It was the first time I'd seen him properly and

really liked what I saw of him.

And Ips, which have got a big battle on to keep him at the club at the end of the season, even if they stay up.

But yeah, a good opportunity for Tottenham to get a third Premier League sort of win in a row, which would calm things down and set them up nicely for the Europa League, which is

going to make or break their season.

And I suggest Ange's future as well.

Alright, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll do any other business.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the Remarkable Paper Pro.

We already know that Remarkable's the leader in the paper tablet category, digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper, but with the power of modern technology.

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable Paper Pro move.

Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

Yeah, it's their most portable paper tablet yet.

It holds all your notes, to-dos, and documents, but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin, so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket.

Perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office.

Like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, man.

Exactly.

Too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

It'll never beat or buzz to try and grab your attention, so you can devote your focus to what or who is in front of you.

It has a display that looks, feels and even sounds like paper.

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

No worries about running out of power before the end of extra time.

The Remarkable Paper Pro Move can keep going for up to two weeks.

And if you do need to recharge, you can go from naught to 90% in less than 45 minutes, Barry.

Fantastic.

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Visit remarkable.com to learn more and get your paper tablet today.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Home and Oasis.

Has there ever been another instance in which two former managers have returned to a club at the same time?

Bonus points if one manager replaced the other.

other this is the extraordinary announcement that I woke up to George Ellick our mate from not the top 20 sent me a picture of Cambridge United's post saying welcome back and it had our previous manager Neil Harris who buggered off to millwall and left us in the lurch and the manager before him Cambridge United legend Mark Bonner on the same picture and I just thought he'd photoshopped this thing.

I was like, why are you wasting your time?

But Mark Bonner's come back as director of football.

Neil Harris has come back as head coach.

I don't know.

I'm obviously totally invested in this story, Mark.

But you did react in the WhatsApp group.

Like, it feels like

I can't work out if it's good or bad.

The vibes are incredible.

We're obviously rock bottom of League One.

It's a fascinating situation, especially because Neil Harris was like in the stands when Mark Bonner was about to get sacked.

You know, so there's just so many things happening here.

I think Dion Dublin's have come back up front, though, as well.

That's the only thing that sort of gives you a chance of fighting off relegation.

No, it does feel like a staggering turn of events.

When Gary Monk was sacked by Cambridge, I went on to the sort of X replies just to see what the Cambridge United fans were saying about it.

I always like to get the view and while I'd say 90% of it was just celebrating the fact that Gary Monk had departed the club.

You get some like bring back Bonner.

And then there was, no, we don't want Bonner back.

You know, we need to move forward.

And there was, I would say, probably more people in the, we need to move forward.

But this is sort of going backwards by sort of two steps.

But what I would say is that Neil Harris is very good League One manager and, you know, realistically League Two.

I don't want to preempt relegation, but

I think it's looking likely.

And Bonner.

I think he's for that.

Neil Harris, you know, who...

who did amazingly at Millwall.

I mean, he is as good a manager as you could expect to get.

The fact that I think I even wrote a whole column about what a snake he is, which I may now have to rescind,

Maybe

an issue.

But like he's a brilliant football manager at that level.

Yeah, I do feel like he is better at Millwall, though, than anywhere else.

There is just something about Bonner Harris at Millwall that just makes sense compared to everywhere else.

It's just whether Bonner is actually a director of football.

I do think in the United Kingdom there is this kind of belief still in some quarters that anybody can, you just got to be a football man to be a director of football.

and there is a lot more to it and it's a very skilled job and one that i think the best people are you know trained in and and kind of work their way towards so i don't know if if if bonner has done any of that work but that that would be my only kind of um queering concern for him what do you have to do you you you have to do recruitment well it depends

it depends i mean some have different responses i mean i think that in itself is you know some have different responsibilities um

You could have complete

oversight of the club, and that could be academy, it could be finances, it could be recruitment.

Most of those people, including the actual football head coach, would report into you and you kind of just manage all of those areas.

I think is the general kind of vibe.

You know, there will be differences there.

And it's just whether Harris and Bonner get on.

It does, like you say, it feels quite strange that the last two managers are now sort of coming together.

It's not quite sort of Kirby and Grit, is it?

But it's yeah,

it's the modern day sort of setup, I suppose, of dual management.

I think it's Dan Ashworth who used to describe his role as being the central hub in a wheel and the spokes lead out to men's team recruitment,

medical department, women's team, youth set up, academy, you know, and then owners.

So, all you're overseeing all these various different departments.

Obviously, the spoke that led to the boardroom from the Ashworth hub, Ashworth Hub at Old Trafford was broken.

But yeah, I think it's him that used to describe his director of football role as such.

And

an expensive spoke as well.

Man United have revealed it cost 4.1 million

the brief tenure of sporting director Dan Ashworth, encompassing compensation to Newcastle, Ashworth severance package.

The disclosure comes on the heels of a 10.4 million payout following the dismissal of Eric Ten Hag and his staff.

The club has a 12% revenue decline due to missing out in the Champions League.

Lost 27.7 million in the last quarter.

So anyway,

fire another tea lady.

Exactly.

They should stop paying their tea ladies $4 million a year.

That would really solve these things.

But, I mean, they make a mighty fine cuppa, don't they?

Tricky German, he writes, as a Brit living in Stuttgart for 25 years, I love today's pod.

And hearing about Ewan Murray's German pub quiz experience, very simple.

Never mess with a German pub quiz, even if held in an Irish pub.

Who knew?

Yeah, he says Germans getting arcy about their rules.

Who knew, he says.

A lot of people take pub quizzes very, very seriously.

i mean very seriously i mean true but i mean i would say once you're in you're in and like cheating at a pub quiz is i can't think of a worse crime

well i can think of several or crimes but it is

i know for sure

but it is a terrible you know like it really is if you wore if you go to the toilet and someone's you know googling like the capital of uzbekistan you're like come on like this is this isn't on well i i did a i hosted a and me and a pal set set the questions for a pub quiz in Brixton a couple of years ago.

Very well attended.

And we managed to make it completely cheat-proof.

So it can be done.

It just takes work.

And how did you do that?

Well, you have various rounds like

an observation round.

This is one I nicked from another pub quiz I'd been at years previously.

where you know you you just ask questions about say something about the exterior of the pub Okay.

They put up fake flyers for a DJ night around the pub.

And then before the quiz started, took them all down and stuff like that.

You know, so that an observation around

the picture around,

they weren't celebrities.

There were people who looked like celebrities.

Right.

You know, that we got off some agency website.

Yeah, so it can be done.

All right.

Interesting.

Daniel says, last night I was sitting on a chair with my one-year-old son, milling about near my feet.

As is his wont at that moment, he sat down but overbalanced, continuing his backward momentum, where he certainly would have cracked his head on the concrete floor.

However, with somewhere between 35% and 65% of the grace and skill of Caro Matoma, I was able to use my foot to gently catch him at the nape of his neck and ease his fall.

As a centre-back in over 35s, with the usual touch of a giraffe on skates, this was most unexpected.

I do hope parenthood has granted to you previously unforeseen gifts of grace and skill swearing at the doorpost and possibly subconsciously your child at 3 a.m.

probably doesn't count many congratulations Daniel yeah I mean if you're I mean I must say like

if you you know if you drop a jar and you control it on your instep like Matoma it is a wonderful it's a wonderful moment I'm yet to have to control either Ian or Willie Rushton's head but you know

it's worth keeping on your touch just in case who was the Spanish goalkeeper who who put himself out?

Canizares.

Yeah, Shanti Canizares trapped a bottle of aftershave on his instep and split his foot open and missed a World Cup.

Did Dave Besant do the same with Salas?

Salazar.

Salas.

But I don't know if he was.

Was Besant controlling that or just trying to knock it long?

I mean,

that's what we don't know.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Niggy.

Thanks.

Thanks, Mark.

Thank you, Max.

Cheers, Baz.

Thank you.

Briber Weekly is produced by Tommy Stewart and Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Phil Maynard.

We'll be back on Monday.

This is The Guardian.