Tarkowski cracker unleashes Merseyside derby chaos: Football Weekly Extra

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, the final Merseyside Derby at Goodison.

And what a moment in the seventh minute of five of injury time.

A hopeful lump into the box.

It bounces a flick on and James Tarkovsky hammers it into the roof of the net.

Pandemonium, fathers hugging sons, a fan just ripping the corner flag out of the ground and holding it aloft like a medieval spear, an interminable varchek, and then we celebrate again.

Decure shushing the Liverpool fans, Curtis Jones not taking kindly to it, the kind of scenes you absolutely don't slash do want to see.

Slots sent off and slowly but surely they all concertina themselves down the tight Goodison tunnel.

These are moments that just remind you why you love this stuff.

Also tonight Celtic Park erupts after a minute before VAR and then Bayern get in their way.

But a late late Maida goal gives them a slight bit of hope while the other ties are nicely poised.

There's a Premier League preview to get on with.

We'll discuss the implications of Kai Havert's injury, an update on the Lucas Pakatar gambling probe.

And can we preview Spurs Man United without talking about Spurs or Man United?

All that, plus a bit of EFL, your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Archie Rin Tutt.

Hello.

Hey, Max.

Hello, Barry Glenn Denning.

Hi, Max.

And John Bruin, welcome.

Hi.

Let's start then at Goodison, Everton 2, Liverpool 2.

Let's start in the 90, I think I said 7th, 98th minute, whatever it was.

John, over to you to begin with.

What a moment.

It was wonderful, wasn't it?

The thing is, it isn't just quite farewell to Goodison, because we've got quite a few games to go, but it's the last under the lights, we were told, and the last Merseyside Derby.

And I think it also meant that Liverpool didn't come away from Goodison with a winning record.

So the honour of Goodison was protected at the very last by a wonderful goal, a controversial goal.

But could we have it any other way in this particular fixture?

I mean, that goal, the whole Stromash that followed it,

it's a row on Brookside Close.

It's the dinner table in bread, the Boswells going at it.

She is a tart.

She is a.

And it's, you know, calm down, Calder.

And like, let's not, let's set aside

Liverpoolian cliches and all that.

I've already done that.

But what we will do and just say, it was wonderful.

What a moment.

What a moment.

Big smile on David Moynes's face.

You know, the funny thing, this is modern football.

You watch that moment and you think, this is absolutely brilliant.

Wow, that was, you know, and Goodness is going crazy.

You've got all the fight.

You've got, oh, Arna Slot.

Remember Arna Slott?

Calm man on the sidelines, you know, this is a guy that, uh, you know, oh, he's so cool, he's so cool, completely losing it, completely losing his shit.

And then, and then, of course, but after, of course, this is modern football.

Oh, Michael Oliver, oh, the referee, oh, this, oh, that, you know, you know,

social media overnight is just videos of clipped up Everton fouls, and and it just, I suppose, that adds to the gaiety of nations, really, doesn't it?

Because it was a great moment.

Uh, it reminded me of a game I was at many years ago, which is the Jaggy Elker goal.

Oh, yeah.

Which was at Anfield, actually.

And those are two great Everton goals in that fixture, both scored by bank unions of Polish origin.

There you go.

Wow.

Brilliant.

Brilliant.

Goodbye, Goodison.

We'll miss you.

The thing I loved about that goal, I mean, I loved so many things about it, Barry, but like the sort of 40 seconds before it, there is just no, there's no rhyme or reason for that ball to end up in a position where James Tarkovsky can volley it in.

It's just like a lump from Pickford, people miss the ball, Ashley Young gets it launched, this ridiculous looping cross from Micholenko.

For it to even end up in that position is ludicrous.

Yeah, Jonathan Liu wrote a really good colour piece from Goodison in which he sort of pointed out the fact that you can have your Octus supercomputers and your XG and your spreadsheets and your this, that and the other, but you cannot legislate for this kind of chaos.

And I think, I mean this in the nicest possible way.

I think Everton in this game set out to drag Liverpool down to their level.

They did exactly that.

Liverpool didn't play particularly well.

And

this

equalising goal was sort of the entire game in a microcosm.

I think it was Irogoon, not Micholenko, who hoisted that speculative

cross into the bottom.

No, it's Micholenko because Iroboham heads does the first one.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

I watched it about a thousand times.

I do apologise.

So Micholenko hoists in the cross.

It bounces.

Irobunum heads it along.

There's, I think, a very blatant betto shove in Ibrahim Connate's back

that prevents him from trying to clear it.

Then it just sits up nicely for James Tarkowski, who leathers it into the roof of the net.

Absolutely leathers it.

And i guess i'd say if that james tarkowski had to do that 50 times i'm saying 25 times it ends up in the gladdistery end or leaving the stadium what scenes i checked this morning uh the tnt match highlights package for this game was two minutes 57 seconds long the tnt uh highlights package for the post-match shenanigans was 30 seconds longer

because there was a lot to unpick.

Yeah, and before we get to the melee, Archie, I mean, Johnny Lou wrote a brilliant piece.

I think I've written an inferior piece, mainly about corner flag man.

And the fact that, just as I mentioned in the intro, just that is for a small moment, what football has done to this guy, to forget everything else that's in his life, to just see the corner flag and just start waving it above his head.

It's just so beautiful.

Some grounds have their own gravitational pull and energy.

And in on last night, XG didn't stand for expected goals.

The expected Goodeson was high

with the lights, with

particularly the microphones.

I'm watching with German commentary last night.

And if I shut my eyes and I just listen to the individual booze and the individual shouts, I know immediately.

it's Gudeson.

It can be no other place in the Premier League.

And there was a glorious moment when James Garner went over to take a corner.

And particularly in Germany, there is a real reverential

attitude towards English football, and in particular, I'd say Liverpool and Everton.

And the German commentator has this almost Attenborough-esque tone as he's saying, oh, that's such an English thing.

Just how close the crowd is to the game, to the corner flag.

And this comes just after you hear one guy go, you're shite, you lad you're shite

and and it was just it it was those little moments that made it next to that very corner flag Max that then got lifted into the air and as Barry says there was something just so pure about the massive thump that James Tarkovsky gave it because it was like it was like he was scoring the goal on his own terms.

Like, you know, Thierry Henri had his way of just curling the ball into the far corner, but if you were to distill James Tarkovsky's essence down to a goal, you would say, well, he's going to absolutely whack the hell out of it.

And he did.

And for it to bring that chaos, glorious.

And actually, there was a moment, John, in the VAR check where there was a green line, but it was before they checked the Betto push, which I think.

I wouldn't have given the push.

I think it was fine.

But there's a green line, and then there was a kind of whispers around the ground, a bit like, you know, transistor radio days, where like clearly some Everton fans have either got radio comms or got the TV up.

Yeah, and so you started to feel like around Goodison, like these little cheers, like they're gonna give this one.

And it was still another minute until they did.

Are you suggesting that VAR adds to the TV drama?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know, I don't know.

I mean, the thing is, in olden days, that would have stood as a Goodison derby goal because already, because you know, in the days when, and I think these days it happened, where a referee refereed according to the circumstances.

So, in an old firm or Merseyside Derby, the first tackle is free, you know, that type of thing.

Where, yeah, it's like you can clash into each other.

By the time you get to 90 minutes, the challenge on Canate is, you know,

that's normal currency.

You know, that's that's you could throw yourself into that.

But now we're in this era, and I think people who do think that was that goal should be ruled out are watching it through the prism of the VRA our age rather than the prism of the Merseyside Derby which is how we should be watching it which is that game should be thud and blunder it should be tackles going in I saw some clip of like there's a point where Salah falls over when he's cutting in someone's like that's a blatant foul that Well, it looked like he went over, you know, and

how dare they continue playing?

And they cut everything back into these moments of, you know, oh, Conor Bradley.

Yeah, Connor Bradley, there's a guy that had been waiting to play the Merseyside Derby for quite a long time.

He threw himself right into it, didn't he?

And, you know,

that's what

a fullback playing his first Merseyside Derby should be like.

That's how Tommy Smith probably played his first Merseyside.

You know, that's how you do it.

That's a Steve Nicol or whoever, you name it.

You know,

what's the guy?

I always forget his name.

Everton right back, Tony.

Hibbert, Tony Hibbert.

Tony Hibbert, the ultimate mercyton derby player that's how you play it now tony tony hibbert connor bradley's a high-class player but you throw yourself into it and so what you have is the the spirit of this game is people throwing themselves into it and it was up to liverpool to manage that situation because david moise is managing his umpteen's mergerside derby obviously there's been a delay he knows how to play that fixture it's never really changed and that's that's what we saw and that's why it was such a great game to watch and

you can have your var VAR decisions, you can have that, but you had that moment, didn't you?

And that's what we came to see.

Yeah, what did you make of Barry the post-match?

The Decourage not really, he didn't really go.

I mean, he ran to the Liverpool fans.

I thought he stopped a safe distance away.

Yeah.

And then Curtis Jones, he was not impressed.

And then Q classic, I mean, vintage melee, featuring policemen's hats bobbling up and down and everything.

Yeah.

Well, so the final whistle goes.

Decourer runs a few yards towards the away end,

gives the Liverpool fans there a fair bit of it.

Curtis Jones then takes grave exception, starts getting into it with Decoure.

A few other players get involved, police, stewards,

plastic bottle comes flying out from the the crowd and I think I think it uh hit Pickford.

Then Jones Decoure both get red cards.

Neither of them

I don't know if they

they probably noticed but didn't really care.

And uh Decure seems to be smiling.

Decure and Virgil Van Dijk got into it.

And Decure was, you know, yap, yap, yap,

giving it to Virgil Van Dijk.

And then Arna Slot got his red card for something he said to Michael Oliver as they shook hands after the game.

And his assistant also got a red card.

So it was all very entertaining.

I did notice in the front row uh near the away end there was a a little girl sitting so i thought oh well that'll that'll suit the won't someone think of the children people who who will be tut-tutting at this and there were the obligatory nobody wants to see this which is absolute nonsense because it's tremendously entertaining uh but yeah it was great fun great fun this moment has never convinced me more that football might need ice hockey rules of

course, if these two players really want to go at it, should we just let them?

And

of course,

these were scenes that we didn't want to see, but there was.

I think that actually Decore and Jones have both won out of this situation because they've both endeared themselves more to their respective set of fans.

You knew Decore knew himself that what he'd done was wrong by how quickly he got up the other end of the pitch for Michael Oliver to have to go up to the other end for him to be sent off.

But the other question that arose from me as a match going fan was:

how did the guy who got the water bottle into the stadium manage to get still keep his cap on?

Because

like it was flown with some ferocity.

These, you know, these things, I'm like.

You put it in your pocket, and so

that's what you do.

You put it in your pocket.

And you go past that steward you know the steward who's on the steward on the meme who's just going pat pat pat pat outside the britannia stadium yeah

that what that one that is like the it's one of the easiest blags going it's like is there a top on that no because the top is in your pocket and they don't they don't search your full pockets so actually there was a back on yeah there was a moment where where the first camera went to tarkovsky right after full time and i think ashley young jumps on his back and another everton player And then suddenly the two of them just bugger off because they've seen there's a, you know, the camera's still, you're like, what have they run to do?

So, so, like, after all of that, Barry, what do we, we, you know, Liverpool obviously lost against Plymouth, very changed team.

They've drawn this game.

They're still seven points clear.

Like, this is not, is this the star of the blip?

What do we think?

Because they, I think John got it right.

They, they, they didn't really play very well in this game.

No, I wouldn't read too much into that performance in that particular fixture though, if I'm honest.

As we may get to later, Plymouth have turned into world beaters now.

They absolutely hammered Millwall last night and it looks like they're going to stay up.

They've certainly given themselves every chance.

What Liverpool are at home against Wolves on Sunday.

We'll see then if

this is the makings of a blip.

But I wouldn't read too much into

last night's performance.

And they're still seven points clear.

And Arsenal have lost their only hot passes for a striker.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll get to Kai Habits.

I mean, conversely, John, I mean, David Moyes has got 10 points from five games, and a lot of people, and I think me included, were like, you know, Moyes for Dice is not really, yeah, it's cut and paste.

But actually, what he's managed to do is

mightily impressive.

It is hugely impressive.

I think there's probably two things at hand there.

I think it's unfisten, we always talk about Sean Dice, but I think

the idea that David Moyes is the same as Sean Dice isn't particularly correct because

Sean Dice is

a slightly different school in the fact that it's ultra, ultra-defensive.

David Moyes

has always been aware of defending, and you have this thing of like everyone back for a corner and all that type of thing.

But he's always liked his strikers and he's always liked, had creative players in the team.

And the other part of it is that he gets the essence of Everton.

I think if in a club which is which has been lurching towards disaster and may still be, you know, there's a lot to sort out there for the new owners.

They've got a new stadium and sometimes these new stadiums moves don't go quite so well as David Moyes would know from being a West Ham manager.

But he's a steady pair of hands, is an experienced pair of hands in the Premier League.

The other thing is that Sean Deish, when you watched Everton, you were always aware that those players were kept under such a tight leash, and it is actually a reasonably talented group of players, despite the fact that Everton's transfer policy has been so poor in recent years and that they haven't had so much money to spend.

But go through the spine, it's pretty decent.

Look at Betto, actually.

Great goal, but we've forgotten that.

I mean, that was a great, a great moment.

Sean Dice has had Beto for a year and a bit and didn't really trust him.

Whereas David Moyes is always quite like that

big guy up front to play off,

and it's trusted him and said, you know, if you go out and the goal that they scored was obviously a move that they'd rehearsed, which is, you know, you pull them out, you go through that gap and score.

And,

yeah,

David Moyes, quite a good manager.

We've known this for many years, and you know, this guy is up to a thousand games.

You don't last that long without being a good manager.

And

Everton needed someone safe, someone experienced, and there was no better man on the market.

Now,

how that lasts when we go into the new stadium, we'll have to see, but let's just enjoy the romance while we can.

We've seen this before.

We say Kenny Dalgreache going back to Liverpool.

It could work for a while.

It doesn't necessarily work forever, but good decision.

Yeah.

Interestingly on that beto goal, it almost feels like that's been 20 years in the making.

Because, you know, of defenders of going they're obviously just going to lump it in the box everton have lumped every free kick in the box for the last 20 years and so you're just not expecting brat dwake to play this slide rule pass to better i mean it's done now can't do it again i thought it was a merseyside derby homage to to gary mcalister's quick thinking do you remember with that that free kick yeah yeah where he moved the ball from a spot where he wasn't supposed to take it yeah when the referee wasn't watching which is what which is what you wish what he did it's a brilliant goal i'm not

I'm no way doing down Gary McAllister.

What a fantastic player.

What I loved about Gary McAllister was at 35, he gets one season

and he just totally grabbed it and was absolutely brilliant.

What an amazing player.

Anyway, sorry.

Injury to enjoyers is an issue for Everton, but you know, they're looking at a much, much better place now, aren't they?

And yeah, we'll look ahead to the Premier League games in a second.

Level on points with Tottenham.

They are.

I mean, that's not, I mean, that's not an achievement, Archie.

Let's be real.

Laurie says,

that's a lovely email.

It says, Dear Guardian Football Weekly, my dad, Nick Telfer, was a loyal listener of the Guardian Football Weekly podcast.

He listened to every episode.

He also took great pride in his poems once being featured in The Guardian.

Sadly, he passed away four weeks ago, just before Everton's recent turn in form.

He always moaned, jokingly, of course, that the podcast had an agenda against the Toffies.

In his memory, I kindly ask that he be mentioned by The Guardian by you guys one last time and highlight how great Everton have been and not just the shortcomings of their opponents, uh, best Laurie Telfer.

Yeah, I recognize Nick, that name, Nick Telfer.

So, he might have been a correspondent, yeah, either to here to minute by minutes or whatever, but I definitely know that name.

Yeah, and our anti-Everton agenda paused in his honor for the last 20 minutes, of course.

We'll resume on Monday.

Thank you, Laurie, and we send our love to you and your family, of course.

And we'll be back in a second,

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

It was mentioned in the short break that we didn't mention Mo Seller's goal, or the fact that Everton didn't actually win that football match.

You know,

we said we'd pause the agenda and we did.

Let's move on to Celtic, who lost 2-1 at home to Bayern Munich.

Ewan Murray, our Scottish football correspondent, joined us.

Hey, Ewan.

Hello, how are you?

Yeah, very good um i was listening to i think it was pat nevin

uh yesterday saying it was so loud at parkhead yesterday you know in that moment before the game when that goal went in after 26 seconds the noise was ridiculous yeah i mean i often think and it's not just a selfie thing but but you know fabled stories of atmospheres at football grounds can be overstated but that was genuinely very very loud last night and you're right when that that goal went in that was ultimately offside it just raised up further notches.

There was a great atmosphere

until

Bayern then took a grip of the game.

But yeah, it was quite a spectacle.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, it is the right call, isn't it?

But it's such a shame that goal didn't stand, isn't it?

Well,

yes, although I did think you could score too early and annoy Bayern Munich potentially.

So

I realize it's worst case.

You annoyed him, annoyed him without even getting the goal.

It's terrible.

It's further, I wasn't sure whether I'd have needed to do that whether he could have kept out of the way and whether the ball would have gone in anyway i mean he does he does slightly it looks like deceive neuer from where he is and it's it is the right call but i i wondered if he should just have stayed out the road and and couldn't shot would have would have gone in anyway i'm not sure i don't know what the received wisdom is on that one ewan

in in celtic's last champions league home game against young boys

there were i think two disallowed goals plus a missed penalty.

And the thought that crossed my mind with this early disallowed goal was, do you think that there was a part in the players' minds of, is it happening again?

Let alone scoring too early?

I feel you on that.

But just maybe in terms of the wind being taken out of their sails a little bit?

Yeah, I'm not sure.

And that young boys' game,

they did well to persist because it looked like things were going against them and they weren't going to...

get the breakthrough that they deserved.

And there's a lot of things I admire about the Celtics Champions League campaign.

And that was one of them.

They just, kept going, and the crowd stayed with them, and they got there in the end.

Last night, to be honest, I think it was so early in the game that people just were excited by it.

All right, okay, we can do something here.

You know, we can score, even though it's disallowed, we can do something.

I think it had a really positive effect on

the atmosphere rather than deflating people.

I mean, it was a bit of a strange night in that context.

You then had the VAR check, which took forever later on, the Celtic, you know, potential penalty.

There was an offside check around the goal that Celtic did score.

so it was slightly messy from a VAR point of view, anyway.

But no, I generally don't think it deflated people.

I think people were excited by such a

fast-paced start by Celtic.

Like, they did okay in the first half.

You're right.

Bayern took control of the game, and they're just so close to getting in at 0-0, aren't they?

And then Elise Ewan just pulls out this absolute moment of magic.

Brilliant finish.

Yeah, I mean, I thought for all, and I wrote this, for all Bayern-dominated long spells of that game, they didn't create loads.

Cassius Michael wasn't diving about producing save after save after save.

And you would still obviously make Byron the favourites to go through.

But Celtic, it was what impressed me with Celtic was at 2-0 down,

you know, the roof could cave in then.

They went to Dortmund earlier in this campaign.

I think there were five, one down at halftime.

You know, they just folded, really.

And they'd learned so much from that.

At 2-0 down, they went the other way.

They kept going.

They showed attitude.

They showed bravery, they showed spirit.

Um, and Bayern were rattled by the end of the game.

After, I mean, from the period from after Celtic scored until the end, Bayon were rocking.

It was weird in that way.

It was curious that Celtic then had them on the back foot.

So, you know, as I say, you would keep Bayern as a favourites to go through.

I would expect they will go through, but Celtic scared them and will go to

Munich believing they can pull off a shock.

Archie, just on Elise, I mean, that is a wonderful goal for people who don't watch the Bundesliga weekend week out.

How has he settled?

I would say good to very good.

And I can't quite say great yet because it feels like the most important moments of the season haven't happened.

And Bayern Munich, those are the standards by which you're judged.

And yet, he's been scoring in okay numbers in the Bundesliga, assisting in greater numbers, and I think has gone missing in a couple of big games and could be accused of chipping in mainly when things are going well for the team.

And I think

he needs more moments like this where on a difficult night, he really fires the team into a great place with an outstanding piece of skill.

So I think all things considered, doing well, but you have to remember the big predecessors before him.

Sure, there's been Serge Naubri, Kingsley Comor, Leroy Sarne, but the people that you're compared with when you play on the wing at Bayern most recently, in your memory, are Ayn Robin and Frank Riberi.

And those are very, very, very high standards that you have to attain to.

And at Bayern Munich, it's not just being in the Champions League.

You have to win the Champions League.

I say you have to, but particularly in this year where the final is in Munich, and despite the amount of Champions Leagues that Bayern have won in the past, namely six of them, and European Cups, there is still that trauma of what happened in 2012 against Chelsea.

I wonder the other, there's the frustration about getting so close to half-time.

And then the second goal, it's sort of mad that Harry Kane just stands still and there's no one near him.

Oh, God.

Yeah, Brendan Rose just joked about that after the game.

It's maybe not a good idea to leave one of the best strikers in the world in splendid isolation at a corner.

I mean,

he slightly peels away.

I mean,

he does make some movement, but not the kind of movement that should completely out-fox the defence at a corner.

That was strange.

I mean, he'd missed, he headed one into side netting towards the end of the first half.

He'd had a lot of the ball, but I mean, just giving him a chance like that

was criminal from Celtics' point of view.

And he's obviously going to lap that one up.

Yeah,

you'd like to be a fly-in-the-wall for Celtics video analysis going through exactly how that happened.

That set piece coach was not standing right on the edge of the technical area as that one went in.

Was he?

It was Thomas Muller's 736th by an appearance.

I thought that was one of those, you know, those silly numbers you do when you say Luca Modric is a thousand years old.

That's a real statistic.

Amazing number of football matches for someone to play.

Do you think you and this

already counts as a successful Champions League campaign for Celtic?

And a follow-up question, which is Philippe wrote an article the other day about how this new format...

you know, it's been a bit more interesting, but one of the issues with it is it's giving even more money to one team in smaller leagues, which means that Celtic are now so far ahead of everyone else that the Scottish Premiership becomes a kind of

a waste of time, is taking it too far, but you take the point.

It's the same happening in Slovakia and Serbia and Switzerland, it's happening in Scotland with the amount of money that Celtic will get from the waste of time might not be far off, actually.

But, second point, first, no, I think that is an issue.

Celtic people don't like you raising that because

it's not their fault.

You know, we're not saying they've done anything wrong,

they've achieved the money by dubious means, and that's not the point.

But there is

a serious issue about the competitive nature of the Scottish League.

I think it's become stale.

I think it's great if you're obsessed with a team and that's what you do and you want to go, but

as a sporting spectacle, Scottish football has a serious problem.

So, yes, I think that's an issue.

Again, I stress not Celtics doing, not Celtics' fault at all.

And ultimately, this will cause Celtic a problem because they need some competition, a proper competition at home, eventually,

to do well in Europe.

And to your first point, absolutely, this has been a success.

Yes, and actually, that's the reason that this season bemoaning the Scottish Premiership is slightly futile because Celtic have raised their own bar in Europe.

You know,

they've qualified for that playoff round, which was their stated aspiration.

But they've had some really good performances, holding Atalanta to an 0-0 draw.

I thought they were very, very good there.

RB Leipzig, they were fantastic.

They beat them comfortably in Glasgow.

And generally, apart from that night in Dartmouth, which, to Selfie's credit, has become the exception to the rule, they've just been really competitive.

And for years,

they had over a decade, they had a series of bad results.

And it felt like they were just in Europe to make up the numbers.

Well, they've changed that now.

And I think they're respected again.

Opponents fear coming to Glasgow again.

So, yes, I think this has been a success for them.

And to be honest, they're slightly unlucky to draw Byron Munich at the point that they have done.

They finished 21st.

They should have won the game in Zagreb.

That was a draw.

If they'd done that, they'd have been in a different position and probably would have avoided that.

But drawing Byron is

more than slightly unfortunate at this stage as well.

But yes, regardless of what happens next week, they've made progress.

They've played generally well.

And it will be viewed as a successful campaign.

I was going to say,

we mentioned Celtic.

We have to mention Rangers, Scottish Cup defeat of the weekend to

Scotland's oldest club, I believe, Queens Parker, yeah.

Yeah, unfortunately, they're not quite.

I mean, for years, they were also famously an amateur club who played in the league setup, but they're um, yeah, they're not that anymore, so they're not quite as cuddly and soft as they used to be.

But, um,

yeah, I mean, you're talking here about the team that's that's mid-table in the Scottish second tier.

Um,

could be Rangers' worst ever competitive result.

People more immersed in that than me can debate that.

And listen, I accept Rangers fans are outraged by this and think it's a disgrace, but everyone else has to find it extremely funny because not nearly enough of that happens in Scottish football.

And it was, I think Barry mentioned it, alluded to it on Monday.

It was, you know, one shot to a million shots.

You know, it was like a real backs against the wall, classic giant killing.

And Rangers got a penalty in the 95th minute, and

he thought, oh, here, you know, here we go.

But then the Queen's Park goalkeeper, Callan Ferry, who had a fantastic game, saves the penalty.

Then there's a VAR check in case he came off his line.

And this 95 minutes became 98 minutes.

And Rangers still couldn't score.

And to be honest, Rangers don't support us who have kind of

gone back and forward with Philippe Clement, the manager.

I don't think they even mind people,

or maybe they don't mind, but they accept people joking about this because they accept it was a shocking, humiliating result from Rangers' Ranger's point of view.

There's no one at there's no one at Rangers trying to to dispute that, but um,

yeah, a good old-fashioned cup shock.

Queen's Park didn't

used to play with initials, is that right?

The players were, you know, J.R.

Bruin rather than John Bruin.

On the team sheet, I think that was because they were all amateurs, you weren't allowed to.

I don't remember that, but that

to be honest, I probably have not seen too many Queen's Park team sheets, so that

explain it.

You haven't lived.

No,

what on earth have you been doing?

I've probably got a historical detail wrong, but you know, they are the team of Alex Ferguson.

Played for them, of course, didn't they?

And I do feel slightly sorry for him because the reward for this was an away trip to Aberdeen in the quarter-final.

I think I would have hoped for a more favourable or even just a home draw after that.

But they're going up to Aberdeen.

But Aberdeen haven't been going too well, though, have they?

So they might have a chance there.

True, they fell off through.

They've fallen off a clip.

I remember a couple of months ago, we were talking about Aberdeen for the title, Ewan.

What's happened to them?

Were you?

You might have been.

Weren't we?

Weren't we?

I don't know.

It was in 1984.

That's when we were doing it, wasn't it?

Anyway, Ewan, we must dash.

But let's chat next week if we can.

Thank you.

Take care.

Good stuff.

You and Murray there, our Scottish football correspondent.

Quick one on Bayern, Archie, they are playing Labour Cousin this weekend.

They're eight points clear at the moment.

Is Harry Kane going to win a trophy?

I want to see what his reaction will be.

Put the brakes on, Max.

That's a long way to go.

Look,

I think that Bayern will win the Bundesliga, even if they have something of a hoodoo against Chabi Alonso's Leverkusen.

Chabi Alonso is yet to lose a game against Bayern.

And in the two games that they've already had this season, Kane wasn't available in the cup game, which Bayern lost due to injury.

And Manuel Neuer was sent off early on in that.

And yet, Bayern have indeed still claimed, Josua Kimmish, namely, that they were the more dominant team in that.

It's just they need to find a way.

And that's the thing with Bayern right now:

last night the goal they conceded was

actually not the way they've been conceded the majority of their goals, which have been on the counter.

So they were talking about a step forward.

And Eric Dyer had a good game, I thought, at centre-back next to Devufamakano.

So there is maybe a point there of are they controlling the counter-attacks better?

I'm intrigued by how Leverkusen will approach the fixture because they have to win to make any ground up on Bayern.

For a long time in Germany, Dortmund Bayern has been talked of the biggest game.

But right now, in terms of quality of fixture,

there's nothing which is knocking on Bayern against Leverkusen and the fact that it's Florian Wierts against Jamal Musiala, two of the most gifted young players

in German football, let alone world football, to be honest,

should also provide quite a spectacle and also because they're they're good mates as well.

Eric Dyer Jeffrey Schlupp on the other side, you know, I'd like being back in 2016.

You know, it was him.

As Baz said in the WhatsApp group, which really made me laugh, I noticed that that I've just seen that Jeffrey Schlupp is playing for Celtic.

I think I mentioned this on the pod last week, but I can't remember, and now I'm surprised myself.

That's all right, Barry.

There are loads of footballers.

It's hard to keep up, isn't it?

Even if you're the one informing us of what's happening.

Any other games?

Feynour beat AC Milan 1-0.

Apart from Barry...

going, oh, there's Kyle Walker and, oh, there's Jiao Felix.

What did you make of this one?

Feynor sacked their manager two days before this game.

So

Brian Prisk got his marching orders

and they had an interim manager in their under-21 manager Pascal Boschart.

And Santiago Jimenez was playing up front for AC Milan, having played for Feyenoord throughout the group stage.

So they sold him during the window.

So that was kind of interesting.

He was up against his whole team less than a fortnight after leaving them.

The goal,

Igor Pashau with a low shot from distance, caught out Mike Mangon, who let it creep in the corner.

It was a very poor goal to let in.

Pashau was the undisputed star of the show.

He was really, really impressive throughout.

Yeah, I think it was a fair enough result and a tie that I wouldn't be particularly surprised to find or go through because they've been pretty impressive on the back of what I'd seen.

The forward line, which includes Pug Lisich, Liao,

and Chiao Felix,

that's frustrating.

That's, I mean, Jiminez, who I think is a good player, is going to have to do some finishing there because they are.

Oh,

I think Liao's in a different level.

You know, on the...

No?

No,

Liao's one of those players that you see that he's always touted, you know, and it never quite...

No Premier League club has ever really gone in for him, and I think there's a reason for that.

It reminds me when Fulham had Tarapt, Bent, Burbatov, and Ruiz as a front four.

That's very beautiful.

Ruiz and Tarapt.

That's wonderful

in the same team.

I think I should point out that I think Pulicic is having a good season, just for the benefit of our American listener who gets really, really, really upset

at us not giving Christian Pulicic the credit.

I'll be honest, he didn't deserve when we usedn't to give him any credit.

Fair point, Barry.

I stand correct to that.

He has been very good and actually come up huge, as they might say, for Milan this season.

Club Bruce 2, Atalanta 1.

The penalty, Archie.

Dodging penalty.

John.

I mean,

how that's given, John.

I don't know.

And this is the 94th minute, and it's a flailing arm.

That would not be given at Goodison.

Let's put it that way.

A flailing arm.

I don't think Brugger could believe their luck.

The only thing I would say is that Brugger have actually been a credit to the competition.

They've been really, really good.

I know Archie was over there a couple of weeks ago.

I was watching him freeze to death.

Sat.

He's just with the ETH.

Exactly.

But I think they've been excellent this, and surprised quite a few by how good they've been.

That's been one of the good things about the Champions League this season, hasn't it?

That a couple of those teams have, who tells you in that, they've had their moment in the, well, not the sun, in the freezing cold, as it were.

But it's, yeah, that's a good result for them.

He'd expect Atalanta to do it back in Bergamo.

But,

yeah.

But yes, back to that penalty.

Never a penalty.

Never a penalty.

I got a text from a club Brugger friend of mine who was saying the luck that has gone their way in the Champions League this season with the Cameron Carter-Vickers' own goal, the Tyrone Mings penalty that they got against Villa, and now...

Their name's on the trophy.

Is that what they're saying?

Along with the fact that they had

the nice chance to welcome back Charles de Quetelara last night and say hello to him, make a big save in the form of Simon Minule denying him, and then beat him.

Perfect night for Club Brooker.

Yeah, and well done to Pavlidis, who scored a wonderful goal for Ben Figa.

That's a great little deal.

Give them a 1-0 win at Monaco.

We'll, of course, do all those games again next week, part three.

We will briefly look at the Premier League weekend.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Arsenal got a Leicester Kai Havatz out for the season, apparently with a hamstring injury.

It's very interesting, Barry, isn't it?

I don't know if it's the same people spending the whole of the season complaining about the existence of Kai Havatz, now complaining about the fact that he's no longer able to play.

He can't win either way.

It's a real shame for him because actually, I think he has had a bit of a sticky patch recently, but started the season really well.

Has actually scored 15 goals in all competitions.

You know,

he's been having not a terrible season.

No, he hasn't been terrible, but he's been very frustrating and he's missed a lot of chances he should be

putting away.

And

I think if you're of an Arsenal persuasion, it's certainly better to have him available than not have him available.

So they took a gamble during the window by not signing a striker.

I would argue it was a gamble worth taking if you can't get the striker you want in.

Appears they couldn't.

There's probably a few strikers knocking around that they could pick up on a free, you know, free agents, but are any of them of the requisite quality?

I don't know.

So it looks like now they'll have a front three of Sterling, Trossard and Nuaneri, which isn't terrible.

Trossard's had quite an up and down season.

Sterling hasn't got firing at all.

Noaneri's been a revelation.

If one of them gets injured, then

you know, then they're in a serious pickle, I guess.

But

just judging by the mood on social media and in

various other you know sort of arsenal-centric outlets uh

i think arsenal fans seem resigned to their fate now that oh this is this is a blow a hammer blow we won't recover from i still think they'll have enough about them to beat leicester having said all that

just one thing just one thing that occurred to me i i was looking up the amount of games that the Arsenal have had to play and and and you know we always hear from managers saying there's there's there's too much football i didn't realize that between the first and second leg of their carabao cup semifinals they had seven games in between the two semifinals which when i i looked at kai havatt's injury i thought well i guess it kind of makes sense to be honest and you sort of wonder maybe if you're in lots of competitions

You can't have more players in one squad than another.

I'm thinking out loud, but like maybe there needs to be a thought about, you know, do you go from 25 to 28 or whatever it is, you know, that you're allowed to play to

help these guys.

Or as Barry's mentioned many times, give them a holiday.

Well, they were on a bloody holiday when Havertz pulled his average trees.

It's a very good point.

Well made.

Anyway, we wish him all the best.

West Hamplay, Brentford, an update on the Lucas Paquetar betting story.

Some pretty amazing allegations are being made in a Brazilian government inquiry.

According to evidence submitted to it, Paqueta announced to an intermediary named Marlon Bruno Nacimento Silva that he would give a birthday present to his brother, Matteus Paqueta, that is a yellow card, in the match on March the 12th.

He was booked in that game against Aston Villa.

He won't face any further action in Brazil, despite being suspected of game manipulation by investigators.

The inquiry are recommending criminal charges for his uncle, Bruno Toletino, and two others for their roles in a betting ring.

Paqueta has denied any involvement since the allegations were first revealed last year.

His hearing with the FA is due next month.

My takeout from that was that I share a birthday with Lucas Paqueta's brother and I wish he'd given me a heads up as well.

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

Man sitting in Newcastle,

I think John Newcastle will fancy this, won't they?

They've got to, haven't they?

Really got to.

I mean, it was just a few weeks ago, wasn't it, that Pep was talking about the teams of the future.

And he said, you know, Bournemouth, Brentford, and Newcastle, because of that sort of powerful, muscular style that they have, the heavy, high press that

Manchester City used to be good at, but are no longer any good at.

Well, Tuesday was a fine example of that.

Pep must just be looking towards the end of the season and just like, just

get this over with.

It's been, I mean, okay, they were playing Real Madrid in the week, but it was so predictable what happened.

It was so predictable the way that they could see goals.

And it's the way that

teams can see goals, of course, but it's the mistakes involved.

But I suppose that is to do with the fact that Guardiola's always played that high-wire act where you're taking a risk to play that way.

That if it comes

apart the seams, then you are going to concede goals like that.

And it's just, I was looking at the concession of either this, the Brahim Diaz goal or maybe the winner, just Peps contortions in his little seat next to Wanma.

It just

looked like

it reminded me of

like an

I'm looking forward to whatever it is.

Like

the way that he sort of turned to, turned to Juanma was like two women on Coronation Street, the old ladies, two the sort of chorus line figures.

What, in the 60s, when it's black and white?

Yeah,

in the snug, you know, Martha Longhurst, Minnie Caldwell, that type of thing.

It's like, oh, have you seen what he's done there?

It was this sort of like really sort of camp way that he did it.

And it just had me howling in laughter.

It's like, have you seen what he's done there?

You know, and it's, listen, there's got to be like, you know, if the city franchise suddenly runs out of money, we need to hear like those two's conversations.

Those, that's got to be the tapes because what they must be saying to each other is amazing.

Are they even discussing football?

We don't know.

But it's that that moment was just amazing.

But I want more of that.

And I do think that Newcastle are quite capable of dealing that out.

I looked at this fixture as well, John, and thought Newcastle have got to be licking their lips.

And then

I saw that Newcastle haven't scored at the Etihad in seven years.

What?

And have lost their last 15 league games there.

And I was like,

that may change.

My feeling is.

Right?

This has to change.

Pep really had the wood on Eddie Howe, like, because they used to go to Bournemouth and just absolutely give them a spanking every time.

Yeah, and then he'd patronise him.

He would say, oh, yeah, you did great stuff there, Eddie Howe.

Yeah.

But I mean,

nobody beats Eddie Howell 15 times.

The race for 13th place, see Spurs play Man United, Barry.

I mean,

Where's the sword of Damocles going to fall this time?

What do you reckon?

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

I hope one of them wins very comfortably, just

to see the rage on the other sides, the fans of the whoever loses.

It

might be a draw.

I suspect it won't be.

It could be a 5-4.

It could be a 7-6.

Who knows?

I think they should just proceed straight to the press conference.

Just have

Aaron's just like, I don't know what you're asking of us here, you know.

Can't fault the players.

Can't fault the players.

I was actually in the room with that one, which is amazing.

I was sort of typing away, and then suddenly he heard that bit.

And he just, he went,

I can't, how many times?

You know, just like a anyway, let's not do the Aussie accent.

I've already done it.

And then, of course,

you have Amarim just slagging off his players, you know, for not, and that's.

I can fault the players.

So you've got

two, the yin and yang of,

and that's, that's how those.

They should come on together.

They should come on together, shouldn't they?

That's what they do in Germany.

In Germany, when you do your post-match press conference, you always do it alongside your opposing number.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

Every single game.

Come on, we need this.

Oh, that's a great idea.

We mentioned a potential fresh round of redundancies at Manchester United on yesterday's pod.

Enios are weighing up, making between 100 and 200 further redundancies.

The argument is that money saved can be plowed back into the first team.

The club estimated the last round of redundancies would save around 45 million a year.

I mean, it feels from the outside, John, very much like, you know, ripping out the soul of a football club, but I, you know, I'm not a businessman, right?

Well,

that's exactly it, Max.

There's two two sides to it, isn't there?

One is this, there was a club here once, that idea, and there were people working towards

a shared goal, and now there's the idea that to get back to basics, keep the share price up,

hard business, we have to make cuts, and cuts keep the share price up and make the big Sir Jim's investment worth more.

It's cold, hard business against the sort of, you know,

Jamie Jackson's written a piece for us today in The Guardian about how,

you know, Big Jim is the Scrooge, whereas we know who the fault lies with.

It's the Glazer family.

They thought, or someone thought, that it was going to last forever.

But without success on the pitch, without having a proper plan, it can't work.

And that's when you have to bring in people like Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe to

break stuff up.

And

he's the type of guy that doesn't really mind breaking eggs or annoying people.

Or there was the interview, wasn't there, recently with Andy Mitten and United We Stand, where Andy went through this whole thing of, you know, there's people who have worked 30 years there.

And Jim's response was just, yeah, I get that.

But anyway, we need to do it.

And that is what's going to happen.

It's not great.

It's a terrible situation.

People are victims of years of mismanagement.

And as always, it is the little man, the little woman that ends up on the wrong end of it.

We've just about got time for a fuller minute, Archie.

So, Goan, you're home to Forest.

How are you feeling?

Forest are having a pretty good season themselves, aren't they?

But they have just had to play all night away at Exeter, which is making me

hope that they'll be a bit more tired.

At least Cambridge are home to

Exeter on Saturday.

I'm really hoping

this.

What update do I have to bring?

Our CEO, Alistair McIntosh, his name is now being sung by the fans,

albeit not in complimentary terms, because

of the ticket prices,

which still remain high.

But I've also heard that the club do not enjoy it when

his name is mentioned in public either.

So, well, there's another one.

What, because they don't want people to know he exists?

Or, you know,

people are happy enough to take these difficult decisions, but not to actually bear up for the responsibility of defending when they defend them,

as they do in

supporters' trust meetings that I was there for and basically go, but what about the rich people?

And you're like,

are you for real?

Do you, just out of interest, just out of interest, has a more successful season meant fewer complaints?

Because that quite often happens.

Actually, no.

That's the weird thing is been seeing that alongside the success that has been had this season has been actually seeing this undercurrent become more mainstream of

just marrying up those feelings of, well,

sure, we're doing well, but this doesn't feel like the club that we grew up with.

And it feels like it's just being built more and more.

Sure, there's a room for tourists.

But when the manager is complaining about the atmosphere, and it's like, well, what can you do when against Man United,

tickets are going to be bought more readily by a Man United fan for that instead of encouraging through the next generation of Fulham fans.

But I mean, look, on the pitch, Rodrigo Muniz loves it whenever it's January or February.

So

it's lovely to see.

It's a shame we've got Man United in the cup because we'll probably lose that again.

Yeah.

That's about it.

Okay, thanks.

Big night in the championship, Burnley Beat Hole 2-0, their 400th clean sheet of the season.

Chef United moved to within two points of Leeds by beating Middlesbrough 3-1.

Sunderland, big win for them over Luton, who are now bottom of the championship, which is unbelievable.

Fascinating.

Unbelievable.

An interesting situation at Blackburn.

They played West Brom at the Hawthorne's.

Manager John Eustace wasn't there as he's in talks with Derby County.

Blackburn a fifth, Derby a 21st.

And Blackburn won this game 2-0.

And Alan says, How nervous should Liverpool be about Plymouth's impending promotion to the Premier League?

Yeah, they beat Millwall 5-1.

Our man, Miron Muslich,

with his beautiful beard, masterminding

a hammering of the Lions.

And that'll do for today.

Can I just thank Daniel in Queensland and especially his wife Larissa, who crocheted me a Marvin the Moose for young Ian when he was born and has now crocheted me a Spurs cockerel for young Willie.

And they are pride of place on the mantelpiece.

We've both been given two absolutely disastrous football teams to support for their entire lives.

But there you go.

And that'll do it for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Archie.

Thanks, Max.

Thank you, Baz.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Thanks for having me.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back Monday.

This is The Guardian.