Plymouth Argyle bring the magic in the FA Cup - Football Weekly

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Finally, Liverpool plays someone good.

Plymouth, bottom of the championship, one win in the last three months, beat the Premier League leaders with a second half penalty, and a lot of centre-backs getting in the way.

A brilliant performance from new signing Nikola Katic, completing it with F-Bombs post-match.

What a moment for new manager, perfect beard, motivational speaker Miron Muzlich.

Elsewhere, there were a couple of almost.

There were celebrities in the house just above Brisbane Road as Barry went to watch Jamie Donnelly score a worldie in a narrow defeat to City.

Jonathan Wilson was in Birmingham to see Tomoco Iwata kick it so hard it turned into an aeroplane.

Not quite enough to beat Newcastle.

Voice notes at the ready Spurs out of two cups in a week, this time at the hands of Aston Villa.

Looks quite good to bring on Rashford and Ascencio off the bench.

Brighton knock out Chelsea while all 11 Man United players are offside for Harry Maguire's injury time winner.

But this is the vilest world we get to live in just for a little bit.

After all that, our natural wine thoughts have hit the mainstream.

We'll answer your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

on the panel today.

Troy Townsend, welcome.

Good morning, Max.

Hello, Barry Glendenning.

Hello, Max Rostrum.

Welcome back.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Jonathan Wilson.

Morning.

How are you doing?

Excellent.

Thanks very much.

Clayton Ivey says, back so soon.

I'm sure Robin had it covered for another few weeks at least.

Or is that what you were afraid of?

Yes, Robin Cowan, worryingly good at this.

Go away.

Let's start then at Home Park, shall we?

Thank you to everybody who gave me that opening line for the intro about liverpool playing someone good plymouth won liverpool nil uh so plymouth are the fourth side from outside the top division to knock out the team currently top of the premier league after wigan beating city in 2018 bradford beating chelsea in 2015 and cardiff beating leeds in 2002 andbury they they deserved it they did they played really really well uh an incredibly resilient performance although uh liverpool didn't offer very much in this game.

I think they had only two really good chances,

which were saved by Connor Hazard in the Plymouth goal.

He had a good game, kept his side in it with, I think, three very good saves.

You say, you know, this Liverpool team are top of the league.

Liverpool are top of the league.

This Liverpool team has never played together before.

I suspect they wouldn't be anywhere near the top of the league, but they should still have enough about them to go to Plymouth and win.

Arnis Slot took a gamble by fielding this, you know, it was a second-string side.

Let's not beat around the bush, but he didn't have

any

one senior player, one fit senior player on his bench, and he left all the big guns at home, gave them the weekend off.

That's totally understandable.

It's probably a good idea, given the games they have coming up,

including a midweek tie or league match against Everton.

And his gamble backfired.

And Plymouth, I thought, were very worthy winners.

Their two centre halves, Nikola Katic

and

Maxim Talavierov, were both outstanding.

Katic lost a tooth

during the game.

He literally spilled blood for the cause and

left it all out there.

Some of it's still out there in the form of his tooth.

So he'll be off to the dentist this morning, no doubt.

Hats off to Plymouth, and I'm really pleased for their manager because I, along with millions of others, saw his get to know you speech when he was introducing himself to the players just after they beat in Brentford.

I mentioned it last week.

He just seemed like a real good guy, and his back story is very interesting.

He's him, his sister and his parents had to leave Bosnia when

he was a kid and moved to Austria, didn't speak the language, his dad worked as a a waiter, his mum was a cleaner.

So he he is well aware he has coped with a lot worse adversity than the Liverpool second string side but

Plymouth hats off to them they really uh

deserve to win this you know Barry when they say oh you know he'll never have to buy another drink again do you think with with the you know cut it he'll be you'll never have to pay for dental work again in this town he can walk into any dentist that he likes one thing Troy that I love about

you know, when there is a giant killing, it is just, it's the closer and closer you get to full time and just that feeling of the crowd and the moment where I think the keeper just lands on the ball and they know, right?

It's 99 minutes now and just that release of energy is just something just so beautiful.

Yeah, so it's a wonderful feeling.

Those nine minutes I thought were the best nine minutes of the game.

It was end-to-end.

It was cracking.

Could have been a goal from Plymouth.

Could have been a couple of goals from Liverpool.

As Barry mentioned there, Hazard came into his own at that period of time.

But yeah, the euphoria around the game and then the realization that whatever Liverpool it was, you've beaten them.

And it's difficult because I thought, I'm wondering whether Slotz kind of gave up this game with the fact that he picked the side that he did and Gomez was then injured early doors and he didn't bring on, well, he brought on the only defender that he had really to bring on.

And it was.

you know, with five games over the next 15 days, I wondered whether Liverpool were just saying, well, look, this is one step too far.

We can sacrifice if we want.

but I don't want to take away anything from that Plymouth performance because it was incredible.

Considering now that that's the second notch on their bedpost, the second Premier League side that they've knocked out, it's remarkable and well done.

A lot of those players will now be national news for a long, long time.

That's for sure.

Will they be national news for a long time?

I mean, I can only name about two of them, and I just

don't want to take it away from Plymouth.

Well, I've got a couple down there, so yeah.

No, no, you're right.

Wilson, Johnny Lou said it was one of the greatest shocks in the modern history of the FA Cup.

Is that fair?

Or given the team Liverpool Bout specifically not having a bench, because you saw Man City had a bench against Leon Orient and they brought them on and changed the game.

How do we classify this result?

No, I think it is a major shock, partly because of how bad Plymouth have been in the championship this season.

No, no, I was at the game when they beat Brentford in the last round,

and

I couldn't work out how that team that beat Brentford was doing so badly in the championship.

And that, I mean,

I like him as a bloke, but I'm afraid it doesn't cast Wayne Rooney's management in a great light.

That as soon as he's gone, they've discovered this backbone that they didn't know.

They let in, what, 29 goals in his last seven league games, I think it was.

And, you know, there they are keeping clean cheats against two Premier League sides.

You've got to remember that since that Brentford game as well, the goal score in that game,

their best attacking player in that game, Morgan Whitaker, has gone to Middlesbrough.

And yet they were still able to win this game.

But having said that,

Liverpool picking, I mean, I think they had one player who'd started more than 10 league games this season, four who'd started more than five.

So it's very, very much a second string side.

And that does feel unfortunate.

It does take a little bit of a gloss off.

You wonder, I don't think it will, but...

It's not totally impossible that it could have an impact on Liverpool's momentum.

That

suddenly there could be a rather than this

serene cruise towards the quadruple, which is what he appears to be on, he didn't seem to be under any threat at all,

suddenly they're going to think, oh, hang on, we've only got three trophies left and maybe there is a bit of pressure.

If they don't win,

I guess if they draw it away, but if it were to lose at Everton on Wednesday, I think possibly there would be a bit of anxiety.

But I can understand why if you've got a Carabao Cup semi-final and then you have a last motor side Derby Goodison coming up, you would rest players.

But it did strike me, when Liverpool lost to Burnley in 2005, when burnley were a second flight side which you might remember from the the brilliant jimmy treore own goal the sort of spinning creuy turn own goal oh that that back here yes of course um yeah raf benitez said afterwards i was raf benitez's first season and he said that he hadn't realized how good championship teams were and he'd underestimated them and i i did i did wonder yesterday whether it was something similar that ana schlottered hadn't quite

quite realized

how tough an away game at a championship side even a lower championship side, can be, and whether he possibly slightly regretted just how many players he had left out.

Slot made some interesting points about this second string team saying, look, they need the intensity of a game.

They had that against PSV in the Champions League.

Unfortunately, they lost that one.

They had that today, and unfortunately, we lost this one as well.

You know, you saw today some of these players really need games like this to be ready for the last three months of the season.

Basically saying,

you know, I've given you a chance here.

I gave you a chance the other week.

And you have stuffed them both up.

That's one way of interpreting it.

I wouldn't, I don't think

that it was a dig at them.

I mean, if you're not playing regular football, you're going to be rusty.

And if you're playing with

a line-up that has never played together before,

it is going to be difficult because while Plymouth are the worst team in the championship, they are a championship team and they fielded as full-strength a team as side as was available.

So they're going to to be more cohesive.

And

Liverpool were embarrassed, yes, by the result, but

I don't think Slot is going to be overly concerned about this.

And I think leaving, you know, the big hitters at home rather than, you know, because

schlepping them all down all the way down to Plymouth to sit on the bench and jog up and down the touchline when things aren't going well, that's not really a rest.

You you still have to make the journey, you know.

So if you just, right, lads, have a week off, go and have a few days somewhere, sunny, whatever.

I don't know where Virgil Van Dijk and Cody Gakpo were for the last week or, you know, few days, but I think giving them a total rest is a very, very good idea.

Maybe it was your fault for bringing up the...

Well, you didn't bring up the quadruple.

I guess you didn't even know what it was was last week.

But, you know, maybe that was the problem that we mentioned the quadruple.

As soon as someone's...

It's my fault they lost.

Yeah, possibly.

Lars says, how did the panel rate Pilgrim Pete's choke slam of the poor, bald, bespectacled, half-time volunteer?

Yeah, quite an aggressive mascot is Pilgrim Pete.

But a great win.

Great win for Plymouth.

And congratulations to them.

Let's go to Brisbane Road, Orient 1, Man City 2.

Craig says, how much value has Barry's visit added to the Leighton Orient flat?

Yeah, you suggested going

and you went, Barry, with producer Joel.

Did you have a nice time?

I did.

I had a great time.

Myself and producer Joel

went to listener Nick's flat.

We were in the corner of the ground that

we were on a balcony in the corner of the ground into which all three goals were scored.

And sadly, the only blind spot, unless you stretched out to such a degree that you risked falling off the balcony, was the goal line.

So

I saw and simultaneously didn't see all three goals go in.

But the benefit of being on the balcony of an apartment was that you could run in and watch what had just happened on the television in the living room.

So

I didn't realize how far behind TV cover live TV coverage actually is.

It's a good three or four minutes.

There was one stage when Leighton Orient brought on Darren Pratley, aged 39, and producer Joel made the excellent gag that

he's only 38 on the television inside.

But yeah, it was wet and cold.

And during the first half, we had sort of sideways fine rain blowing into our faces, but it was great fun.

And we even had a quite boisterous Man City supporting child on the balcony

who was giving it large to all the Leighton Orient fans down below.

So that added to the atmosphere.

Well done, Archie.

And

yeah, real good fun.

And I'll tell you what, it was a great game.

And Leighton Orient were brilliant.

And

I'm sad that they didn't win, but they really acquitted themselves well

against a very, very strong Man City side and took the lead through an absolutely outstanding goal.

I'm giving it to Jamie Donnelly.

It's technically a known goal, but a brilliant strike from Jamie Donnelly, which hit the crossbar and went in off Stefan Artegazar.

And

sadly, City were just a little bit too good for Orient in the end.

But

at the end of the game, when the final whistle went, you would think Orient had won.

Their fans were so happy with their team's performance.

It was brilliant.

Troy, was Jamie Donnelly's strike on target?

You tell me.

You tell me.

I think he gets the assist, definitely.

Unfortunately, it does go down in the rule book as Otega goal, but I'll take Barry's lead.

Definitely, definitely.

You want to give the goal to him.

But you know what?

For such a young man in such a big game, probably must have been the biggest game he's played in, to think about the effort in a split second is one thing, to attempt it is another, and then to execute it was just amazing and thoroughly deserved for it to end up in goal.

I loved the way that Leighton Ornt, so we've spoken about Plymouth and how they approached the game, and they were very long ball, and Leighton Orange set their stall out straight away to be very long ball as well.

You know, they kicked the ball out from kickoff, didn't they?

But then their intentions to get it over the city right back and to stretch the game, something that all managers used to do in the past, but now we've got a play, play, play from the back.

So I was really, you know, I was excited to watch them play, excited to see them have no fear.

And you know what?

With a little bit of luck, they could have won it, couldn't they?

Or they could have at least taken it to extra time.

But as again, as Barry said, the fact that the fans at the end of the game, like you mentioned, Max, it was almost like a win, wasn't it?

There was never going to be a loss on that day for Leighton Orient.

And it was a great performance.

So that's quite an interesting point, Wilson, because of how most teams pay in the Premier League now.

Do you think, you know,

there always was three or four sides that were pretty direct in the Premier League.

So you'd be used to this.

And I suppose we saw City struggle.

We saw, you know, Birmingham took it to Newcastle.

They played pretty good football, Birmingham.

You were there.

We can get to that game and how they took Newcastle on.

We saw it with Plymouth as well.

Do you think there's something in that that, you know, Premier League sides...

you know, all the cliches about, oh, you know, they've got to change in the Porter cabin, blah, blah, blah.

But they're just not used to playing teams that just get it launched.

Yeah, I think there's definitely an element of that.

It was something actually, I remember Samuletto saying, I interviewed him in 2006.

And when I went into his hotel room, he was watching, I don't actually know what it was, but it was a league game from somewhere in the Middle East.

And I sort of just said to him, Oh, what are you watching?

And he said, I don't really know.

And I said, why are you watching it?

And he went, I'm looking at where the space is when bad teams play.

And I thought, what an incredibly astute thing to say.

For him as him as a forward, he's used to playing against very good sides, so he knows where good defenders leave space, but he's now looking where bad defenders leave space and he'll adjust his movement accordingly.

And I guess it's a similar thing that

what wouldn't work week in, week out in the Premier League, when you come up against it

and you're not used to it, when you come up against it, you know, a handful of times a season can be very off-putting and very unusual.

So yeah, and I think all Guadiola teams have always been slightly susceptible to balls played in behind them,

to teams that try and stretch and try and make them turn.

Yeah, it's the Jack Charlton thing in some ways.

Your fancy down international teams don't like ball popped in behind the fullback and fullback having the turn and being squeezed in.

Plus it'd be slightly unfair when Leighton Orin, but slightly unfair on Jack Charlton as well.

I think Ireland were slightly more sophisticated than that.

But it is a point that if you can make the opposition do something they're not used to doing or something they don't like doing, then

it's not a bad thing to do at all.

I heard Richie Wellens being interviewed on the radio just before we started recording, and he made the point, I wasn't aware of this because I'm not familiar with Leighton Orient,

that the two wingers who were playing aren't their usual two wingers, so they had to completely change their style of play for this game.

And I think before Orient fans get upset with us,

they didn't play like it wasn't 1980s Wimbledon we were watching.

They were far more sophisticated than that, you know.

But their wingers played really well.

There was a fella playing Galbraith as well, outstanding.

So, yeah, just don't be cross with us, Orient.

We're not reducing you to like hoofball merchants.

Well, I only use it in a positive sense of the word, but they had that moment, I guess, the other end of the pitch in injury time, Baz.

So, I don't know how much, how clearly you saw.

Well, you probably did when you ran in to look at the TV.

Was it Dan Happy?

Well,

I could see that end of the pitch perfectly.

Yeah, they were just unlucky.

The ball, it was a free kick, curled in,

and the ball fell to centre-back Don Happy at the far post, and he blazed it over the bar, wide, and over the bar.

And Wellens did say in this interview, you know, nobody who has

seen

Don Happy in training will have been in the slightest bit surprised that that's where the ball ended up.

I mean, look, City are through.

Arsenal are out, Liverpool are out, Chelsea are out.

I mean, this is a huge opportunity for City, you know, in this sort of Invertigoms disastrous season

to win a trophy.

Anyway, look, that'll do for part one.

Part two will begin at St.

Andrews.

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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.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Birmingham 2, Newcastle 3, Andrew says, was Birmingham Newcastle everything we wish football still was?

Controversial goals, missed, a feral atmosphere, blood and thunder, a spectacular long-range goal, a forward that looked like what a 6'2 ⁇ , 11-year-old in a youth football side must look like?

totally Barclays, he says.

I think, Wilson, you were there.

He sums it up pretty well, doesn't he?

Oh, I mean, the first half, especially, was brilliant.

I realised that I did sort of think, you know, you always wonder with Epicup games when you go into them.

Yeah, Newcastle have just got to the Caribbean Cup final.

How up are they?

Birmingham, the top of the league one, clearly getting promoted back to the championship as their priority.

How up are they going to be?

And then I got off the train at New Street, and I find New Street one of the most bewildering places in the world.

And as I was sort of kind of stumbling around outside, trying not to kind of get sucked into the bull ring,

Miss Tram pulls up.

And there must have been about 15 lads of 16, 17, all wearing Burberry caps, all with Burberry scarves up over their faces, chanting about how much they hated Geordies.

And I thought, right, I'm not going to ask them for directions because I don't think they're really going to get the kind of the minesiae of politics of a northeastern.

No, honestly, I hate them more than you.

Are you saying they rhyme?

Are they saying you're not saying they, you know, they wouldn't recognise you or your voice, even?

I just don't, I just don't think they'd understand that Sunday's a very different entity, didn't you, Castle?

So, yeah, Birmingham were clearly up for it, and the atmosphere was great.

They had that sort of, I don't know, 10-15-minute light show with some local rapper.

Not necessarily my cup excellent.

Who was it?

Ozzy Osborne.

Where I'm trying to think.

I believe he was called JK, but I don't know.

I was J-A-E-K-A-Y or J-A-Y-K-A-E or something.

I don't know.

Jamira Kwai wasn't.

Well, it wasn't Jamiraquai.

He's not going to get you, you know.

It's not going to get people bang up for a football match, is it?

I don't know.

Anyway, I don't know.

Did he have a very big hat on?

With horns sticking out?

No, his back was to me.

He was wearing a hat.

I couldn't tell you anymore.

And he was very noisy.

The atmosphere is great.

There's these sort of sheets of rain.

It's really, it got really cold in the second half, and there was no heating in the press room there.

It was just freezing.

You can't really see anything at Birmingham because you look at, you know, from a press box, you're kind of looking through a letterbox effectively, but with people kind of in front of you as well.

I barely saw any of that game, but it certainly sounded and felt first half very exciting.

Second half, I mean, I'm not sure whether it would have faded a bit anyway, just because the intensity was so high in the first half.

But I think the two injuries really took momentum out of it.

But Dan Byrne going off with the groin problem,

and then Mark Leonards with that really quite nasty cut, which a total accident.

I don't think Lewis Miley had was to blame at all.

I agree with you, but you know, just a really unfortunate collision.

And you know, obviously, I think it was seven minutes he was down, but yeah, pretty bad injury.

But yeah, like 2-2 at half-time.

I think that the goal after 43 seconds just to kind of get everybody going again.

And that first 20 minutes, Newcastle were really, really struggling a bit.

And then they get the break of the Joe Willard goal being given, which may or may not have been overline, but was very, very close.

I mean, if it wasn't overline, it's an astonishing save from Bailey Peacock Farrell.

And then the second Newcastle goal, which took me ages to work out what had happened, because Asula managing to kick the ball in the back of his own heel from three yards out.

Because I just sort of thought, he has to be offside, because I couldn't believe he'd played it onto himself.

I assumed that a Newcastle player had to have played it onto him.

But no, it turned out he just kicked it onto himself.

And then that equalizer for Mawata, oh,

which

I'm afraid to say was offside, but wasn't given.

That Ethan Laird was clearly in an offside position.

The ball passed about half an inch over his right ear.

It made no practical difference to whether Nick Pope could have got there, but if Var had been in effect, it wouldn't have counted.

So, you know, one each in terms of not having modern technology.

And then, yeah, Look Newcastle eventually.

Sorry, Wilson.

Sorry, sorry.

That is not the way to talk about that goal.

I mean, it's like, you might be right, but like, surely, Troy, we have to spend some time just talking about how a man can kick a ball so hard and so beautifully with just like this arc onto it before we split hairs about where Ethan Laird's ear was.

I was actually going to say, for someone that said that he couldn't see the game, you watched it quite well, Jonathan, and you've used up all my notes.

So that's for a start.

But yeah, then, I mean, it's an unbelievable strike.

And it's the first time I've heard Var mentioned today, although I heard it in every game about 10 times over the weekend.

And it kind of put me off in the end.

But just the nature of being able to strike the ball with that much power, with that much direction, Les lucky that his ear didn't get in the way.

But I'm not even sure that Var would have taken it off.

But, oh.

Oh, they'd have found a way, Joy.

They'd have found a way.

He will remember that.

He hit it with so much venom.

I don't think Pope really moved.

He didn't have a chance.

And that's the kind of thing that galvanises again.

It was a cup tie that was potentially slipping away.

Jonathan's right, the second half was stop start, stop start.

And after the great first half we had, it was,

you know, not disappointing, but we wanted more, didn't we?

And I think that goal, that strike, gave us kind of like the impetus to enjoy the game again because it was an unbelievable moment.

Yeah, I mean, had it hit Ethan Blair in the ear on a cold February day as well.

Wow.

I think the interesting thing about the goal line technology, there are a few VAR moments, right?

Matoma's goal for Brighton, the Harry Maguire header, Baz.

The goal-line technology one here is, you know, in the BBC studio, they said they'd watched it a hundred times, which means they can't have watched anything else

before it happened.

But there is no way of knowing.

There is no way of the Lino knowing.

But I don't know.

I think if the Liono doesn't know, he has to give the goalkeeper the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think across the line.

I think most people don't think across the line.

We'd have a few things like this.

The Matoma goal, the Lampti handball in the build-up wasn't a handball and because A, it was completely accidental and he didn't score the goal.

So that wouldn't have been changed by Varr.

There was a dunk forearm into the neck of Cole Palmer off the ball in that game.

Varr might have had something to say about that.

The Harry Maguire one was obviously offside, but I don't know how the linesman didn't see it anyway, because it was from a dead ball.

Would Varr have got involved in that Lewis Miley challenge on Mark Leonard?

You say it's an accident.

I agree, but that doesn't really matter, does it?

In the late Norient Man City game, James McAtee should have had a penalty for City.

Wasn't given.

Varr would have probably given that.

Yeah, so there were a few incidences.

And I guess...

Blackburn would say against Wolves, they had a goal wheeled out, which was pretty clearly on sides.

That's the one game I haven't seen.

There's also that Varr may well have spotted things

none of us noticed because Var wasn't there and got involved.

So, you know, there could have been things that we didn't notice, us mere mortals who don't have a golden pass to Stockley Park.

But,

you know, for the number of games, the Maguire decision was the most egregious, I think.

But the linesman should have spotted that anyway.

Did you notice what the linesman who gave that Newcastle goal was called?

Because if I was coming up with a name for a VAR linesman to try and humanize him i think this would be the name i'd come up with he was called nigel lugg

like how could he be anything other than a linesman

it's a very good point do you know i mean we don't need to get into discussion about whether var is good or not but the moment where i thought oh i like there's no var was when was it pedro porro was put through and i was like oh well i can just i know that this is on it's not been given offside they're not going to go back so when son scores this it's going to be great and of course he didn't.

And we'll get to that now.

Obviously, it doesn't get easier for Birmingham.

They're home to bottomside Cambridge United in League One on Tuesday night.

You fear for us.

You really do.

To Villa Park, then, first time in a decade, they're through to the fifth round.

Jim says, are we at the stage where you record the pod, assuming that Ange will get sacked before it comes out?

And only do an emergency voice note.

If he hasn't been, Simon says, I'm still Ange in.

He's not had a fair fight for a good while, as far as I can see.

Am I delusional?

I think I'm still delusional, but we should do a bit of Villa first, Troy.

And they were really good.

Obviously, Kinksky makes that mistake, and first-minute goal makes a difference, but I thought they were really good.

And also, I just thought Ascensio and Rashford coming on just looked for those Villa fans, must have been like, God, this is exciting.

The football was very good long before that.

The goals they created,

some of the movement.

I mean, they were playing against a non-existent Spurs centre midfield.

I'd say that for a fact.

But the movement, Morgan, Ramsey,

Tillemans,

that's, I mean, I was purring at some of the stuff and getting frustrated, obviously, at what Spurs were doing.

And then, like you say, they bring on two,

you know, the two new signings and they kind of gelled straight away with the rest of the side.

They couldn't have done much work with them throughout the course of the week.

I think the Aston Villa fans have got everything to be excited about.

Yes, they've lost Duran and Watkins is injured at the moment, but I don't think there should be any fear in that because,

listen,

I was going to talk about Alan Shearer because I was pretty disgusted in the way that he spoke about Marcus Rashford when he came on.

And he went on about a minute rant about this is last chance saloon and stuff like that.

And Rashford is a 27-year-old international.

This is not last chance saloon for him.

This is an opportunity to go and enjoy his football and maybe get eventually get that move away from Manchester United, whether it's to Aston Villa or whether it's to another club.

But he,

anyway, I thought he laid into him way too much and you know talking about playing football is being a footballer is a privilege and stuff like that but i think in in couple of shining moments rashford showed that you know as long as he's happy um he's going to contribute to whatever villa do this season the nutmeg on on poro um

after a great villa move and then the foul from outside the box with the referee didn't give but var couldn't get involved in it and the lovely touches from ascensio there's everything to be excited about i think i've just said that but there's everything everything to be excited about for this villa side.

And

they are going to galvanize them.

They're definitely going to galvanise them for the latter part of the season.

But I mean, there's no guarantee they walk into the team bads, do they?

Because, you know, Jacob Ramsey, who plays off the left, right, and looked really good, scored a goal.

You've got Morgan Rogers, you've got competition for places there.

If this is a sign of things to come, it looks like Emery wants Rashford playing in that space between down the left between the full back and the centre-back.

I thought he played well in the what 25 minutes he got.

Oh, actually, because after he knocked Meg Porrow, he got boozed up in the air for his troubles.

That's another one Varr might have got involved in

if

they'd been present.

He's not guaranteed starts.

He's probably not fit enough to start because he hasn't

played many matches or any matches apart from this for quite some time.

But

I hope he does well.

and i thought it was odd seeing him in a village shirt just yeah or seeing him not in a manchester united shirt it was weird yeah on morgan rogers um they were making sort of lampardian comparisons on the bbc and i feel like morgan rogers might potentially be a more rounded player than lampard but but then i'm just wondering have i just forgotten that frank lampard was really good at football and in my mind all he did was arrive late in the box.

Well, I think the big difference is that

Lampard's formative years were when we're used to thinking of football in three bands: defence, midfield, attack.

And I think we've now become used to thinking of midfield as having two sort of sub-bands.

And so I think his role is different.

He doesn't make the same, he doesn't come from quite as deep.

And I don't think he has quite the same defensive responsibilities as Lampard would have had.

I mean, whether Lampard actually ever fulfilled MPropy, I think is a different question.

I think the other, yeah, the other odd thing about Morgan Rogers is he's one of an enormous number of players who've come through the City Academy who are doing really well for other clubs.

If you think of Liam DeLap, you think of Lavier, you think of Telehawar Bellis, you think of Cole Palmer, Palmer, Poro,

Jadon Sancho, maybe not quite so much at the minute, but given the state the City Squad has got itself into this season, you sort of think manually had to keep two or three of those, and that squad would have looked incredibly strong without him having to go and spend 170 million quid in January.

But anyway,

yeah, he looks an incredible talent.

And

it's almost a shame from an England point of view that England have so many players you can play in that attacking band in midfield.

That there's going to be two or three really good players.

Yeah, I mean, injuries can get involved, but two or three really good players who aren't going to be making the World Cup squad.

Spurs, then, Barry.

I mean, do I need another intervention?

Deimos says he's watching Sun now, like watching Stanley Matthews when he was 53.

The chance is so easy.

But like Troy made the point there, midfield was sort of non-existent in this game.

And afterwards, did make the point that they are exhausted.

And as a recent father of two, exhaustion is a real thing.

I can tell you that.

Yeah, you've too many bodies

in your house.

Ange doesn't have enough.

I completely empathise with Ange's pickle that he finds himself in at the moment.

He launched a very impassioned defence of his players after this game.

And I can't disagree with anything he said.

He's been forced, you know, Spurs at four teenagers on the pitch yesterday.

The senior players that are playing are all shattered.

He doesn't have the luxury of being able to leave half his first team squad or most of his first team squad at home, like Ernest Slott did.

And

it's another defeat.

Everyone expected them to lose against Liverpool in midweek.

They did.

I think most people expected them to lose this, and they did.

But it is undeniable that they are seriously extenuating circumstances.

They're hoping to have Christian Romero, Van de Venn, Brennan Johnson and James Madison back in the next fortnight.

The Europa League, the knockout stages don't start till March, so I wouldn't rule them out of that yet.

I think it will be unwise to sack Ange Postacoglu.

I suspect they probably won't.

The fans' ire is still being directed at Daniel Levy, not Ange,

and

he's right when he says that

with a full complement of players, Spurs are capable of playing amazing football.

I just worry about how consistently they're capable of playing excellent football.

Must be like,

you know, SAS Uncover.

You know, that SAS show where you have to run a marathon and the lorry's there to take you home.

And as you just get to the lorry, it drives off and they go, do another marathon.

They go, ah, villa away and you can just see you know eve basouma going oh for fuck's sake um troy a thought on hands before we move on look some of these injuries have actually been self-inflicted you know trying to bring players back too soon van der Venn won Romero won when they both came back in the same game and both got injured Van der Venn came back for 45 minutes in a pointless Europa League game and it hasn't been seen since.

So

he's trying to force their hand a little bit.

Look, I'm not over-infused by this, the Tottenham side anyway.

Many people talking about the great football they've played.

Well, Barry knocked on the head there.

It's never been consistent.

But if you let him go after just bringing in a couple of players that may do well for the side, who are you picking up at this stage of the season?

But I think he is under pressure.

He's a manager under pressure.

You can tell by a lot of his press conferences.

And yesterday was the first time I think he held out and backed his team

because they potentially are tired.

And, you know, he probably saw it in them after the defeat against Liverpool.

I thought the Liverpool result was very telling because Spurs didn't go there to win.

And everyone talks about Spurs being on the front foot and this great attack in football.

They went there to hold out and the minute Liverpool scored, that was it.

It was all over.

So their approach to some games, which may be obviously because of what he has on the pitch, has been different of late.

He's changed his tactics of late, although he says that he would never change his tactics.

But it will be interesting to see when those players come back because not all of them are going to hit the ground running.

And some of them have been out for a very long period of time and they'll need some time to work their way back in as well.

So I think it's watch this space with this Tottenham side.

Hitting the ground running has been a bit of a problem, hasn't it?

For

you don't really want them to do that because then they'll just be out for another two months.

Yes, Wilson.

Sorry.

It's a question I would have about.

I accept that all these injuries are there.

I think, I mean, I don't know this.

I think it's always very dangerous to speculate, but somebody closer to the situation should look at whether something in what they're doing in training is making that worse.

But also,

I realise that the situation is not helped by having an irregular defence.

But the midfield, they've got Basima, they've got Saar, they've got Benton Koe, they've got Bergval.

So they've got four players who can play in that centre midfield role, and yet they still look a complete shambles there.

They're still totally open there.

And so that's an area where they don't have injuries.

Now, maybe those players are exhausted.

As I say, maybe because the defence behind them isn't pushing as high as maybe they should.

Maybe that's creating space.

But that's been the consistent problem that Spurs have had this season, that teams can just run straight through the middle of them.

There's not a four, there's not a six.

Everyone seems to be doing their own thing.

I don't think the midfield trusts the defence.

And I don't think the defence trusts the midfield.

And that's where it boils down to.

No leaders, no confidence in each other.

Hence that.

shocking first half.

I thought it was really shocking yesterday, the first half.

Sounds promising.

That'll do for part two.

Then part three, we'll round up the other games.

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.

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Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Brighton 2, Chelsea, 1.

What do you make of this, Baz?

It was a good win for Brighton and a win they needed, I think,

after, I think it was back-to-back Premier League defeats, one of the most recent of which was a seven-goal hiding at the hands of Nottingham Forest.

Cole Palmer opened the scoring with a goal that Bark Verbruggen will not want to see again.

He scored,

he had no business scoring that, but Verbruggen sort of threw it into his own net.

He did go on to redeem himself later.

I thought Chelsea were really poor.

Poorness as a performance was probably summed up by Jaden Sancho, who started promisingly at Chelsea and now he's

just seems to be stagnating.

He offered nothing in this game.

We were were talking about VAR and decisions earlier.

There was a Mal Augusto tug on Xiao Pedro in this game.

You know, he pulled him by the arm in the penalty area.

Pedro went to ground.

The refs didn't award a penalty.

I have no idea why.

It was one of those where ex-pro say, well, it wasn't enough of a tug.

But, you know, if it's enough of a tug to pull someone to the ground, it's enough of a tug to award a penalty.

But,

yeah, I thought it was

not a great game.

Brighton deserved to win.

There was a bit of controversy over Matoma's

winner, which shouldn't have been controversial at all.

And

Enzo Maresco was right when he said that his team isn't as good as we all thought it was.

They are proving that with aplomb at the moment.

I realize I told you so moment for Enzo Maresco.

Matoma's control and finish is so good for that goal.

It's interesting with Chelsea, isn't it?

They're a weird team, Wilson, because there was that time when they were excellent and then you suddenly went, hang on, they've got two players in each position.

This is perfectly set up.

And then you say, you know, like Sancho not to performing.

And Kunku had a good chance, squared it to Palmer instead of shooting.

He's another player that just hasn't worked for her.

I really thought he'd be great for them.

Yeah, so

I think...

And Kunku is a really interesting case of somebody who was clearly enormously talented.

He gets the injury, which is really unfortunate.

But then because the squad is so big, it's very hard for him to get a role,

to get going.

So the way that Mesca plays, it's with the centre forward and two wingers.

They don't really use those inside forwards.

So what's Unkunku doing in the squad?

But equally, they had Jai Felix there, who plays in essentially the same role.

And Jai Felix seemed to be preferred to Unkunku.

So Unkunku, by making that move,

the injury clearly has been a factor in this, but basically he's just lost two years of his career when he should be at his peak.

And I think that's the huge danger when squads when clubs start stockpiling

players in these enormous squads.

That there will be wastage on the edges because you have to play a certain number of games to stay in rhythm and keep developing.

And he, unfortunately, looks like he's stagnated.

As I say, the injury is a factor in that, but because he just isn't getting game time.

Yeah, that's really interesting, though, isn't it?

Because I guess if you're a player, you have that mentality that you think, well, I am good enough to get in this.

Well, and also,

they've signed about 25 players since they bought Nkunku.

So, when Nkunku joined, the squad wasn't

142 players strong.

It was about 30 players strong.

Yeah, you don't have to get a clause in your contract saying, Are you going to buy another 300 number 10s?

Because that might affect my thinking, I guess.

Let's go to Old Trafford, Man United 2, Leicester 1.

Look, we've touched on the moment, Troy.

Still nice.

I still feel that Harry Maguire's on a redemption arc, you know?

And so, like, when he, when something nice happens to Harry Maguire, I sort of feel good for him.

If this is a redemption arc, is this slab head revisited?

It's possible.

I don't like when

players are constantly being belittled, constantly, kind of negative conversation around them.

Ultimately, they are human beings.

They play a sport that, unfortunately, the focus is on them a million percent.

Every slight move they make is, you know, is highlighted, particularly if it's a bad move.

Look, good on Harry Maguire.

He had to put the chance away.

He probably was aware that he was offside, but probably said to himself, let me just head this one in and all the arguments can start after that.

Yeah, I mean, we've spoken about the goal.

I just find it incredible how the linesman who's looking along the line at four red shirts believes that there's one blue shirt in the middle of that.

But yeah,

as a redemption story, as you said, it's not really a redemption.

I don't think Harry Maguire will see it that way, but it's a goal against his former club.

It's in the FA Cup.

It takes them through to the next round.

I'm sure, despite their performance, which again wasn't great,

he'll be pleased on a personal note for them.

I mean, Barry, Manny and I could win the FA Cup every year and just continually paper over the cracks with this endless run of winning the FA Cup.

I don't think they'll win it this year.

My main takeaway from this game, I'm just increasingly obsessed with Vout Fast.

And

I want someone to create a VoutFast showreel because all it will consist of his own goals, Voutfast sprinting back towards his own goal in vain pursuit of an opposition striker or winger, or Voutfast diving into someone

across a six-yard box, desperately trying to get a touch on a loose ball.

I thought Alejandro Garinacho played well in this game.

It was quite interesting, actually, with

United's equalizer.

He pulled the ball across the back of the or across the six-yard box.

Rasmus Hoyland had a little flick blocked, and the ball set up for Xerxe, who

sort of tapped it into an empty goal.

And then Joshua Xerxes stood to take the plaudits and congratulations of his teammates, who all completely ignored him and ran to celebrate with Alejandro Garnasso.

So I wonder if there's some little subplot there that we're not aware of, but that was quite funny.

Yeah,

look,

I thought

also

Ruben Amerim in his post-match interview acknowledged that their winner was offside and said he sympathised with Leicester.

You know, he didn't try to claim, oh, well, you know, he just said, yeah, look, that winner was offside.

We were lucky.

And Rude Van Nisselrooy was quite measured

at a time when he could have been excused for being incredibly angry.

And I think if a lot more managers behaved like that, then football would be a much much better sport, and people fans would be a lot less angry.

Leicester had a 15-year-old on the bench, Jeremy Munger, wedding dance floor filler.

I Got a Feeling by the Black-Eyed Peas, was number one when he was born.

Boy, that hurts, that hurts, doesn't it?

Elsewhere, Milwau won 2-0 at Leeds,

a 4-1 win for Ipswich at Coventry.

I thought Jack Clark's first was really, really nice for Ipswich.

And he sat the keeper down for a second.

And the Coventry kit was a thing of beauty for me.

Ipswich made 11 changes to that game.

When are people going to?

I mean, I know this is sort of the Iron Robin story, but kind of a much diluted version.

When are people going to realise that's all Jack Clark ever does?

Jack Clark cutting onto his

bending in the far corner, is it?

I mean, every single.

I mean,

it got ridiculous to something.

He would get the ball on the goal line and he'd be allowed to run back to the edge of the corner of the box before whipping it in right foot.

Like, just stop it.

He's only got one foot.

Just stop him using it.

Preston got past Wickham on penalties.

Barry, you called the tie of the round.

Stoke 3, Cardiff 3.

Cardiff going through on penalties.

Well done.

Nostra Basmus.

Yeah, I very sarcastically suggested this would be the tie of the round.

Just because Stoke v.

Cardiff in the fourth round of the FA Cup doesn't exactly scream glamour.

As it happened, it was a really, really good game, which Cardiff won on penalties.

But it didn't get its own proper highlights package on match of the day.

Despite being arguably the game of the day, it was still just included in the sort of little round-up in the middle.

So the BBC clearly didn't think it was very glamorous and weren't expecting much from it either.

Well, the only commentary they had on it was from Radio Wales, which I think

may have been the issue they didn't send a commentator there.

I like a local radio commentator.

Sounds like a reason to get rid of the licence fee, doesn't it?

You didn't do enough of Stoke Cardiff.

Just in this game, Lewis Kumas, who's on

Stoke from Liverpool, he scored two nice goals.

So,

yeah, but it wasn't enough to see Stoke through.

Burnley won at Southampton, Marcus Edwards getting his first goal since signing from Sporting on loan.

I think it's important, Max, you say Burnley won 1-0 at Southampton because, of course, Burnley won 1-0.

Yeah, that's also a good point.

That's all they do.

And they've now, I think, conceded one goal in their last 11 games, which is just remarkable.

It does help when suddenly most have missed two penalties and injury targets.

There isn't that, though.

Yeah.

Is he all right, that chap?

Because he was very upset.

Wilson Isidore, yeah.

I mean, he was loving it.

He scored a lovely goal at Middlesbrough.

And some that have now signed him permanently.

Yeah, he's on loan.

They picked him up on permanently in January.

Oh, please for him.

Bournemouth won 2-0 at Everton, final RFA Cup game at Goodison Park.

I enjoyed Antoine Semenio's very short run-up.

He was sort of walking backwards, and then he spun really quickly.

And I think he sort of took Jordan Pickford by surprise.

It's the opposite of who did that long run-up, Zaza.

It was like the opposite of that.

And Troy Everton hit the post three times.

That's three shots on turrets.

Which means they're through.

They're through to the fifth round at the expense of Bournemouth.

Yeah, yeah.

They hit the woodwork three times.

They had one cleared off the line.

Peter Reed was in the stand wearing a nice hat.

And it was the last ever FA Cup match at Goodison Park.

The end.

Yes.

Wigam won Fulham two, uh, two for Mooniers, and Wolves won 2-0 at Blackburn.

We've got Doncaster Palace tonight, Exeter Forest on Tuesday.

So that Exeter Forest go, why on earth is that on Tuesday, the clash with Tony's League?

It just, I know, I mean, who, who, who thinks that that's going to get a massive TV audience when you've got Real Madrid v Manchester City on the same night?

Because most people don't have TNT Sports, who I love and I believe still still sponsor this podcast

in a bid to get more people to not watch Exeter Nottingham Forest.

Fifth round draw takes place at 7:10 UK time on the one show with Ryland, Bill Oddy, and Linda Lusardi.

Upset the weekend might have come in the Scottish Cup.

Rangers were beaten 1-0 at home by Queen's Park.

1-0.

They had

one shot to Rangers 28 shots.

So well done to them.

I watched the highlights of that this morning.

It was incredible.

I mean, the Queen's Park goalkeeper, Callum Ferry, I think it is.

Sorry, I can't read my own handwriting.

He pulled off some incredible saves.

There was goal line clearances, blocks, and then Rangers got a penalty in the last minute of added time.

James Tavernier missed it.

The Queen's Park goalkeeper saved him.

But then there was a suggestion he might have been off his line before the kick was taken.

So there was further anxiety for the travelling Queen's Park fans, but incredible results for them.

Yeah, well done to them.

In the natural wine discourse, I believe Lars, who started Natural Wine Gate?

Was it Lars?

I'm not sure.

No, it was Will Unman, wasn't it?

I have to say, yeah, a huge admirer of Will Unman in his work, but...

I thought it was nonsense he was talking about.

Right.

Well, David Williams, writing in

the Wines of the Week section of The Guardian, writes, I've heard complaints about how the wines are weird, dirty, mousy, or farm yardy in restaurants and bars at wine trade events.

And when I've poured natural wines for friends, but the prejudice seems to be so widespread.

Now it even cropped up amid the, quote, gentle blokey banter on a recent episode of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Have we ever been damned with faint praise more than...

I don't want to be associated with gentle blokey banter.

And yet here I am doing exactly that with three men on a zoom call forgive us all please maybe we can be sponsored by some natural wine um

and uh and we can make our own decision if anybody wants to send me some to yeah to to to taste i'm more than happy to do that i quite like the a slightly slightly especially with sort of a you know a schmepigunda or something i quite like a slightly fettered undertone i don't know what he's talking about red as you know me and barry are red or white as i remember once going to peter express and when the matron said would you like anything to drink barry said said loads of wine and i just don't think that's how it's served at peter express but you know it came and we had a nice time i should say it'd be fair to will anybody who's seen his instagram will know that he he appears certainly visually he appears to be quite a good cook oh right okay well he he he likes cooking steak a lot is it that hard steak steak doesn't take much cooking really does it i i still look at those pictures and tell me your mouth doesn't water all right okay off to will unwinds instagram we all go the hundreds and thousands of us becky says welcome back max Max.

I wanted to ask how your Willie is, but it might be taken out of context.

Congratulations to you and the current Mrs.

Rushton.

Yes, so Willie Rushton, he is doing fine.

Thank you very much.

And

yeah, it's nice to be back.

I would say there was some quite potentially serious health complications for Mrs.

Rushton at the start of all of this.

And I did listen to the pod, and it was a great escape.

So it sort of made me understand when people say that there is some worth to this nonsense that we are doing.

But everyone is well, everyone is home, and I'm absolutely exhausted.

And that'll do for today.

Uh, I'm back into the trenches I go.

I've enjoyed this hour in the shed, may it happen again soon.

Cheers, Troy!

Thanks, Max.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you, cheers, Wilson.

Cheers, Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Wednesday.

This is The Guardian.