After a Boxing Day bonanza, is title now Liverpool’s to lose? - Football Weekly

This is The Guardian.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

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

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

But there's something new and exciting: the remarkable paper pro move remarkable a brand name and an adjective man yeah it's their most portable paper tablet yet it holds all your notes to-dos and documents but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office like maybe a football journalist Barry although not like you

a proper football journalist mate exactly too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

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

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

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

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

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

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

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

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

Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, a boxing day that scores a solid six, perhaps even a seven on the 1963 scale.

Some really good stuff in there.

Fulham come back from behind to win at Stamford Bridge for the first time since 1979.

Harry Wilson and Rodrigo Munes both off the bench.

Elsewhere, an excellent day for narrative reinforcement.

Some more confirmation that Forrest are good on the counter and Spurs are ripe for being countered.

Some more confirmation of just how big Ruben Amarin's job is.

A 2-0 defeat at Vitor's Inspired Wolves.

Some more confirmation that Liverpool are good and Man City aren't good anymore.

John Duran gets a controversial red as Newcastle beat Villa.

West Ham get a scratchy win at Southampton and Palace Hold Bournemouth at the Vitality.

You sent us some nice messages after the Christmas special and some questions and we'll do both of those on today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today will Unwin.

Welcome.

Hello Max.

Hello Lars Ivertson.

Ho ho ho Max.

Festive greetings to you all.

Thank you so much for bringing a Christmassy feel to the intro Lars.

Happy Christmas Jonathan Faduba.

Welcome.

Merry Christmas Max and good morning to you.

Dominic says, Mad City held at home, Harlem misses a pen.

Manu and Spurs both lose again.

And in the bottom half, Chelsea lose in the last minute.

Forrester third.

Bournemouth are above City.

Honestly, are we not thoroughly entertained?

Box office on Boxing Day.

Let's start with Fulham's late win at Stamford Bridge.

Brilliant win for them.

Paul says, voice note from Archie.

He begged and pleaded to submit a voice note.

So here it is.

Max, Boxing Day was one of the best days of football.

And indeed, Fulham, that I've ever experienced, because finally

we won at Chelsea for the first time since 1979.

Fulham do not like Chelsea.

Chelsea do not care about Fulham.

They ruffle our hair like we are the insignificant brothers in their life.

But to be able to leave a mark with Rodrigo Muniz on 90 plus 5, a goal that I can still see replaying over and over again in my head, is something that will stay with me.

forever.

And I wasn't even there.

I'm in Canada right now seeing one of my best friends, Sir Sha, who I've known since I was eight, who is a Fulham fan.

And this is part of the reason I'm here, was to experience watching Fulham with somebody who it means just as much to as me.

And being able to experience something that was happening such a long way away

like this is something I'm sure that many listeners can associate with, and it is glorious.

So yeah, going to be drinking that in for a while.

I didn't think that Harry Wilson's double against Brentford could be bettered so quickly.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This is glorious.

Praise be to Rodrigo Muniz, who has tattooed his name somewhere on my soul now.

Thanks.

Bye.

Goodbye to you, Archie, as well.

And love to our Canadian audience.

And Lars, as he pointed out then, just such a brilliant moment for those Fulham fans around the world, but at Stamford Bridge, when that very calm Rodrigo Muna's finish went in.

Yeah, because this is one of those where

if you're not,

you could be forgiven for not being aware that this is a big rivalry, right?

Especially because it's been a very one-sided one for quite a long time.

But as you can just tell from the tenor and pitch of Archie's voice,

it's a big deal for the Fulham people.

And

understandably,

and really, it wasn't undeserved either.

I can get into Chelsea in a while, but I just thought the way Fulham grew into the game here was really impressive and kind of got stronger as the game went on.

I think it might be a recurring theme of the pod that I think fatigue is a big thing for a lot of teams right now.

There's a lot of games, all this other stuff.

But Fulham just kind of seemed to grow into it.

And yeah,

deserved result, I thought.

Very good.

Yeah, they're level on points with Manchester City.

One point behind Newcastle, up in fifth.

And

actually, they have done well, Will, haven't they?

In sort of every time someone leaves, and I'm copying what someone called Lars Sivvertson told me on the radio recently.

You know, Mitrovic left, that was a crisis.

Paulini left.

That was a crisis.

And they see they have managed mainly by just checking who was okay at Arsenal recently and building like a really coherent squad.

This is it with Marco Silver.

I think I was on discussing the Arsenal game a few weeks ago.

That in a Premier League where a lot of managers are criticised for not being practiced, he is.

And he changed tactics yesterday.

You know, the wing backs are pushing high up, pushing Chelsea back.

Anthony Robertson is probably the best left wing back going.

But in terms of changing things, when someone comes in, you know, Munez had a great spell last season.

Jimenez is in this season.

They're playing to Triore's strengths, which are mainly not...

allowing him to play the final ball.

Awobi's moved a bit more inside and he created the first goal where Pedro Netto cry-assed on the floor for no reason.

And this is it, they play to the individual strengths.

Mitrovic goes, you can't sign a carbon copy of Mitrovic.

So then they adjust things, tweak everything slightly, because that's what Silver does.

He knows how to do it.

He knows the strengths of each individual player and what you get out of them.

Look at Bassey's run in the first half.

He knows he has that in his locker.

It's and that's it.

It's clever coaching, knowing where Chelsea might struggle out wide with the wingers and having Cashine and Robinson and Triore, you know, pushing them all back.

It's working.

It's a cunning plan to just stick to your strengths rather than playing football that your players don't know how to operate within.

And that's it.

Be a clever coach and you can be better than you should be, as Chelsea found out yesterday.

And it's interesting, isn't it, Jonathan, when you look at Fulham in eighth level with City Bournemouth at one point ahead and then Forest in third.

it's a sort of unlikely looking Premier League table.

And I think most of us think, oh, eventually it'll all just sort of move back to how it always is.

And I don't know which of those sides do you think is most likely to maintain a push.

But it's just good, right?

It's good that it's different.

Yes, it's good that it's different.

I think that Silver is an established manager now and it seems to be sort of redemption this season so far for managers who kind of were thought to be highly rated, then not thought to be highly rated and now are again thought to be highly rated.

Nuno Espirito Santa being another one who kind of came in, did really well, then had a rough spell.

A bit like Silver when, you know, he had the sort of Watford, the Everton roles.

People started to maybe question,

is he sort of cut out for Premier League management?

And now he's sort of settled down at Fulham.

You know, they've got a lot of Premier League experience, a lot of players who have sort of been there and done it.

Even the signings, you know, the likes of Smith Row and people like that.

Although he's not, you know, set the house on fire yet at Fulham.

Someone who can fit into that squad and do a decent job.

And so, yeah, they've done really well.

You know, the ability of Silver as well, he can play different styles.

You know, he can sit in a deep block like he did against Chelsea and counter-attack.

He can play a possession game.

If you look at, for example, the Arsenal game that they played not so long ago, where he kind of put five at the back and doubled up against sort of Sacker and Smith Row on the right-hand side.

Yeah, the sky's the limit.

And I think the good thing about this season for a lot of teams is it's kind of open for anyone, really.

I mean, with fifth place

probably likely to take a Champions League spot at this moment in time, you've got teams like Forrest, Fulham, you know, not too far off, only six points off it or so,

who can maybe dream when other teams like Man City are doing so terribly, that maybe this could be a year where they can really sort of reach for the sky.

Lars?

I mean, you say that the sky is the limit, the sky being fifth is the limit.

It's probably right.

Maybe fourth, you don't know.

Lars, you were coming in.

Yeah, probably something like that is the limit.

I think

what also impressed me with this performance is that when I looked at the lineup, I thought they might be in trouble because you mentioned how well they've dealt with Polinya's departure.

And one of the reasons for that is that a compatriot of mine, Sandabaga, has been quietly very good in midfield.

The surprisingly tall Sandabagya in midfield has really, in a slightly less crunchy tackle, showy kind of way to Polinya, been quite efficient at sweeping up possession and just kind of keeping things ticking over.

He was not available here, and I thought for sure going away to Stanford Bridge with him not there was going to be a problem.

And then in the first half, we kept seeing Cole Palmer get into space in between midfield and attack, picking up the ball as he does for the first goal.

It was a brilliant goal, by the way.

And there were several situations like that.

Amazing goal.

Just so good.

And

I thought, all right, yeah, we're going to have a Cole Palmer bit on the pod today.

But, you know, that's been overshadowed.

But that was a really good goal.

And it kept happening.

And I was trying to watch more than one game at the time, so I'm not entirely sure what the tactical shift was.

But in the second half, that was no longer happening.

There was some kind of tactical shift happened to deny him that space.

So whether that was in-game management or one one of the midfielders copping on i'm not sure but basically their sort of midfield shield that replaced the midfield shield was not there and they still managed to go to stamford bridge and and and and shut up shop eventually and not concede that many chances so they're just i definitely think having not um

I feel we don't talk about Fulham enough.

And I think one of the reasons we don't is they don't have like superstars or super exciting players and there's nothing tactically weird going on there.

There's just not a lot of narratives, sorry, to grab onto.

But they're really good.

They're one of those teams that's just consistently better than some of their parts.

And that's admirable.

Parry says, how many more stewards or bar staff bonuses need to be slashed before they stop holding Manchester United back from a victory?

Yeah, Wolves 2.

Manchester United 0.

Vito Pereira winning the Battle of the Portuguese.

Two wins in a row for him.

Jonathan, what did you make of this one?

It's a tough run for United fans at the moment.

I think that wolves firstly wolves are really good so it seems that pereira's come in and immediately i mean he claimed that he's he's he's not really done too much and just made a few tactical tweaks and really sort of honed in on one or two specific things probably set pieces and corners in the few days that he's had since he's taken taken charge on the manchester united side of things yeah not great obviously the red card had a had a big impact i think probably is a red card you know two silly kind of needless files from the captain bruno fernandez which doesn't help when you're trying to sort of uh re-establish yourself and and and amorum's trying to sort of build a squad.

But no, Wolves really good.

Pereira was so happy to be there.

You know, he said afterwards he's so happy to be in the Premier League.

He's just absolutely loving life as a Premier League manager.

He's waited so long.

I think he missed out on the Everton job three times, which is enough to make anyone desperate to join Wolves, I suppose.

He sort of put it down to a mental click amongst the players, really, which is...

maybe a sort of a side swipe at Gary O'Neill and just essentially just maybe telling the players, you're quite good players, go out there and show me you're you're good players after what was happening at Walls with all the fights and everything and the behind-the-scenes sort of chaos.

For United, it's kind of going, I think it's going how I would expect it to go with Amorim.

That's for Manchester United, it's another case of making a sort of not bad decision at completely the wrong time in the sense of ripping up your squad shape mid-season to give a manager who's a complete sort of 3-4-3

dogmatic manager who insists on playing that style in the mid-season when he has no time to work on it at all, no pre-season, and has a squad that's completely not suited to playing that style.

So

it is what's going to happen, really.

I mean, I feel sorry for Amuram in a way.

I think he's got a massive wake-up call.

I remember when he had the first few press conferences, when he was linked with the job, when he was at sporting, and he was just so happy and smiling.

And I remember remarking to a friend of mine, like, I'm not sure if he really realises what he's getting himself into at United.

And I think he's had the wake-up call now.

The last few weeks weeks has been the wake-up call where he's realized because it's not only that I think he's done a good job in the sense of trying to do in the first few weeks is essentially the squad is so burnt out in certain areas and then so underplayed in certain areas some players are not playing at all some players like Dallow for example have have literally played every single game almost I think Dallo

the first game he missed under Amorin was the first game he hadn't started since Boxing Day last year.

So he'd nearly played a full year of calendar games,

starting every single one of them.

So I think he's done a good job in trying to get the squad physically all on the same level.

But now he's sort of done that with the rotation.

He's now realised actually almost every single player in this squad isn't good enough.

So now he's in a position where it's like he's kind of stuck.

And that's where the train retrance window is going to be massive for them because

United finished eighth last season and won a trophy and it was considered maybe a bad bad season for Ten Hag.

I don't think United are going to finish.

I think United would this season eighth would be considered a successful season the way things are going.

Yeah, Amrim said in this moment we just have to survive and to win some time to work on the team.

We already knew it.

I started this job with the team, the new idea, without any time to train, with a lot of tough game.

It's a long journey.

We have to continue to fight these bad moments.

We need time to work.

We also have to win games to sell the idea to the players.

If not, it's really hard.

I mean, he wasn't helped, Will, by Fernandez's descending off.

And you just, the second yellow is so pointless.

And it's just, you can't, well, you can do that.

I can't say you can't do that.

You can.

and he did do that.

Yeah, it's not what you want from your skipper.

Needless, in a needless part of the pitch, a waste of time, probably an indication of frustration, maybe, with the overall situation, those sort of things that creep in.

It is what United are at the moment, deeply underwhelming, frustrated, and lacking any quality when Fernandez is off the pitch.

So he's not really helping anyone.

I mean, if United had kept hold of, you know, paid stewards a bit more, maybe they could have surrounded Inanna for the corner to provide the protection that they were unwilling to produce.

There were complaints about it, but I mean, there's just no one there to help him.

And what's the goalkeeper do?

He can't rugby tackle people out of the way.

It was bizarre.

And

it was a ploy that they'd worked on.

I mean, I can't imagine there's many clubs thinking, yeah, I think we could score from the corner this weekend.

So fair enough.

You say it's a big January transfer window, but I don't think there's any money and who would turn up at this point.

It's a really tricky one.

There's no value in the market in January.

United don't have a massive amount of cash so I'm deeply suspicious that they'll end up with this same unbalanced underwhelming squad for the for the next few months as they battle to finish above 10th.

But

yeah it's a pretty depressing time to be a United fan I suspect going away at Wolves and being outplayed really.

I was at Wolves against Leicester at the weekend as well and Wolves looked a little bit better than they had been under O'Neill, a bit more confident, a bit more flow to their play, but they're not will beaters.

They're going to find out very soon, but they're still in a relegation battle despite six points in six.

They are going to Spurs next, so that's another three points for Wolves, isn't it?

It's interesting, Lars, that Kunya did score from the Kunya.

A, it's interesting that he's still playing, given Glass's spectacles gait from Atari's Kunya, but that he'd seen Son score from a corner and thought, well, I'll give that a go.

considering it's a different goalkeeper, but it's the same or a similar defence.

Yeah, it's an interesting one with the blocking move.

I think we discussed it a few weeks back in the context of Arsenal, is that there is like there's an imbalance of risk there.

Because if you're an attacking player and you put a block on someone in the box and you kind of obstruct them,

there's not a lot to lose, is there?

If the referee blows up, you've lost the corner kick, you know, that's fine.

You'll have a few more in the game.

But as the defender, if you have to barge someone out of the way

to get some kind of advantage back, you risk giving away a penalty.

Like, it's not likely, but it could happen.

And that must be at the back of your mind.

Like, I think Joe Hart was saying on Match of the Day that as a goalkeeper, he would want one of his defenders to come in and barge the Wolves player out of the way.

And I'm probably, that's probably the way you'd want it as a goalkeeper.

But that player will know if I'm too forceful with this dude.

that I could give away a penalty here.

So it makes total sense to

deploy these kind of shenanigans.

And it brings me back to my hobby horse of like the penalty law needing some kind of

some kind of revision but i just think in the big picture for this game is that it's an interesting contrast between two sort of mid-season appointments with uh vito pereira who doesn't appear to have changed much on paper at wolves as he said uh they they they line up in the same formation

it's close to the same 11 which i guess is because wolves have a tiny squad so there's not a lot of wiggle room there but he hasn't suddenly reverted to a back four he hasn't made a dramatic change of structure mid-season he's just gone in and probably done some bits to tighten up the defense a little bit.

Whereas Amorim

is trying to do this wholesale change in the way United approach football games, playing a lot of players in positions they're not used to.

And he talked about it after the game.

He said they need time to train.

They're completely changing the way they're playing.

It's really hard on them.

Which is like, well, that's that's kind of you've decided that they're doing that in the middle of the season when there's no time to train.

So

I don't know.

I'm going to put this, just put this question out there.

For a coach coach coming in who has his way of playing that he believes in, is it better for him to just go, hmm, probably can't implement this straight away because we have no time to work on it and we're just going to have to do it gradually?

Or should he sort of do what Amarim is doing, which is the opposite of that?

There are managers who stick rigidly to tactics of which we will move on to now, even though he didn't change his mid-season.

And I'm really conscious that we've done so much Tottenham.

So while they are interesting and they continue to be interesting, I think we should make this a Nottingham Forest-centric conversation at least for a while.

They are third, one point behind Chelsea, 34 points from 18 games.

Their best start to a season since 1980.

Their highest ever Premier League finish was third in 94, 95.

Is that what?

Is that Pierre van Huydunk?

Is that Brian Roy era?

When is that?

Or is that maybe a bit before then?

Collymore, maybe.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, could be.

But what, for Jonathan, for Nuno, this is just,

you know, it's so unsurprising this win.

I think, I think everybody thought Forest v.

Spurs, Forest will get a goal on the counter and then shut up shop.

It's just

how it panned out if you were to write down what would happen.

It is indeed.

And Forrest are a really good team at the moment.

I think it goes back to a little bit similar to what I said about Fulham.

If you look at the team, the starting lineup.

There's some really good players there and it gives them, like I said, the chance to dream and look up at the Premier League.

I mean, just relating it back to the Wolves United game for a second, in the sense of the squad quality, and it goes back to what Will says about maybe January transfers.

Which sort of United player would necessarily get?

I don't think there's many United players that would get in the Wolves team, like genuinely.

And I know that sounds ridiculous to say, but it's a similar thing with Forest.

You know, if you look at the Forest team, a lot of them would walk into Manchester United's first 11.

You know, you've got

the centre-back pairing, which everyone's raving about at the moment in, you know, Milinkovic and Murillo.

One's that sort of aggressor, Mario who sort of charges in at everyone and then you've got the calming sort of the calming scary Milinkovic who just sort of menacingly looking at everyone and sweeping up any mistakes that need to be done.

Olaina of course you know Chelsea ex-Chelsey graduate and Williams fullbacks did really well.

Sales is having a really good quite a good season.

The ability similar to Fulham again in Forest is that they can play different styles as well.

You know they can kind of counter-attack on you with the likes of Hudson Adoy who was so good at youth level at Chelsea.

I know know he's had his injury problems with Achilles and everything but it's so good to see him back sort of playing and doing well but he was such a quality player when he was younger and Ilanga of course who was you know really good at United for spells and you know is a young player with a lot of potential and talent and then you've got Chris Wood who's just on fire so I think with Forrest like I said you know they can play that counter-attacking style they can they can dominate games with the likes of Gibbs White on the ball so It's not that they're just kind of lucky this season and things are going well for them.

They're a really good team.

As I said, similar to Fulham in the way that they're set up.

And Nuno's had that similar background to Markov Silver in that he's had that failure at Spurs, the 17 games that he got.

And, you know, amidst all the kind of and j out stuff that's going on at Spurs at the moment, it makes you just look at Nuno and say, look,

they hardly gave him much time.

And look at how well he's doing now.

So, no, Forest are a really real breath of fresh air.

And I think that, you know, when you look at them on the pitch and the things they're doing, they're a really entertaining side.

And like I say, they can play multiple styles.

The only team to go to Anfield and sort of give them a proper game and win.

So, no, doing really well.

You look at Forrest, they finished 17th last season.

They stayed up on the final day, you know, effectively.

They were pretty much up.

But they targeted in the summer what they needed.

It wasn't like, oh, we finished 17th, we've got massive problems here.

And in previous seasons, obviously, they've done huge,

huge overhauls of the squad.

But essentially, from the final day, they've got Milenkovich and Anderson from the weekend, and that's the only two new players.

Everyone else was there.

And obviously, they signed a few other players.

They got Joshua Silver, they got Ramon Sosa, who has extra wing options because Nuno loves wingers.

It's just this, if you look at the other clubs, everyone lives and dies by recruitment.

United squad isn't fit for purpose.

City have obviously got big gaps at the moment.

But Forrest Recruitment has been very intelligent over the past 12 months.

So Sales came in last January.

He's been incredible for them.

You know, not a goalkeeper.

His experience in England previously was mediocre, to say the least, at Newcastle.

And

the saves he was making yesterday

kept the clean sheet for them.

And that's it.

It's just a model of you don't have to do

overhaul the whole squad when things are going badly.

You target where your problems are.

You sign Lenkovich, you sign Anderson.

And even Anderson probably wasn't on the cards till late on because Newcastle needed the money.

And that's it.

It's intelligent recruitment, working to your strengths again and being quite sensible with what you do.

And I think Forest will target a strike in January to provide extra backup for Wood.

And ONE has not really done much this season, but obviously Wood's in excellent form.

And that'll be it.

And

the mentality there has changed.

This isn't just a good run.

They think they're good enough to challenge for Europe.

This isn't just sort of luck.

The swab mentality now is that they can go for top

six, five, and even top four.

So it's going to be an interesting one for the rest of the season at Forest.

I mean, the the crucial input here, but the 94-95 Nottingham Forest season, very much the Alfie Hall and Lars Bohenan years.

Of course, you can take your Stan Collymore and your Brian Royce.

It's Holland and Bohinan for me, Jeff.

I just wonder if Forest can be termed a mini Chelsea, which is like they've done so much weird stuff in the transfer window.

They bought so many players, and at times it's looked very chaotic.

But the reality is also, they have sort of sneakily brought in quite a lot of good players in the middle of that spree.

And Nuno is the Enzo Maresco of the lower half, which no longer the lower half, very much in the top half.

He is the guy who has found an 11 that that works.

And this must have been very satisfying for the formerly sad Jedi, who's currently looking quite cheerful.

Tottenham's worst first half of a Premier League season since 08-09.

They've lost four and five.

They're 11th.

And his post-match was two minutes long.

Did he just say mate several times and leave?

Just

looked at the ground and just said, I can't ask any more of these players.

Brig Hare Forever says, How long is too long for this bad streak with Anne?

Is it all down to squad depth, injury?

Is it all just too naive?

I'm genuinely interested to hear the possibilion because the pitchforks appear to be getting raised.

Lars?

Well, I just don't think there's much point to making a change right now because, as we've just discussed in the context of Amarim,

there are limits to what you can do mid-season in terms of putting a new system into place.

It's very, very difficult.

I just think I still, being of the Spurs persuasion, I'd rather have a guy like Angel in charge of the club than having the sort of egomaniacal whingebags of the previous sort of content Mourinho era.

But what I would like to see is

for him to show some willingness or ability to adapt to circumstance, which is something he's refusing to do.

But the reality for the team is they've got a lot of injuries right now.

I mean, if Dragrashine, who had to come off, is actually injured and spends this kind of thing.

That leaves them with Archie Gray, who's not a center half, and then no other center half for the next game.

There's like no center halves at the club.

Like, no one's saying this is an easy situation for him.

And the other thing is, while the rest of the team is looking kind of strong, if you look up front, most of the main guys are there.

You have a lot of squad players injured, so you haven't been able to rotate a lot.

So the guys are looking very, very tired.

But my question would always be: then, if you have a squad where you have a lot of injuries, so you can't rotate, and the players have to play every third day, maybe don't set them up to play in a way that takes a lot of energy and is particularly demanding physically when you know they're tired.

But that's the whole thing.

It's what we do, mate.

It's how they set up for every game.

And I just think, I don't know if it's possible.

If you're trying to be competitive in the Premier League, you're hoping to have at least one good cup run.

You're looking at sort of 50 games a year.

And if this team is only going to function when everything's going to plan and everyone's available and everyone's at a good physical condition, you're going to have these runs of poor form.

I think for him to manage at this level, he's going to have to show some degree of adaptability, whatever his philosophy and belief is.

And that's, I think, what he

needs to display between now and the end of the season, because it's not.

What this bad run has shown is that he is going to stick with his approach, whether it makes sense or not.

And it currently doesn't make sense.

Just a note to say, lovely to see Chris Kamara on the television that Amazon he said he was doing the sort of Jeff Stelling did a goal show thing and he said when Amazon rang me up I thought they wanted me to deliver parcels which is as you can imagine when Cammy said it funny because it's a genuinely funny guy and a lovely guy and really nice to see him on the box as well.

And I think Jim Rosenthal hosted his last game on TV yesterday

and what a servant to football Jim Rosenthal is.

Also a lovely chap.

So well done to both of them.

That'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll begin with Manchester City's draw at home to Everton.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the remarkable paper pro.

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

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable paper paper pro move remarkable a brand name and an adjective man yeah it's their most portable paper tablet yet it holds all your notes to-dos and documents but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office like maybe a football journalist Barry although not like you

a proper football journalist man exactly too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out this paper tablet doesn't.

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

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

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

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

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

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

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

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

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So, yeah, the Etihad Man City one, Everton won.

The Man City Crisis Claxon might need its batteries replaced pretty soon.

Could we start with the goal from Illinois?

Because, Jonathan,

it's unbelievably good, I think, to control that ball and finish it.

And the angle, the camera angle from behind the goal, it was just such a perfect strike.

And he's such an exciting, non-Everton-ish player, I think.

Yep, former Boreham Wood,

non-leader Premier League, so fantastic sort of shout for the pyramid as well in English football.

The work he's done, Illiman and Di quality.

Yeah, it's a brilliant strike, instinctive the way he takes it, just catches Otega out really, and just that bit of intricacy and trickery and sort of intelligence that is everything that Manchester City are not at the moment really

in the last sort of 13 or so games.

It was funny because I think Everton, I believe it's one of the only open play goals they've scored in

a long time.

In their history.

It might be ever.

Under Sean Dyce.

It kind of seems like a bit of an upside-down game in a sense, Everton.

I mean the 4v2 at the end as well.

I mean that summed up why they struggle so much in scoring goals from open play because

going 4v2 at the end there, it genuinely looked like they were scared and didn't know what to do and kind of had never been told what to do in this situation.

The way they kind of just mumbled around and

just eventually did nothing when it was a huge chance to win the match really.

Everton have done really well in the big games, haven't they?

Obviously the Arsenal game as well, they got a point.

Didn't get to play Liverpool because of the storm that day, but

the top teams, they're doing quite well against Chelsea as well.

I think that the problem with Man City at the moment is just it's not only that they are

lacking confidence and not really good defensively, it's also the fact that they're not really creating much at all.

I think it was an astute point someone made, I can't remember when it was a few weeks ago about Haaland and in the Manchester Derby and sort of just not...

not tracking back, not running around enough.

And that kind of thing is perpetuated into the whole team really in in the sense of like they're just just basic things they're not not doing and I think that is normal in a way because they've been so good and it's hard to maintain the level for so many years but it is alarming to watch in almost every game how often it happens when they're just kind of standing around even in situations where they're on the ball and they've got like an attacking move you know city used to be just all movement everyone's running everywhere and they're so static it's it's it's actually quite easy for a team like Everton who are very good defensively to defend against.

So in a way, it wasn't a huge surprise.

This was obviously Haaland missing a penalty as well.

It was a big moment.

But yeah, things just aren't really going too well for Man City at the moment.

And another weird thing that I find strange was the fact that Jack Grealish was apparently out with,

I think Pep used the words, I don't know where he is, in the description of the pre-match.

So

there was a hint of a muscle injury, but then Pep's comment was a little bit, yeah.

So, I mean, I don't know what's happening with Jack Grealish.

He does seem to sort of avoid the scrutiny there.

Maybe he genuinely is injured, but

yeah, just some strange goings on in the city at the moment.

And Janery is another,

they're another team I think that needs to sort of dip in in January and sort of plug a few gaps.

Yeah, well, it's interesting.

They did have chance in this game.

Obviously, the penalty.

Pickford had a really good game.

So I don't know if you see this game as kind of slightly different to a lot of the ones they've lost.

But even still,

it's just weird to see them.

I mean, it's sort of exhilarating in a way.

It's a great nostalgia trip for me.

So,

sort of the mid-90s, you know,

and the Stuart Pierce era of the noughties.

I thought the first 20 minutes that you played really well, I thought Everton's low block would be quite inviting for them.

There was a bit more zip about them.

Got the goal, and then all that zip went.

Followed a similar pattern to recently, so not much energy in there.

The city have been known for, you know, a bit of a struggle, susceptible on the counter-attack,

and yeah, see, once you get a penalty, you think Haaland's going to do it.

But it was a good saving, Pitford.

It wasn't an incredible penalty, it wasn't right in the corner.

And it's probably indicated more again that Haaland's not fully at his best confidence-wise.

And then it goes back, as was suggested a bit ago, about recruitment.

That actually you just look at the squad, ABC have become a bit complacent, as you might do after winning four league titles in a row but

there's serious areas lacking and not having a backup to Haaland now after selling Alvarez is looking naïve

and obviously going back to as mentioned before but you know I think the problems go back to Rodri it's as simple as that and obviously there's more problems now but losing a ballon d'Or winner you know the guardians footballer of the year as well roderie um it just knocks the confidence and now the confidence is getting worse and worse and you know

and that's it.

Confidence goes, energy goes, should have bought more players in the summer.

Now they're talking about going in January and they're going to have to assign two or three which is difficult but at least they have the money.

Having spoken about it before, if Anthony Robinson turned up at City, I think that would be a very sensible move.

Not sure Fuller might want to sell in the winter but there you go.

because they need a midfielder, I think they need a fullback, and somehow if they could pull a backup striker out of a January Transa window it'd be impressive.

So welcome Hugo Viana to Manchester City.

Enjoy January.

Well their next game is away to Leicester so it couldn't happen.

Oh they're rubbish.

But it

seems unlikely.

They went to Liverpool and you know put up a decent fight for 45 minutes.

Sadly not 45 plus one minutes.

Laura says is there any greater weather to watch football in than fog?

Josh says if we can't see the game can we just claim Liverpool have scored five?

And John says, is the fog descending over Anfield?

Actually, the Vestergaard Bednarak Vortex.

It was so Christmassy, Lars.

It just felt so perfectly Christmassy watching this game.

And it looked for a bit like Liverpool might be joining, you know, the other big clubs, brackets and Spurs, by dropping points.

And then they just turned up.

When you say, I don't know what constitutes Christmassy where you're, I mean, in the UK, I'm in Norway at the moment.

I was just looking at, I saw on my screen, I had a a multitude of games, but I had the forest.

I did watch some of the forest, the Tottenham game, I watched some of the

Wolves United game, and I watched this one.

And I just kind of think, has all of the UK just become a massive bog?

Is this just like the sort of bog fog hanging over the entire nation?

In my absence,

what's going on over there?

What's happening?

I think you can have, I think, I think crisp winter's day is Christmassy, but foggy evening is also Christmassy.

I think you could have, I think you can have both.

That's how I feel about it.

Certainly, my experience of spending Christmas in the UK is that it's frequently like seven degrees and rain.

That seems very Christmassy.

Also, that is Christmassy too, yes.

Yeah.

I just think, well, maybe in the first half of Wolves United, I thought this fog is just God trying to save us from watching this game of football because it was really dreadful.

But this game was actually quite entertaining.

And I was looking at this ahead of it with Vestigaard and Cody in the fence against the sort of flying forwards of Liverpool, thinking this is going to be a cricket score, isn't it?

It's going to be quite disgraceful.

I think

looking at the betting odds ahead of the game, the price on Liverpool to get anything was like, was ridiculous.

It was like if you bet a tender on Liverpool, it would return less than one pound of winnings.

The probabilities were.

So when they then got a goal, Lester, that made it interesting.

But I was impressed by the way Liverpool just...

I suspect maybe I shouldn't be too impressed, but they just kind of kept going.

There was no hint of panic.

There was no hint of stress.

And it took them a while to get the first goal.

And that can be, you know, if teams are not fully settled, you go one down early in the game where everyone's turned up expecting you to win easily.

And then you miss some chances as they did in the first half.

And some might start to feel this is just not our day.

And you might see some anxiety creep in.

And I thought there was none of that.

They just kind of kept the ball moving.

And you always felt confident that they were going to get it.

Obviously, the kind of form they've been on will breed a little bit of confidence, understandably so.

But I just thought, like, the ease and calm, and sort of, yeah,

the way they got back into the game with not a hint of panic or concern was really impressive.

Jonathan, Gakpo's finish is brilliant.

I mean, it was coming, but there's so much quality in that.

And I guess when a team is playing so well, you probably don't single out individuals as much.

There's a lot of, well, Salah's great because there's the contract conversation, which means players like Diaz and Gakpo are sort of having great seasons without any of us really

knowing or noticing.

So have you noticed?

My question is, how well is Gakpo doing?

Because I'll confess I haven't really spotted him.

And I think I saw some stat going he's got a goal and assist every 98 minutes or something.

Yeah, one of the things that I think Aina Slot has really done this season that maybe well Klopp did to an extent last season, but I think Slot has done it a bit with a bit more emphasis is really get the juice out of the whole squad.

And the likes of Gakpo are sort of really starting to step up.

Now, Graven Birch as well is having a really good season, I think, in midfield.

And it's getting a lot of applaudits as well for that.

McAllister, two assists as well.

So

I think the one thing with Slot is thinking he's been really good at his second half of games this season.

Perhaps that sort of alludes to what Lars was saying about just you kind of they just carry on and you just expect them to turn it around even if they're 1-0 down, is that ability to just tap into the squad.

Slot can, you know, he makes changes.

He's quite proactive in that sense.

He, you know, for example, Trent, he's been quite, although Trent played 90 minutes yesterday, he's rotated him quite a lot this season.

He's pulled him out of games when he needs to.

He's managed minutes really well, I think, in that sense.

And that's one of the reasons that they're sort of just running away with with the title, probably.

And, you know, you might even

say the title's done, to be honest, at this rate, because they're running away with it, really.

Even Curtis Jones, as well, has looked really good, got his goal.

They just

want that calm air of they can play different styles.

You know, if they need to play a possession game, it's a bit like I said about Forest and Fulham in a way.

It's just another good team that can play many different styles.

And also Liverpool have that added strength and depth, really, with the amount of players they have.

And top quality players are the front end of the pitch.

unlike city for example as will mention where harland is pretty much all they have which is seems seems crazy to say it in a way but it's kind of true liverpool and not that at all they've got they're almost the opposite they've got options all over the place you know diaz didn't start yesterday for example jots are still there to come back in salah's just on fire so gakpo's having a very good season and there's been a bit more emphasis on him i think this year in terms of his output but but you can apply that to almost everyone in the squad really at the moment so yes i mean i don't see anyone catching him at this moment in time yeah seven points clear with the game in hand.

We are, well, verging on it's theirs to lose territory, and perhaps as much because no one behind them is consistent enough, right?

I mean, I still think Arsenal have got an amazing chance because you imagine Liverpool will have a blip at some point and Arsenal are not too far away.

But it's so going back to

everything

comes down to recruitment, and Liverpool have the most complete squad in the league.

I mean, maybe an extra centre-back might be helpful.

Yeah, who's saying you look, I thought you could turn off when Gakpo equalised yesterday, I thought, yep, that's it, they're gonna win, everything's fine.

But they can change their front three and bring on, you know, three

world-class players.

I mean, I appreciate Chiesa's not done much yet due to injury.

But if you can bring on Jota Diaz and Chiesa, if things aren't going well against Leicester, you know, they'll get to if you c if you get to ten points ahead, you could start them again for most of March and let everyone else have a rest and make sure you have a proper tilt at the Champions League.

And that's it.

They're consistent.

They're all playing as well as they can, really.

You know, you look at City and you say no one is playing at their best.

You look at Liverpool and you can't pick out too many that aren't really at their top level.

Maybe DL started off five in five and then had a bit of a drop-off and that's fine.

And then Gapo comes in and he's scored, you know, say, what's it, a goal involvement every 98 minutes, but he scored something like seven and eleven at one point.

And that's it.

And that's the quality they've got running throughout the squad, all on the same page.

Slot had a pre-season to implement his ideas and

tweaked a bit from Klopp.

So they've got good recruitment, good coaching.

It's a well-run football club.

Very strange situation in the Premier League.

Yeah.

And actually, the interesting thing there, Larsis, isn't it?

That

confidence breeds confidence.

And if other people are playing well, you can play well and the pressure isn't as much on you because other people are doing good things and so it sort of becomes

this and city or you know this and spurs or whatever are just two snowballs just like going in opposite directions down the side of a winning losing mountain that i've envisaged yeah definitely what i had in mind um

what i wanted to what i wanted to say is that last season liverpool were also top of the league after boxing day in fact last season, Liverpool were top of the league on the 1st of April.

And I feel like people forget because it kind of fizzled out and they didn't win anything in the end.

People completely forget how good Liverpool were for how long last season.

So one big difference this year is that their rivals are not very good.

They're having varying degrees of problems.

But the second thing is, like, I don't want to take anything away from what they've done so far.

I think they're...

They look to me like the best team in Europe right now

and the best team in the world, if you want.

For For me, the big test comes in the spring where we will see whether this slightly more controlled manner of playing, it's a little bit less heavy metal and a little bit more controlled, will that enable them to not have this big drop-off that they had last season when they seem to run out of steam quite suddenly?

Will the sort of the more controlled slot machine approach

make them kind of stay the distance?

Or, on the other hand, maybe when they get to that point, they have so many points that no one can catch them anyway because the other teams have dropped so so many points at this part of the season.

That might also be true.

But my point is, they were also very good last season.

At the risk of

upsetting Arsenal fans, I think Arsenal were top of the Premier League at Christmas.

I think I'm looking at one now.

After Boxing Day?

Maybe at Christmas, I have.

Okay.

On the 25th, I concede.

On the 25th of December, Arsenal were top of the league.

On the 27th, they were not.

It's got you on a technicality there, Max.

I would say, Jonathan, not even a technicality, just he's got me.

Full stop, hasn't he?

I was just worried about the Arsenal backlash, and

I was wrong to do so.

Who am I to question your stats, Lars?

You know, I should know my place, and I will never question you again.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, I'll begin at St.

James's Park.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

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

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

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable Paper Pro Move.

Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

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

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

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

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist.

Exactly.

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

This paper tablet doesn't.

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

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

Think and work like a writer, not a texter.

And the battery performance is amazing.

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

The Remarkable Paper Pro Move can keep going for up to two weeks, and if you do need to recharge, you can go from naught to 90% in less than 45 minutes, Barry.

Fantastic.

Why not give it a go for nothing?

You can try Remarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free.

If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back.

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

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Newcastle 3, Aston Villen-Nil.

Newcastle started brilliantly.

A wonderful strike from Anthony Gordon after a couple of minutes.

And then there's the red card, Jonathan.

Unai Emery was not impressed.

I mean, he wouldn't be.

I mean, I don't know, being impressed by the decision is probably the wrong phrase, but did you think that was the correct decision?

No, terrible decision.

Pretty obviously slips and just sort of misses, misplaces his footing and sort of flies into the defender mistakenly, really.

You can even see when

he falls over, he kind of turns to the defender and is sort of just sort of checking his well-being.

In that sense, you know, to suggest it's sort of malicious intent is crazy.

So, no, another terrible decision, really.

And VAR debates are kind of, you know, very dull, aren't they, really?

So, won't go there.

But, I mean,

I just don't see how such an important decision to make in the game that completely changes the complexity of it, especially for a player like Duran who's in such good form.

I mean he was looking a bit fiery in the game and you know he did seem a bit round up.

There was that free kick that he wasn't allowed to take and he was looking very you know I'm unhappy about that but but no I just think it was really really harsh decision and and the wrong one.

Can I just check Lars?

Because I agree with Jonathan.

It just seems accidental but intent doesn't matter.

But in this situation

does the intent not mattering actually matter?

Does that make sense?

Well, it doesn't according to the laws of the game.

And the interesting thing, yeah, he does roll his ankle, but he rolls his ankle because he steps on a Shar with that one as well.

So he kind of steps on him with both his legs.

I mean, I thought that was interesting.

They were doing this huge close-up of his left foot on Mash of the Day.

It was like, look, he clearly falls over.

And it's like, well, yeah, he's rolled his ankle because he stepped on him with that foot also.

On the first viewing, I also thought this looked incredibly harsh.

It looked to me like he's running at a high speed and is slightly out of control of his body and just kind of is trying instinctively to not fall over.

And the way he puts his foot is on Shar's back.

But you watch it the second time and he steps on him twice.

And I don't know, man.

I think it's possible that he could have avoided it.

I guess it falls in under is the discussion we've had before.

In relation to the follow-through on when you kick the ball and you kick landed a boot high on something.

There are certain physical actions that the players kind of have to be expected to be allowed to do.

I'm waffling a little bit because I've also gone through this journey of like on first viewing think that's mega harsh.

And then I texted it to some friends who were like, nah, it looks looks like you intend.

So I'm not entirely sure.

I my first instinct was that it was a little bit harsh but intent doesn't matter is the sum total of the last finest five minutes of me speaking.

Well life is a journey and you went on a journey.

So that that is nice.

I don't know, Will, if you have any strong thoughts on I mean, it sort of killed the game, right?

Newcastle were good, but we never really got to see what could have been a really exciting game.

And that doesn't mean you shouldn't make that decision, but it did affect the whole game.

Yeah, it's not a red card.

I mean, just think that, oh, I know we go intent, blah, blah, blah.

But to think he might have some sort of thought process,

running at that speed and whilst tumbling over that he might manage to stick his studs in Charles back.

I mean,

if he had that level of brain power to do that, I mean, fair play, I think, give it to him.

You know, how quickly can your mind work that you think this is what I'm going to do?

I just don't think it's a red.

I mean, I think the match day commentary was sort of adamant.

It was a red card and it was a disgrace.

And obviously, went and really kicked the water bottle at the end, which sort of added to it a bit of a bit of theatre for everyone, or maybe a bit of panto, seeing it's this time of year.

But yeah, obviously there was no way back for Villa.

They looked very tired.

I mean, they tried to give a goal away.

Was it for the third?

And then they eventually did give a goal away just to finish off, but they just looked quite tired.

I think, you know, playing with 10 men for such a long period doesn't help, but

a first season of playing Champions League football and this time of year really looks like it's caught up with them.

You know, a lot of energy went into beating City.

So Newcastle took advantage.

I thought you've got Gordon and Hall on that left-hand side.

It's probably the most exciting wing partnership in the league at the moment, maybe.

And I think Tenale looked really good, which I was surprised to see.

I thought he's looked quite slow when I've seen him before, but he won the ball back for the first goal, and he looks quite confident in there.

And Newcastle are on a bit of a roll themselves at the moment.

Yeah, he's acting great for him as well.

His 11th goal,

his seventh and six games.

And Jacob Murphy, who

set him up, is having a good time, isn't it?

So they're up to fifth on 29 points.

Thing is, Jonathan, everyone down to Manchester United and 14th on 22 points could go on a run if fifth gets you the Champions League.

It's possible, you know, for Ruben Amaroom to to dream.

Like, it's really bunched.

There is a bit of a gap between the top four, but

it is bunched.

Why are you laughing at me, Lars?

I was not expecting you to think about Ruben Amarim as one of the people who could dream.

But I mean, you are right.

Yeah.

But it's like everyone from 14th onwards.

Thomas Frank, all 5'7 of him, can dream.

It's possible.

So that was an unnecessary crossing of the streams again.

Let's not do that.

But you are right.

I mean, Thomas Frank also Ange can dream.

He's on 23 points.

You know, he's right in there.

I just think, again,

Alexander Riesak is so good.

I'm just going to throw this out here.

I think he's a little bit streaky.

He has periods when he doesn't score.

But I really think he is a player who has a sort of...

golden boot winning season in him.

If he can stay, have a full season of being injury-free and playing for a team that doesn't go through like spells of being terrible.

He's really, really good, Alexander Rysak.

Jacob Townswell, who was there for the athletics, saying Una Emery and Jason Tyndall have to be separated by the fourth official.

Tyndall puts his finger to his lips and tells Emery to shh.

He was sent more class from Jason Tyndall, who was sent off.

The assistant coach.

I love that.

The assistant coach doing a shushing feels like next level nonsense.

It's really embarrassing.

But I did notice Una Emery, when Duran was walking off, very pointedly did not look at him.

I thought that was interesting.

When Duran was like kicking the bottle and like doing all the ah, the sort of alpha male, I'm very angry about this stuff.

Uh, Una Emery was like not even looking, he was looking the other way quite sort of quite sort of pointedly.

Uh, West Ham won at Southampton.

Um, I actually thought Jonathan Southampton had some decent chances before and after Bowen scored here.

I mean, Urich has got a difficult job here, um, but they maybe they look slightly better than in you know in the Russell Martin era.

Yes, early days, I think it's hard to look worse, really, to be honest.

I like Russell Martin stuck to his principles and did offer some

fairly promising things at times, but

really the Silent fans by the end had seen enough of just so many individual mistakes and the kind of philosophy that he was trying to build there with a squad that wasn't really capable of implementing what he wanted.

I think Eurich would be more of a pragmatist, and of course,

yeah,

they're going to play a different style of play, but I think it's very early days, really, to judge on one match.

Even Pereira, you know, I found it strange in the Wolves game when they were talking about what has he implemented

in the last two games that he's, you know, changed the, as if he's changed Wolves around.

Really, a lot of it is not even on the field.

They haven't had time.

They don't have time to train.

I mean, Amorim's been there for nearly two months and he hasn't had time to train, let alone Urich or Pereira managers like that.

So I think it's more about maybe just the mental side of it, filling the players with confidence, giving them

a new kind of voice.

And that's what he'll work on.

The time to train and implement his actual style of play will take several weeks.

So so i'm not sure you can draw too much too many conclusions there except for the team selection maybe which hints at how he might want to play to play in the future but i think yes the handsome fans can't get much worse can it so there's reason to be optimist um i did like how nicholas fulcrug celebrated assist as if he'd scored the winning goal in the world cup final but nice for him to to be involved it's been a tough start for him and who doesn't want you know a big target man with one tooth missing to succeed in the premier league uh last game bournemouth nil palace nil bournemouth probably had the best of it, but it was mainly players in decent positions dragging it wide.

The next pod is on Monday, by the way.

I mean,

I'm 90% sure it's Friday today, but don't hold me to it.

So we'll talk about

today's games or is it tomorrow's games?

Who knows, Max?

Does it really matter?

So we will talk about today's games, Brighton Brentford and Arsenal Lipswich, along with the weekend games.

on Monday.

Just a note from the Christmas pod.

Will said, Barry's all-time best ever goalscorer seen live in the flesh, Scott Sinclair, missed an open goal from six yards today at Exeter.

Congratulations to Charlton, who won the battle of producer Joel versus Max as Charlton beat the Mighty Us 2-1.

And just a couple of nice emails that we got.

Slightly self-indulgent, I guess, but

the Christmas episode was fun.

And lots of people got in touch, especially about the end, and to send their love to Emily, who was the final emailer.

Ed says, hi all.

I've been a long time listener of the pod, my first time emailing.

Just want to write and thank you all for your honest and open discussion about losing someone.

I know it's a downer topic for a Christmas episode, but it's definitely the time of year that you can feel lost the most when everyone is together.

Without the person you were once close to a couple of years ago, I lost a close friend just before Christmas.

They were a person loved by so many people.

And I still often find myself remarking with other friends about how they would have felt about a situation or the sort of joke they might have cracked in reaction to something.

It was comforting.

to hear the panel's thoughts and experiences and to know that it's normal to still hurt even a couple of years later.

Thank you all.

Hamza says, hello.

Merry Christmas, all long-standing listener.

I thought it important to email in and say the Christmas mailbag episode was not just a reminder of why you guys are the best football podcast around, but the best by country mark.

Let's not go too far, Hamza, but you know, we'll take it.

Outstanding stuff, which made my day otherwise characterized by frustrating travel issues, genuinely enjoyable for an hour and a bit.

The last section in particular was really something wishing you all the best for the new year.

And finally, Ruben says, hi, Football Weekly.

I've been listening to you for over a decade.

You've been quite an important resource during 2024, which has been a difficult year on a personal level for me.

So thanks for this.

But also for all the vasectomy emails, which as well as being amusing also serve to raise my awareness about this male means of contraception, which seems less common here in France where I live.

This has pushed me to take the decision to take on the responsibility for contraception within my relationship.

I'm over 50 now, so the definitive aspect is not an issue.

And also to ask the surgeon for only a local anesthetic so I can listen to you on the 16th of January when I'm due to be operated.

Thanks for everything.

I hope we're not on strike that day, of course.

And to let you know that you've done your bit in gender equality and contraception, warm regards, Ruben, in the south of France.

Well, happy Christmas, Ruben.

Good luck with the op.

And to everyone else having a vasectomy.

And to everyone else who isn't.

We appreciate you all listening to us.

And that'll do for today.

Thank you, Will.

Thanks, Max.

Thank you, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thank you, Max.

Pubble Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Monday.

This is The Guardian.