Joy for Chelsea in Spurs thriller but more misery in Manchester – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Chelsea now just four points off the top of the Premier League after a 4-3 win at Spurs.

Anyone taking them seriously?

Or is a Chelsea win when Spurs are 2-0 off after 11 minutes just the most likely outcome?

Forest win at Old Trafford, which on the pitch looked quite a lot like the Manchester United players' fault, but in actual fact, it was Dan Ashworth's fault.

He departs by some not very mutual, mutual consent.

Manchester City dropped points at Palace.

Is that even a story anymore?

While Arsenal are held at Fulham.

Two stirring Sunday comebacks by Leicester and Bournemouth.

And then there's Brentford's ludicrous home form and Aston Villa beaten Southampton.

Also today we carry on our discussion on LGBTQ plus allyship, refusing to wear the rainbow armband and respecting cultures after some criticism from last week.

All that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Week clean.

On the panel today, Barry Glenn Denning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

Will Unwin, hello.

Hello, Max.

Hello, Lars Hividson.

Hello.

And joining us for two interesting and perhaps difficult conversations,

Chris Palros, Spurs fan.

What's your title, Chris, of the the Proud Lily Whites?

Do you run it all now?

I'm the co-chair and a co-founder, yes.

And good morning, everyone.

All right, well, look, we'll get to Spurs, Chris.

You were there, but you know, a moment to work on, because I know you're a very positive Tottenham fan, full of hope.

You've got a few minutes to just think about how you can spin this.

But we probably should start with Chelsea Barry, because this actually is a huge win for them to come back from two down.

Lots of big moments where this game could go either way, but they were the better, more controlled team in a sort of very uncontrolled Balmi football match.

Yeah,

I think their midfields are what win you games, I suppose, and their midfield was strongest throughout.

And when things weren't working for them, Enzo Maresco made changes.

When things weren't working for Tottenham, Angepostakoglu didn't make changes because he doesn't.

In-game, I mean.

And I think that's what ultimately won it for Chelsea.

I actually thought Spurs would win this game beforehand, and then when they went 2-0 up, I was like, yes, feeling quietly smug.

But they never really looked safe.

I think ultimately, Chelsea were more than deserving winners.

But how much of this you pin on Ange, I don't really know, because

the two penalties Tottenham gave away were just ridiculous, just mindless acts of stupidity, which you can't really lay at the manager's door.

Self-harm.

Self-harm.

Think Basuma's still sliding.

He's still sliding into Conor Cody, who's still sliding after Minter, like just turned him inside out.

They're going to meet each other, aren't they?

Somewhere between North London and wherever that game was, Leicester.

No, I agree with you, Baz.

It is impossible, actually, to talk about this game without talking about Tottenham, isn't it?

Really?

I mean, I know the Sancho goal is brilliant, and I wonder if Chelsea don't get back into it that quickly.

Perhaps it's a different game.

You know, and the Panenka from Palmer, it's so slow that Fraser Forster has time to get up and just watch it go in, doesn't it?

Come on then, Chris, how are you?

I'm all right.

Look, watching Spurs is like watching basketball, and it's great fun, but it's, you know, high risk, high rewards.

I mean, I can try out as many cliches as you like.

I said to my nephew at 2-0 up, because I go to the game with my nephew, we're going to lose 6-2.

So, look, we didn't lose 6-2.

It was 4-3.

And Chelsea, we're not great against Chelsea, but, you know,

as Baz just said, you know, actually, I'm not sure you necessarily put this at our door.

Cassado was lucky to be on the pitch.

At 2-2, Sonny could have made it 3-2.

And I think that would have changed it.

You can't blame Ange for poor decision-making of Basuma and Papsar.

But the thing for me more recently is,

I think there's something about the mentality of the players.

Because you could go in and like start like that against Chelsea.

More recently with Spurs than the mentality of the players.

Well, you know,

I've got a short memory.

I have to have a short memory, Max, I think, is the important thing there.

And so, you know, to kind of lose against the teams that you think you should beat, and then to come out and play like we have done against the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United, Villa, etc.

I think what Anne just said is that he always wins a trophy in his second season.

We're on track for that.

I've already booked a hotel room in Bilbao,

right?

Unfortunately, you booked a hotel room in Bilbao on the date of the FA Cup final.

Haven't you?

I mean, I admire your hope.

Lars, what did you make of all of this?

I thought Barry made an interesting point that Mareska did tinker.

You know, he took off Lavier, he brought on Gusto, he did those things and probably didn't necessarily have the bench to make such effective changes, but he doesn't change stuff.

No,

I'm a little bit hesitant to go down the route of we can't blame Ange because the two penalties were crazy, because then at the same time, we can't really give him credit for Markuka starting the game wearing bowling shoes, which is, you know, it's not really something that Anish deserves a lot of credit for.

The Spurs were very aggressive and pressing in doing the stuff, but I was just kind of shocked by just there was no control over anything.

And when you looked at the lineup,

no James Madison.

And presumably you pick Saar over Madison because you want his sort of extra running power.

You want to try to compete with Chelsea's midfield a little bit.

But having made that call, they were still just wide open spaces at all times in the Tottenham midfield, which just kind of seems bad.

And it seems like something that should be adjusted at some point.

And I kind of...

Being a little bit hot, yes, Son had that chance, but this also didn't seem like a game where

Spurs were almost given two goals.

I mean, it's a great finish by Kukusevsky, but I mean, they get two goals from kind of bizarre, goofy mistakes.

And after that, Chelsea were just the better team throughout, really, I thought.

I was very, um, initially very frustrated about the fact that he rushed back to incredibly important players and Romero and Van De Veen, who were maybe not 100% ready to play, and both end up having going off.

Some of them made me quite cross.

But it has, I mean, it does transpire.

I mean, it wasn't the same injury for Romero.

It was a different injury in Van De Venn.

They say we're just tired.

He hasn't been re-injured.

So maybe that's not something.

That's not a stick we can beat Posta Koglu with.

But it was.

This is just a total chaos.

I don't think this is intentional.

We can talk about him being an ideologue and believing in the Angeball and all this.

I don't think it's meant to be this chaotic.

I don't think the idea is to go out there and just have no semblance of control than just having the opponent run through your midfield constantly all the time.

I really don't think that is the plan.

So I don't think the plan is working that well.

It's not just the ideology that's not working right now.

It's the execution as well.

Is that down to Ange or the players then, Lars?

I just, I'm not a super sort of savvy tactical analyst, but I don't think there's supposed to be this much space in the midfield constantly.

I think there's something about the distances.

Like you're not meant to leave Col Palmer in just an actual acre of space most of the time.

Maybe some of that is the players getting some of the positioning wrong, but it isn't the first time we've seen Spurs be a little bit too easy to play through.

Is that Will because if you try and play this type of football when you are running on fumes, as Ange says, you're slightly off it.

And if you're slightly off it in each bit of that, then the spaces are so much more evident.

Yeah, I'd just like to say there's one manager that I think might have filed down Kucarella's studs.

I reckon Ange is

keen for a prank.

He's the one premium manager I think could do it.

Obviously, you have to look at Spurs.

They've scored more goals and conceded fewer than Man City, who are in fourth.

I appreciate Man City who are in crisis.

But I just don't think they have the squad for it.

They've got a very young squad.

The midfield duo clearly got some issues with their thought processes.

So it's obvious why there might be space.

It's not just individual errors for penalties.

It's across the board of where they are in their shape that they are giving so much space.

And because they haven't got the squad, because they're playing Thursday nights, they are looking tired already.

As you say, they've got...

defenders coming back who clearly aren't fit.

I mean, Romero lasted 15 minutes.

You know, it's not ideal.

Dragerson doesn't look up to it every time I see him.

I've seen him in the Europa League a few times, and he just looks well, well off it.

So there are deep concerns there.

And I think when you recruit very young, like they have with Archie Gray, with Bergval, that's great long term.

So you've probably got to give Ange credit that he's looking at a bit more than

this first 15 games.

But the problems are there that the squad depth isn't available to Ange, and therefore maybe he needs to be a bit smarter of how he plays.

It's absolutely fantastic.

You've got philosophy, mate, but

if it's not working, you've got to adjust it a bit.

You can't be 11th in the Premier League as Tottenham.

And so you've seen other teams that have stuck to philosophies when they're not working and it doesn't end well.

I think it's he's had pre-season to come up with more than one plan, and that's what you've got to be at the top though.

You've got to have more than one plan.

He doesn't seem to have it.

And that's problematic, especially when you've got so many different

You know, you see how well they do against Man City, Man United, but then coming up short in other games, it shows that there are issues maybe with mentality, maybe with physical fitness.

And if you have those two issues, you might need to have a more pragmatic approach at times when things aren't going right on the day.

But he doesn't seem to have the ability just to tweak or adjust as other managers do.

I mean, Chelsea have to play in Kazakhstan later this week.

They're almost going to be near China, but they can send an entire team of players to play that game in the Europa League and

it won't have any effect on their next Premier League sider.

Little or no effect.

You know, that's how much strength and depth they have.

Tottenham simply can't do something like that.

Yeah, just to build on to that is I think part of the discussion over Anish Postakoglu right now and where they're at with the whole thing, you have to factor in the decision that they made made in the summer of spending

70 million thereabouts on three teenagers

in Bergwell, Grey, and Odeburgh.

And that in three, maybe if we have this conversation in three years' time, that will have been a great decision.

It's entirely possible that two or all three of them turn out to be good Premier League players, and then that looks like a really clever, you know, win decision showing a lot of foresight.

But when you go to that route, and instead of adding, you know, one really big signing or two sort of more proven squad players or options you you're going for three teenagers at least for the first sort of six months I think you need to bear in mind that okay that the coach maybe doesn't have options that he would have otherwise had if they'd have gone in a different direction and I'm not it's hard to know from the outside who was pushing for that to be the decision but it was probably not Angel Postakoglu I would I would hesitant to say Chris of match going fans is what is the vibe because you know people are saying he's under pressure you know if he has a bad few games he's lose his job I think they'd be mad now given what they've invested in to

sack him that's definitely my position max but i think in the stadium it can it feels a bit it could effect it can feel a bit edgy so it's and it's on a knife edge at all times like to between great excitement it's like the what's going on on the pitch right it's like there's great excitement and then great misery so you know the polarization in the world is matched in the polarization of the top of what's the stadium right you know it was joyous for the first first 15 minutes yesterday.

There were a lot of complaints.

Come 97 minutes.

It's hard to say where the fan base is falling because I think there are exactly as we've heard today, there are different perspectives of some saying, look, we've just got to hold on and others saying, you know, enough's enough.

But what do we do?

Just go on another 18-month cycle.

I think we need to hold our nerve.

I genuinely think we need to hold our nerve.

We'll obviously do more on Chelsea as the season progresses.

They are four points off the top and probably deserve more airtime for that.

But I want to keep you on, Chris, and talk about Friday's pod.

We talked about the Rainbow Armband campaign.

Ipswich Captain Sam Morsi's refusal to wear the armband.

Mark Gay, writing Jesus Loves You onto his.

Nassiah Mazrawi refusing to wear a jacket depicting the rainbow colours.

We received quite a lot of criticism after it was released.

I'm going to read a couple of these.

Thank you to everyone that...

did get in touch.

We read all your emails and everyone who wrote was incredibly thoughtful.

This is from Samantha who says, hi, Max and Barry.

I've been a football weekly listener since 2012.

I've always enjoyed your podcast.

It's helped me through a number of hard times, including my struggles with depression, recently coming out as a transgender woman.

I've never felt the need to email before, but I wanted to let you know that I was quite disappointed about the conversation around the rainbow laces on this week's podcast.

I understand this is an ongoing conversation, that faith is deeply important to the players involved, and a tolerant society respects that.

However, I wish there'd been more focus given to how the discussion has impacted LGBTQ plus fans and players.

It feels as though when it comes to inclusion in men's football,

they come last.

From conversations around World Cup host footballers moving to Saudi and this week around captains refusing to wear the rainbow armband.

There was no voice to express how queer Ipswich or Crystal Palace fans felt about this.

If we're a universal game with the biggest dynamic of people across the globe, what about LGBTQ plus people?

I simply don't believe this conversation was productive at a time when their rights are being rolled back in the UK.

This from Rowan, who says, hi there.

I think it's fair to say the armband...

in and of itself is a somewhat tokenistic gesture by clubs to show solidarity when more could be done funding education programs supporters groups etc but ultimately visibility helps normalize sentiment and pro-LGBTQI visibility at a national level, which helps show solidarity and consideration of people's lived experiences.

To refuse to be part of this initiative is to say that you do not believe or tolerate queerness as it is antithetical to your belief system, i.e.

one that denies the rights and existence of queer people and their lives.

The whole point of this initiative is to challenge that worldview.

So if we are to give people a pass, whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or any other faith, on the grounds of said faith, we are not challenging it at all.

I understand the complexity of the subject and the need to support religious minorities at a time of global strife, but this isn't that.

This transcends differing belief systems, as evidenced by Masrawi and Gay, respectively.

The general sentiment seems to be: if they're not abusing or harming LGBTQI people, then why should they support the initiative when surely the point is to challenge the opposition in the first place?

People will always have different views, but if we deny rights and discriminate under the guise of religion, even if the individuals do not themselves discriminate, then not challenging them is problematic.

Chris, you've listened to friday's pod i read your post on it um you've heard those two emails i just wondered what you made of that conversation and what the reaction has been the one thing that sort of i've i've heard there and i've heard amongst you know lots of kind of conversations that i've been in is that we love football and we just want it to love us back

and you know the world does feel more volatile than ever and LGBTQI plus communities are having their rights we're having our rights rolled back all over the place.

So, to some degree, it might feel like an inconsequential spat in English football, but it can have like a much bigger impact because the micro does affect the macro.

And it hurts because, from you know, lots of LGBTQI plus fans feel already feel marginalised in football.

And some of this, you know, it's definitely served to sort of further alienate us.

And, you know, we've been talking about Spurs.

You'll have seen yesterday an enormous progress flag at the corner of the Tottenham Hot Spurs Stadium.

And, you know, on the one hand, you might say, well, that's just, you know, a tokenistic gesture.

But actually, it's a hugely important symbol for LGBTQI plus Spurs fans.

It's an unequivocal message that we're welcome and we belong.

And you can't underestimate how that feels if you felt like you don't belong for so long.

And all of this, I think, is about human rights.

It's not about denigrating anybody else's rights.

So, you know, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that human rights are universal and inalienable, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated.

So, and I think it's challenging, right?

I think I understand the challenges around

the sort of perceived clash with faith.

I'm of the view that that's a sort of a false equivalence because, you know, as you saw on my post, it's like, I don't think they're in conflict.

There are plenty of LGBTQI plus Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, etc.

I think what can be challenging for some players is whether they might be putting themselves or their families in danger by wearing a rainbow symbol.

And I think

we have to take that seriously because we're talking about rights being rolled back, people feeling safe, people feeling like they belong.

But, you know, as you as you know, you saw, I think you read some of my posts on Friday's pod.

And I think what's really important is that, you know, campaigns like Rainbow Laces are for for life and not just for Christmas.

So players need that time and space to explore ideas, ask questions, and really understand what the bigger picture is.

And that's how we build change.

You know, it's not enough to say, here's an armband and wear it.

You've got to give context, you know, just I said, you know, like giving someone an armband without context is like giving them a user manual written in a different language.

Got to understand why the campaigns matter.

And then if they choose still not to wear it, then we can have a constructive conversation.

But But look, I think the other thing to remember is there are 20 Premier League captains.

There were sort of issues in the Verticomas with two of them.

And, you know, 95% of the rest of the Premier League happily supported the campaign.

I understand it.

I understand those messages from Samantha and sorry, I can't remember the other person's name.

Rowan was the other one.

From Samantha and Rowan, because social belonging is like an essential human need.

Maslow's hierarchy ranks our need for belonging on par with our need for love.

So human beings are real social creatures.

We crave that belonging.

And football is not only our national game, it's how we learn to work, play, celebrate, commiserate together as children.

It's about community, identity, and belonging.

And being part of something matters.

So belonging in our national game matters.

And because LGBTQI rights feel volatile, and because if you think about, you know, the Proud Little White's been around for 10 years, before then, we had no conversation around LGBTQI plus

rights and football and inclusion, actually, LGBTI plus inclusion in football.

So that's not very long, right?

It's only a third of the Premier League.

It's only, you know, I have 150 years of football.

So

our sense of belonging can feel quite volatile.

So all you need is something like this to go, oh my God, are they going to tell us that we shouldn't be here again?

So I think I'll just go, I'll finish how we started, which is that we love football, we want it to love us back.

Chris, do you think, because that was a brilliant speech, you know, like should be, like, felt like you should be like talking to like a huge crowd.

She is talking to a huge crowd, Max.

No, no, you are right.

You are right.

If a captain refuses to wear an armband, what do you think should happen?

And also, what is the impact on, you know, not just LGBTQI Plus fans of that club?

Can I just say, Max, I think a lot of this

listener dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that I was about to raise a point or trying to raise a point that was, I think most of the people who are unhappy with our discussion would have agreed with, but I was interrupted and I didn't make an effort to get back in and

continue what I was trying to say.

And that was, I thought the statement Ipswich put out, they were talking out of both sides of their mouth.

You can't agree with the rainbow laces policy and also agree with your captain's decision not to wear an armband.

I think, and it's a personal opinion, I thought the optics of

one refusing to wear the rainbow armband, one

putting Christian graffiti on his and the other refusing to wear a rainbow rain jacket or whatever.

It looked homophobic and they seemed to me to be using their religion as a shield behind which to hide to demonstrate their homophobia.

So I would like, if, you know, presumably

there are staff and fans at Ipswich, Manchester United and Palace, probably even players as well, who are homosexual.

I would like those guys to sit down with those people and explain their stance

and have a conversation and go, this is why I, Sam Morrissey says, this is why I didn't wear an armband, explain it to a gay person.

That would be an interesting conversation to eavesdrop on.

You know, obviously I had to think about our friends at Proudhon Palace, our friends at Rainbow Tractors, our friends at Rainbow Devils, and how they're having to navigate this.

And,

you know, I appreciate that sort of

it's not this straightforward in a first-team environment, but

I think in this context, I would have handed, you know, you've got vice captains.

I would have handed the armband off to somebody else, actually,

because

I think exactly to Baz's point, you either support the campaign or you don't from a club perspective.

And, you know, your captain can be injured or can get dropped.

So it's not like

it's a fixed state of being a captain.

And actually, you know, you're talking about inclusion.

And as I said earlier, I don't want anybody to put themselves or their families in danger.

And so on that basis, it's like you could just sort of say, actually, I'm not going to wear it this week.

You have it, vice captain and the conversations I think are a good idea whether the clubs sort of facilitate them or not I don't know I think one of the interesting things isn't it that the about football squads is they are so incredibly diverse with people with such varied background you know like wildly different upbringings can be in the same football squad and if you sign a footballer from an incredibly conservative be it Christian or Islamic community somewhere in some other part of the world that has very different sensibilities and sensitivities.

The football club then is in a really interesting and perhaps difficult position.

What they want is to make a footballer good at football and get them really fit.

And this is not the same for Mark Gay and Sam Morris who, you know, lived in their whole lives.

It's different.

But on those cases, I just wonder, you know, is it a football club, what does a football club do to kind of say, right, these are, this is the custom of this country.

Or, you know, we want, we respect your culture, but...

This is, you know, how much time do they practically have to do all in a sort of totally practical sense to do all of that stuff?

Or is that giving footballers a pass?

they're humans like we are we're all humans we all move about we should be able to

uh you know is it too patronizing to keep talking about educating football i think it's probably a bit of both because again i think if you look at those first team environments like how much of this how much of these conversations they actually have in a meaningful way and you know there is a bit of time for it i appreciate that you know you need to make sure you've got rest and recovery and that you're spending your time doing your work and in the right way but actually there should be some time for this because you do also operate in a world.

You, you know, whether we like it or not, you are role models.

And I know there's a, you know, that could be a challenging statement to make in any case.

But actually, you need to spend some time on that.

And it's not necessarily for, you know, in some contexts, you might say it's for people that have, that have come from other countries and cultures.

But, you know, exactly as what you've just said with Sam Morsi and Mark Gay, they're, you know,

they're from

South London and wherever

Sam Morsey's from.

So I think we do need to spend some time working with them.

And it's not, and education,

you know, the term education can sound patronising, like we need to educate them.

Well, let's have some real meaningful conversations and let's do it all the time rather than five minutes before you're about to enter a dressing room and find a rainbow armband on your peg.

Because I think that's probably what happens.

And so it's hard to, you know, you're making that decision in a split second.

Chris, it's all good to have you on.

My dad has been in touch, who is an equally optimistic Tottenham fan, who says, crazy exciting game.

Need a run of wins.

Fine goal difference, he says.

You know,

these are the things that matter as a Tottenham fan.

He says, not over yet.

Good, Rushton Senior.

Cheers, guys.

See you later.

We'll chat you soon.

Take care, Chris Parrows, there.

And that'll do for part one.

We'll begin part two with Nottingham Forest win at Old Trafford.

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Barry's here, too.

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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.

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

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

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

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Manchester United 2, Nottingham Forest 3.

We'll get to Dan Ashworth in a second.

Two defeats in four days for Manchester United after that loss to Arsenal.

Ruben Amaru not having that new manager bounce.

We've discussed this before.

It's like a new manager boof or thud

or something.

Anyway, Will, you were there.

How was it?

Really, really wet and cold.

It was horrible.

In these sort of big modern stadium, you don't expect the rain and wind in your face in the press box.

I mean, they should cover it, really, if they're letting us in for free.

Obviously, we'll start off talking about United.

I think it's starting to show the problems of bringing a manager in mid-season.

and you know should have sacked 10 hag in the summer and started afresh and given amarin time to plan because he's inherited this squad where it doesn't really fit his free for free system but he's going to to really stick with that plan and I think one of the big issues at the moment is he's just changing the defence every week he's trying to work out his best free into that it was Yoro Delicht and Martinez but then he had to take two of them off to 65 minutes and he puts a bit of blame on that on the fact that they're not fit enough to do 90 but you know defenders really should be they're not doing as much running as everyone else and they spent most of the first half just passing it around between them i think the top three passing combinations was just the bat three between themselves which is worrying when you're trying to score goals.

And that's creating confusion at the back.

And so if you look at the goals, obviously, set piece again, problematic, too easy for Milenkovich.

The wood goal was, I think, we'll say hilarious.

No one taking responsibility for that.

I mean, a looping header to the back post.

Delik just went, nah, it's nothing to do with me, mate.

And Arna went, someone will sort it.

And then Martin has just went, I can't even be bothered.

And I think he's really just got to back a defensive free and stick with it, whatever

happens, because the foundation of all teams is a good defence, as Andre Poster Cogli might try and tell you.

And yeah, I think that's the key issue.

There is a plan at United now, which Uncle Ntenhaki, you can see what they're trying to do.

It's just not working because he's got one day a week on the training ground with them between playing

Wednesday, Saturday or Thursday, Sunday.

So there's so little time to implement his ideas that it's all all just looking a bit half-assed at the moment.

No one really sort of knows what's happening.

You know, against Everton, Rashford scored two, Xerxes scored two, and then they've been not started the next two games.

So, you know, it's an interesting one.

And I think United are just going to have to give it a lot of time and wait till the end of the season when Amerun can actually get some time with the players.

Because in the meantime, I think you're just going to get periods like this where you beat Everton 4-0, and then the next week you get done by a well-organised forest team because you know they know what they're doing, they've stuck to their plan.

Nuno's had time to settle into a formation, different patterns.

You know, they play very differently against Ipswich last week, so they did at United, so they did at Liverpool, and they won.

And United really just couldn't cope with that level of organization at the moment.

So, good luck, good luck, Ruben.

I mean, I did like Fraser saying, was Nuno Espirito Santo finally exacting revenge on Ruben Amarin 14 years later?

The best thing to happen this weekend.

A tweet from Michael Cox from the 21st of March 2010.

Benfica won Porto-nil.

Ruben Amarin's weak 25-yard shot along the ground is somehow spilled into his own net by Porto's second choice keeper, Nuno.

So is that...

I can't imagine Nuno seems too old to be playing in that game, but I suppose keepers do play till they're old.

I mean, speaking of keepers, Lars, Andre Inanna's sort of just sitting down for Morgan Gibbs White's shot was...

Really tremendous entertainment.

It was a bit of a parallel to that Nuno fumble, actually.

It looked a little bit similar, though Amarin's shot was from much further out.

Yeah, there was a Ankel Di Maria played that game.

He's still at it.

So, you know, we're talking about, you know, Pablo Aymar played.

He's not currently at it.

David Luiz, I think he's still knocking about.

He was in that game back in 2010.

I was looking up the line because I also saw that tweet and I checked up the lineups.

And yeah, that made me nostalgic for a time when I was less.

you know, old, I guess.

But no, I think you just kind of misread.

You know, they have have to react very, very quickly, these goalkeepers.

He probably looks at Morgan Gibbs White's body shapes and thinks it's coming to one side, and then he doesn't adjust when it comes pretty much straight ahead instead.

And it looks really clumsy, but you know, not great for him.

Maybe it was, I mean, Nuno being famously the sad Jedi.

Maybe there was some kind of mind trick going on there from the sideline.

Maybe that was Nuno like doing it doing a wave with his hand and then Unana went to the other side.

Maybe that's what happened.

You made a good point, Barry, yesterday, about, you know, Chris Wood becoming Nottingham's all-time Premier League record goal scorer with just 25 goals.

It doesn't seem like much, does it?

And it isn't.

Yeah, I think Nigel Clough would like a word, among others, whose careers

didn't coincide with the invention of football in 1992 or didn't span the

pre-existence of football and the existence of football.

Yeah, 25.

It's not a record I'd be braying about,

put it that way.

But it was, he is, which is not to take away from Chris Wood, who's having a very good season.

He really is.

Ryan says, Will poor Jim Ratcliffe ever find people up to his high standards to run his football club?

Will he keep being let down by other people's incompetence?

John says, Is Barry surprised to be so quickly vindicated in his belief that Enios are a total clown show?

So, look, he's down ashwithers to leave his role as Manchester United Sporting Director after five months by mutual agreement.

General understanding is it wasn't mutual, and that Omar Barada didn't like him, or there was a personal clash, and that Dan Ashworth wanted Gareth Southgate or didn't want someone who played three at the back.

They paid £3 million to get him out of Newcastle.

Then they gave Ten Hag a new deal.

Then they got rid of Ten Hag to bring in Amarin.

It cost £21.4 million to sack Eric Ten Hag as their manager and hire Amarin.

It is Barry quite funny.

Oh, it's hilarious and entirely predictable.

I don't want to go, I told you so, but I did say so at the time when, as soon as I saw Brailsford sniffing around Old Trafford, anyone who follows professional cycling will not be surprised by what is happening at Old Trafford.

When Eneos

bought and took over an all-conquering sky cycling team, they reduced it to

a state state of staggering mediocrity in very quick order uh INEOS cycling team have just actually lost their best rider who was on a long contract but he's gone Tom Pidcock but we're not here to talk about cycling we're talking about INEOS and their

the mess they're making of old traffic like you've listed all the

incidences of bungling incompetence.

Then you also have the penny pinching, which rising ticket prices unnecessarily

with Sir Jim Ratcliffe giving it the old, oh, I grew up on a council of state in Manchester.

I know what it's like to be a fan.

No, you don't.

And, you know, he's saying, I don't want to price the ordinary working man out of being able to go to Walt Trafford.

Well, why are you doing it then?

Because that is what he's doing.

He's also more or less...

said he has zero interest in the women's team.

He's made 250 staff redundant.

The savings he's making there can't be worth the goodwill he's losing.

And

this hiring and firing of Dan Ashworth is

just looks ridiculous.

It's quite embarrassing.

But as our listener has pointed out, none of this is Jim Ratcliffe's fault.

He's just surrounded by idiots who he happened to appoint.

Well, I got to see almost the sacking live because Ashworth was frog marched through the press conference room to Barada's office and then very soon after frog marched back to the director's box and sent on his way.

Did he have a box of things?

A plant and a conference.

I don't think he's had time to accrue anything.

Yeah.

He still had his club tie on when he left so that was maybe he gets to keep that.

Tossed the club tie in a fit of fury at the

that would be very good if he came he was marched through the press area and when he came back he was kind of throwing the club tie around just very angrily.

That would have been much better.

His mood hadn't changed from walking past us one way to the other.

So I suspect he I think he's quite relieved that he's leaving with his reputation vaguely intact.

That really, I think this is a lot on Sir Jim's irritations.

Yeah, there's a lot of tension around United still.

It's a long-term project and they don't seem to accept that.

Like changing ticket prices mid-season, I've never even heard that before in my life.

But yeah, there's a lot of irritation that, you know, you hire someone like Dan Ashworth with a massive reputation and everyone I've spoken to speaks very highly of him, and he'll walk away and get a very good job somewhere else.

And then within five months, he's gone.

The staff at United think it just reflects very badly on the club as a whole.

They think, well, we've been sold this new project, and again, how do we trust the next one if someone else comes in or someone else's got new ideas?

And that's

problematic.

They've made 250

people redundant or have left, depending on your terminology.

And I suspect Sir Jim wants to cut it down a bit more, which would be fun.

You know, there's players in the canteen at Carrington, you know, not getting their food quick enough because there's not enough chefs and things like that.

It's the professionalism is sort of waning somewhat, I would argue.

And Sir Jim's got a big job on his hands.

I appreciate that.

But

he's making some odd decisions, and he seems to want to make a lot of them himself now.

When

however much money you make in business, football's a lot different.

And he's taken control.

You know, he's got rid of consultants this week, he doesn't want external consultants in helping United and things like that.

So, yeah, big decisions, and I think they'll keep coming.

And I suspect it'll end with United finishing about ninth this season.

Just on what is the point of what was, you know, what was Danas was the point of him if it wasn't to choose the next manager?

Now, that's the sort of what's Omar Barada doing?

Does anybody know?

Like, do they need somebody there if Barada's going to go to Portugal and get their new manager?

Well, this is where, as much as it looks shambolic, because he was hired at great expense and with some difficulty, it looks nonsensical that he's left already.

But if he is supposed to be the director of football and he's not the point man for decisions like that, if that's going to bypass him and...

then then he should leave because then there's really no point in him being there.

And really,

there's no shortage of men in suits in football who are kind of happy to just take the paycheck and say the right things to their bosses and just kind of let things tick along.

So I guess if we give him some credit for not wanting to be part of that sort of that sort of thing.

There was a photo of the man the new man United Hierarchy earlier.

I think it was yeah I think it was Mark Ogden who posted on Twitter of like the sort of Ratcliffe and Brailsford and Barada and Ashworth and all the lads.

And it did remind me of like an old black and white photo from Stalin's funeral when you had the whole sort of Politburo kind of standing there looking looking glum.

and you kind of wonder you it did occur to me at the time like do all these people do something like isn't it probably gonna be big Sir Jim with with Dave Breilsford in his ear making most of the decisions at the end of the day anyway and yeah maybe having one of the dudes from the Politburo leave leave is not the worst thing that that could happen

I think the good news for many United fans is that Sir Jim Radcliffe, I think he has diagnosed the problem because he said of United, he said they're in quite a big pickle as a business.

They haven't got the manager selection right.

They haven't bought well.

They've been the dumb money.

The problem is he said that in 2019 in an interview with the Times.

Seems to still be true, though now he is the one doing the pickling, as it were.

Let's go to South Hurst Park.

Crystal Palace, two-man city, two-man city, having to come from behind twice to get a point at Palace.

Staggering stat of match of the day that they are one of the four sides to have conceded the most big chances this season alongside Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton.

Will, as a Man City fan, how do you sort of view the situation?

Really good point at Palace.

City are back.

A win and a draw in a week.

This is good stuff.

I will put it down on Rodby being absent, really.

I know it's simplistic, but

on a team sense,

not having won the pitch, and there's no one to replace him in the squad, which obviously goes back to a recruitment issue.

But losing him as such a talismanic figure in the team, I think, just drops your confidence a few levels, especially when you know that the other people aren't up to that job.

Unfortunately, however good Gundawen is at what he does, however good Lewis is at the moment, you're still worried because of that.

So the defence are worried, the rest of the forward line are a bit worried.

And that's it.

So, yeah, the issues really go back to recruitment that we never had a second player there.

We tried Phillips and from day one, it was obvious that didn't work.

So not going out to find someone else is an issue.

We brought in Nunes as a midfielder that you know barely getting a kick for most of the season.

I know he played at the weekend but yeah I think it just say it's a Rodri problem and then a longer term recruitment issue that could have been addressed because Rodri was complaining about being quite tired for a long time.

Obviously that doesn't mean that you're going to do your ACL but it really needed someone to step in and go, we need to find a number two to make sure we can A, take the burden off him a little bit.

And if the worst happens, i.e., he's out for a season, although Rodri does think he can come back earlier than planned, then, yeah, they needed someone else that could step in because clearly they haven't got that.

Yeah, so it doesn't feel like an empire collapsing to you.

You know, seven years of nigh on constant success, eight years.

So, you know, football is fickle.

And errors have been made in recruitment, as I've said.

I think, you know, the fact that we only really own one proper fullback in Carl Walker,

Guardiol is very good at left back, but there's no sort of depth there.

It's a very small squad.

You sell in Alvarez and not replacing him.

I mean if Harland gets injured now and we end up with no Haaland and no Roderick, I think we might as well give up.

Scott Carlson might as well play.

And that's it.

So

Guardiol likes to take risks in these things.

He likes a small squad, but

again, you might need a bit more pragmatism when it comes to those things.

And it's not as if they're short of money.

They're very joyful to explain how much profit was made over the past 12 months every time.

So yeah, I think it's an issue.

And these things will be addressed in the summer.

It's very hard to do so in January.

However, many people see it will be linked with.

I mean, you just have to take it as a sort of rough and tumble of being an elite Premier League team.

And I suspect now success will be finishing third or fourth.

Rico Lewis was sent off.

After the game, Pep was at his most annoying.

Sort of suggesting that there's a global agenda against Rico Lewis or something to that effect.

I wondered what you made of that.

Yeah, that was really funny.

I think he's taking this sort of jibe that holding the fingers up at Anfield was a bit Mourinho-esque.

He's really taking that to heart because I thought that was...

They were not just what...

I mean, this answer was a work of art, really, from Guardiola, even if it wasn't linguistically amazing.

And his English is better than my Spanish, obviously.

But he suggested, in the same answer, both, he both suggested that there was an agenda against Rico Lewis.

He said, because it's Rico is what this is.

But he also tried to do the Mourinho thing of turning the question back on the questionnaire, which Mourinho always does when he's in trouble.

He'll say, oh, did you think it was a...

Yeah.

He did the thing of asking the reporter, did you think there was a yellow card?

So in one answer, he both did a Mourinho thing of turning the question back onto the reporter.

And he also did a Mourinho thing of like inventing a completely nonsensical conspiracy that doesn't exist so i i think he's really like they want me to be like mourinho i will show them me being like mourinho because that that was just that was 10 out of 10.

uh pep goes full mourinho i thought let's do the two ridiculous late comebacks on sunday barry starting with lester brighton an amazing end to this game sort of virtually out of nowhere with jamie vardy to the eternal Jamie Vardy just at the center of things.

Yeah, can I just formally apologise to all Crystal Palace fans for giving them no credit whatsoever

between the four of us for their fine draw against Man City.

You're right to do so.

I don't know, quite know how Brighton failed to win that game because they were in almost total control for 88 minutes or whatever it was, and then ended up in a right old dither by the end of it.

They were really clinging on and

could have could have lost it.

So

it's a good point for Leicester.

Brighton will wonder how on earth they didn't win.

And

I thought Brighton's equaliser was excellent.

I mean, Jamie Vardy really showed his experience.

A Leicester striker might have taken a shot just for the sake of taking a shot from a difficult angle with a goalkeeper in the way, but he had the smarts to pull the ball inside so Decordova Reid could could slot it home.

And yeah, that's

a great show of experience from Varity, who I have to say, I thought he would be just too old to have any impact for Leicester this season, but he's still got it.

Yeah, worth mentioning Tarek Lampti's opener as well.

I see both Brighton goals were brilliant in this game.

Bournemouth took their time, Lars, but they won late on it.

It was just agonising this switch, which they've done so well in this game.

Yeah, it's obviously a rough face, which having been ahead for that long, but I also think

being sort of cold and unfeeling and

overall bournemouth had a lot of chances in this game and it wasn't undeserved as a result bournemouth are good man bourn bournemouth are really good they've they've been ticking along very nicely for quite a long time now and and being a uh a man of sort of occasionally stats curious uh as i am they've got the second best xg difference in the league now like bournemouth's numbers are brilliant and uh yeah i do worry for them if this kind of Spurs situation spirals out of control for Angeposta Koglu.

I suspect Irola would be very high on their wish list if there was to become a change there in the next couple of months.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin with Fulham's draw with Arsenal.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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

A little play can make your day.

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

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Moonlight Hanger says, Do Arsenal need to hire a specialist open play coach?

They drew at Fulham.

Rao Jimenez, brilliant early strike, which was Fulham's first meaningful bit of doing anything in the game.

Cancelled out by William Saliba scoring from a set piece.

A fair result, Will, do you think?

Fulham, although the stats might tell you differently, I think they had a 0.1 XG, which is quite a feat.

But

fair play to Raul Jim and Esther making the most of that.

That's low, yeah.

But I don't think Fulham really had too many problems overall.

They're well organised.

Marco Silva is probably a bit of an underrated manager.

We talk about Ariola, but the quality that Fulham showed to be organised, to know what was coming, to

send Triore, to man-mark everyone and see if he can wrestle them off the pitch.

It's all good thinking.

Yeah, Arsenal had a lot of the ball, but overall, I think Fulham

did what they needed to do against a team with far better players than them

and kept them out.

And it would have been a bit upsetting if the disallowed goal had been given in the end.

Arsenal

very good at set pieces.

I mean, maybe that's maybe they should just turn into a set piece

concept, you know, sod the rest of football.

And maybe, you know, one team gets a corner, the other team gets a corner, we just sort of do that.

That might get the YouTube generation in, cut down football a bit.

The Arsenal globe trotters just going around putting on exhibitions of set pieces.

Welcome to Pasadena.

As Declan Reitz and Bakayo Saka are here with Gabrielle in the middle, and there's a crowd of 350,000.

I mean, it is worth that.

You know, they weren't quite at it, Baz, you know, on the bit.

I can't remember who it was the other day said, you know, in the previous two games before the United game, they'd Erdoga and Saka had been so brilliant.

I think this isn't necessarily a bad result for Arsenal, you know, away from home, a decent team.

But it's a real frustrating one because they had a chance to make up three points on Liverpool.

They missed some good chances.

Rice should have scored.

Party should have scored from a corner.

That's the second one he's missed in two games.

Two pretty straightforward chances.

And, sorry, Gabrielle, Marty and Ellie, you should not be offside there.

You're looking along the line.

You shouldn't be offside.

That was, you know, a foolish misstep on his part, and it cost his side the win.

On these famous Arsenal set pieces, which they're obviously very, very good at, there was one moment in this game where Adamachore, I think it was, just kind of really did the reverse block.

You know,

there's a lot of blocking moves going on on Arsenal set pieces, and he sort of turned the table on them, and I think it was Timber.

He just kind of pushed off the field.

And

good defending, obviously.

But it made me think,

and this is not targeted at Arsenal specifically, but I think that's the way the laws of the game are now.

There's a huge incentive for the attacking team to really try to bend the rules on these corners because the worst thing that can happen is that you get a foul and you lose a corner, and that's no problem.

But the problem for the defense, I thought this when Traore kind of.

You risk giving away a penalty, right?

For the defender, it's really dangerous to try to like

push and pull, especially when we've got VAR now.

Whereas for the attackers,

yeah, again, you don't really risk much.

So I feel like that, it goes back to one of, I think, mine, and can I maybe extend this to our hobby horses

on the pod, which is Doyle's Law, the idea that maybe innocuous fouls in the box that doesn't stop a clear goal scoring opportunity maybe shouldn't be a penalty.

Because

it's another little reason why I don't like that.

Yeah, it's interesting because when you watch Cookarella for Chelsea, what he does is he runs to the keeper, is a a bit annoying, and then just runs away before the ball's sort of got there.

So he's been annoying.

He has impacted what happens to the keeper, but not so much that it's a foul.

But like the keeper can't just go sod off or Jack Stevens can't pull his hair, obviously.

Well, that's the thing.

If you're Spurs, you kind of want Romero to sort him out when he's doing that, but then you risk giving away a penalty.

So

it's kind of the way the laws are.

With again, it comes down to this.

Every little foul in the box ends up being 80% chance of a goal to the attacking team.

It gives you such a huge, like, you can start the wrestling match in the box as the attacking team and not risk anything.

Whereas, giving anything back as the defending team is a hugely dangerous thing to do.

And it kind of, yeah, I'm not blaming Arsenal at all for exploiting this.

It's very clever, but it feels like a bit of a problem with the laws and the referee.

Yeah.

Go to the other extreme.

And if it's a foul in either box, it's a penalty to whoever was the victim of that foul.

So

you're fine.

That's a big one.

I was just wondering:

is the, is it actually just to say,

like, and this is kind of what happens, just a certain amount of grappling is kind of fine.

Yeah, but we don't really want wrestling matches in there either, do we?

It's kind of funny, I guess, but it's not.

Gabrielle's been dropped for Rowdy Roddy Piper, is

an issue, isn't it?

I just think if it was a...

This is me fully departing the box here, which is not what I typically do.

I tend to be sort of voice of reason, but I tend to think like penalties,

you should change the laws so that it's only a penalty if you're stopping a clear goal scoring opportunity and all these accidental handballs and niggly fouls could be like indirect free kicks or something with the added bonus that indirect free kicks are really fun and you could have a whole new sort of range of specialists for that as well we could have the set piece coach the indirect set piece coach you know even more fun um Brentford 4, Newcastle 2.

So eight home games so far this season.

They've won seven and drawn one.

In only two of those games, Brentford have scored fewer than three.

So the opening day victory over Palace and a one-old draw with West Ham.

In their last five home games, they've been 31 goals.

Away from home, they have one point, a goalless draw at Goodison Park.

But they're seventh in the table.

Can a team qualify for Europe without winning a game away from home?

And Barry, if Thomas Frank doesn't know why they're so good at home and not away, how can we be expected to know?

Yeah, he was asked after Wordsworth to explain the disparity between their home performances and their away performances he said he just said he had no idea and i

i don't know either um i mean they were helped here by a pretty dismal newcastle effort another one uh to add to an increasingly unworrying long list for newcastle fans they've got two points from the last four games i think 20 points from the past 15.

They seem to turn up for the big home games, but not these sort of bread and butter matches.

They tend not to be very good in London anyway, if I'm correct.

I haven't checked the stats, but that's my

firm belief, and I will happily be shot down.

And they were pretty poor here again,

not pressing with any kind of intensity, missing tackles all over the place defensively.

And they're massively inconsistent under Eddie Howe at the moment.

And I think there is some

quite an increasingly loud murmur of dissatisfaction about what he's getting out of this team at the moment.

But hats off to this was textbook Brentford at home performance in Buemo scores, Wissus scores, two great goals.

But yeah, Brentford were very much helped on this occasion by Newcastle.

You know, I can tentatively attempt, tentatively attempt, I can try to explain the home and away split here just by reading off some fixtures.

At home, Brentford have played so far in the league.

Crystal Palace, Southampton, West Ham, Wolves, Ipswich, Bournemouth, Leicester, and now Newcastle.

Away from home, they have played Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham, United, Fulham, Everton, and Aston Villa.

And in that draw against Everton, they had a red card in the first half.

So I do, I do, I mean, Thomas Frank doesn't want to say this on match of the day,

but I think the explanation is pretty simple.

They've played some pretty average teams at home, and they've played some really difficult teams away.

It is still a little bit more extreme than you'd expect, but I think a lot of it just comes down to the fixture list.

Good point.

Well made.

Thank you for explaining it.

The mystery is over.

We wanted some mystery and now we have none, Lars.

You've ruined it.

That's what I'm here for.

De Villa Park, then finally, Villa 1 Southampton-0.

Probably the least interesting, perhaps the wettest

game, windiest game of the day.

I love John McGinn saying, we walked out of the first half, the wind was against us.

We walked out for the second half, and the wind was against us still.

You know,

that is two good results in a row.

It's two wins they should have had, uh, Will, but they've done it in the last two games and, you know, that is good.

Yeah, all these old stadia where the sides are still open so you can get the wind in.

Absolutely fuming.

I'm sure Ben Fisher has sat there getting soaked, so he's covering his laptop desperately as he tried to type about Southampton, desperately passing it around at the back, hoping it might work finally.

Yeah, Aston Villa again shows a go back to City, shows a good idea of having two two top-quality strikers that you can interchange.

Duran absolutely bullied Taylor Harwood Bellis on that.

Southampton again

got their philosophy, sticking with it, causing problems,

very much going down regardless of what happens at this point.

But Villa, I think, are finding their feet a little bit, trying to get used to that rhythm of playing Champions League, Premier League,

and using their squad a bit smarter than maybe they were at the start of the season.

And say when you've got strikers capable like Duran, who you know, I think we'd walk into everyone's starting lineup, sort of outside the top four, maybe.

You know, it's a positive sign that things are probably calming down after a questionable start.

I saw the palace game, and there was definitely some issues within the Villa team.

But yeah, they seem to be rectifying it, and they've got a stronger bench than Tottenham.

I'll tell you that for nothing.

I can't watch Taylor Harvard Bellis now without looking at his every error through the prism of him being Roy Roy Keene's future son-in-law.

I suspect now that if there was lunch at Keene Towers yesterday,

Roy would have had him out in the back garden, you know, instructing him in how not to be bullied by John Duran next time a ball is floated over the top.

Do you think there's one of those giant chess sets and Roy Keene makes Taylor Howard better stand where the rook should be?

And then he's like, this is, you know, this is the bishop is John Duran, and this is what we've got to do.

West west ham play wolves tonight we'll obviously talk about that on wednesday and we are send our best of course to mikal antonio after he was involved in that what looked from the pictures an absolutely horrific car crash and to walk out alive looks fortunate doesn't it without knowing exactly what happened a statement from west ham over the weekend said he's in a stable condition conscious and communicating currently under close supervision at a central london hospital he's undergone surgery on a lower limb fracture will be monitored in hospital over the coming days uh but yeah not a a bad word to be said about Michael Antonio across the football world.

So we send him our love and our best.

And finally from

a panelist Sam Dalling says a question for the pod last Tuesday.

I attended Salford v.

Harrogate as a guest of Will Unwin.

Blimey.

At half-time, my wife offered Will a hot drink as a way of relaying our thanks for sorting our date night.

Will's reply was, just hot water, please.

I carry my own bags before whipping out a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference

Lemon and Ginger number.

Is Is this socially acceptable behaviour at League Two level, or indeed any level?

Will, thoughts?

Well, first, thanks to Sam for inviting me into his romantic life.

It's nice to be a third party on day night.

Actually, he's wrong.

Salford Harrogate.

If I took Mrs.

Rushton to Salford Harrogate,

I took her to the Ashes on Boxing Day and we left at lunch because she hated cricket.

So, blimey.

At the MCG.

Anyway, do carry on.

Actually, he's factually incorrect.

It was lemon, ginger, and manuka honey.

Right, okay.

Obviously, there were no herbal teas, as far as I was aware of, at Salford.

And obviously, I don't drink caffeine after lunch, so it was a very sensible policy.

And they kindly sold

Sam's wife a cup of hot water, and I put it in, and I drank it.

How much do they charge you for a cup of hot water?

Well, I didn't buy it, did I?

I don't know.

Maybe it was free.

Maybe I don't need to thank it.

That's for free.

Having the class of 92 should get some herbal tea in.

Jim Ratcliffe would charge it.

He'd charge you 10 quid for a cup of hot water.

I was in the Harrogate away end,

so

having Harrogate is well known for its tea rooms.

I thought it was a little, a nice little, little nod.

You know, really.

I didn't think Harrogate take, like, take a Betty's tea room with them for away games.

You can always get a scon and jam, can you?

The shame is on Sam and his wife for refusing to buy me a lovely scon.

I mean, I've done my bit to respect Harrogate and their long tradition of teas.

and yeah it was lovely I was warm he got a free ticket don't know what he's complaining uh thanks to a guardian football week list of James Belshaw for the free tickets as well he's not thanked him and uh yeah it's a shame that it's a shame that Harrogate were terrible and got B2-0 but you know swings and roundabouts so Will seems to be really abusing his position for free hot water and yeah kickbacks of other oh yeah I've got no soul I'm morally bankrupt don't worry about that you know free tickets to Harrogate away and lemon and ginger and manuka teas.

Yeah.

This is flea.

This is fleaze and crawnyism.

What a lovely place to end.

And that'll do for today.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Cheers, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Will.

Thanks, Max.

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Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.