Liverpool look the Real deal against Madrid: Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Of course, we can't judge Liverpool until they play someone good, but in the meantime, Arnislot's best ever start as Reds manager continues, looking very comfortable against Real Madrid.

Conor Bradley looked after Killian Mbappe, who missed a penalty.

Mosala missed one too, but it didn't matter.

Meanwhile, Aston Villa and Juve play a football match, but the real winners are those of us who didn't watch any of it.

A marginal decision right at the end, ruling out victory for Unai Emery.

And then to Cameron Carter-Vickers and a wonderful own goal as Celtic are held by Bruges.

Nevertheless, in a good position to get through to the playoffs, a couple of brilliant 3-2s, Benfica winning in Monaco, and PSV coming back from two down with three minutes to go.

After the Champions League, we'll look look ahead to Liverpool City and the other Premier League games.

All that plus your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenny, welcome.

Hello, Max.

Hello, Lars Ivertson.

Hi, Max.

And good morning, Mark Langdon from the Racing Post.

Hi, Max.

Let's start Anfield then.

Liverpool 2, Real Madrid 3.

And before we chat, Sid Lowe got up very early to fly back to Spain.

So I chatted him at 5am, and I didn't think it would be worth waking any of these lot up

to do that interview with me.

So here's me and Sid.

I began by asking him what he made of the game.

Okay, I'll be honest with you.

When we got to halftime, I thought we've seen this before.

I thought Real Madrid were going to find a way through it because it tends to be what happens.

And then, admittedly, once...

Ember pays Mr.

Penalty and once Liverpool do finally finish it off at 2-0,

you then look at it from a more logical point of of view.

Because, of course, it's easy to analyse Realmud logically, but over the last few years in the Champions League, it hasn't always felt entirely logical.

So, at that point, the analysis in truth is that this isn't entirely surprising.

It's not that out of keeping with the way that Realmud have played.

Remember, they've already been beaten twice in the Champions League before this.

And so, a lot of the focus is on Mbappe, a lot of the focus is on the absentees, but I think it's a bit deeper than that.

You just mentioned Mbappe there.

I mean, so many of the headlines, certainly from a sort of English point of view, are: this guy isn't playing very well.

You know, he's just not doing much.

And I don't know if that is.

He's scored nine goals for Real Madrid this season.

So, like, he's not having a terrible time, but he's not doing what Killin Mbappe should be doing.

Is that fair?

That's definitely fair.

And that's definitely the focus of a lot of the analysis here.

And obviously, yesterday, possibly even more so, because Vinicius was absent, which meant that Mbappe played on the left-hand side, which he hasn't done since he's been at Real Madrid.

And he said, after the game at Legonese the weekend, where he played on the left and he scored and it's the first time he'd scored in five games he'd gone four games and I think it was 21 shots without a goal going into that and at least my kind of very superficial analysis was they were different types of shots because he was getting the ball in different types of positions and I think there's no doubt that there was a degree of anxiety and a degree of haste in the way that he was taking those shots on but I think it was at least there was a belief and I probably shared it that it was at least partly positional so yesterday is even more significant because it's the big game it's the game where you want Mbappe to be that star player and it's him being allowed to play with a relatively free role to the left of the forward line.

And he didn't play well at all.

Now, I would agree with you.

I think if you look at his statistics and his performances until these last three or four weeks, where I think there has been an anxiety about him, I don't think it's been that terrible, but obviously, it hasn't been Mbappe level.

And it's quite interesting if you listen to the press conference from last night after the game, a lot of the questions were directed at Ancelotti about the idea of Mbappe being emotionally not quite right or mentally not quite right, not psychologically kind of connected, if you like, and looking a little bit anxious, looking a little bit rushed.

And this comes off the back of a question at the weekend, which I think was badly phrased and Ancelotti didn't like it, in which he was asked basically if Mbappe was mentally healthy.

And, you know, what Anchilotti said, as you can probably imagine, is I think that's a very serious subject to be treating like this.

And I think it was really bad choice of words rather than a really bad question, which which is, is he, does he feel right at the moment?

Does he feel part of this?

Is it working?

Angelotti's answer last night was, this is all about patience.

He's a forward.

It's what happens with forwards sometimes.

We've just got to give him the time and take the pressure off him and allow him to play.

Of course, the thing is, this does happen to forwards, but not normally to him.

There's a very interesting line.

from Mbappe at the start of the season.

I must confess, I can't remember if it's after the Majorca game or if it's later on than that, which of course now takes on an extra significance and he said something like for a lot of players going three games without a goal isn't much but for me it's loads and he's just been off the back of this run of four games without a goal he then scores against a tap in against legones and misses a penalty at an fort so i think it's it's legitimate to ask about his his kind of

I wouldn't call it a psychological state, but his emotional state and his sense of comfort within the team.

I don't know what you think about this.

So much the talk of Manchester City is Roderie isn't there and what an impact that is.

And when you watch Real Madrid without Tony Crose, it does feel different.

And I thought Modric actually was great, and you know, like he's 39, but he's still great.

But I just wonder how much chat there is about no Tony Crose in there for Real Madrid.

Yeah, I mean, I

wouldn't go so far as to say there's no chat about it, but I must admit, I think there is possibly slightly less than there could be.

And I think, but I also think this is, look, at the end of last season, Angelotti kind of hinted at this, and actually, internally, Angelotti has asked for Real Madrid to buy players that weren't Mbappe over the summer.

But Anchelotti said, at the back end of last year, all of the focus, obviously, as you can imagine, because Real Madrid just won the league and the Champions League.

And you get Mbappe, and everything's, wow, unbeatable.

And Anchelotti himself, even then, was saying Tony Cruz is irreplaceable.

There isn't a player like him.

And he was saying, we'll have to build towards something different.

We will replace him, but not directly because we have different types of players.

Now, for what it's worth, and I don't want to take it back too far but I feel like I sort of should.

Last year Tony Cruz was the best player in the Realmode team in my opinion in terms of the collective functioning of the team.

Now you can talk about Venetius and Bellingham in terms of the collective functioning it was him.

At the start of the season I think this is quickly overlooked.

I think I'm right in saying that he didn't start any of the first three La Liga games, maybe even the first four, because there was a belief that after that massive battering they took at City, that Realmud were going to accelerate that evolution into a more dynamic, younger, more physically intense midfield.

And that Modric and Croos were, if not finished, they weren't the basis of that midfield anymore.

I think what happened last year was that Angelotti realised, or always knew, because Angelotti knows quite a lot about this, that actually, for all the qualities of Camovingo, Charmeni, Bellingham, Valverde, who are all really, really good athletes, and obviously they're not only athletes,

please by no means read them only being athletes, but you know, someone like Valverde, who's an extraordinary athlete all over the pitch,

that actually no one really had that timing, that reading of the game, that understanding, which is why Cruz ended up playing Lodes last year, but he didn't necessarily want to play both him and Modric, because I suppose he did feel that that was a concession, if you like, a bit too much of a concession to not having that physical capability.

Now, I think that's one of the reasons why Modric is playing this year, because Cruise has gone.

And because in truth, they don't really have anyone who can do what Cruz can do.

And of that sort of modern generation of players, Kama Vinga and Bellingham can maybe do a bit of it, but it's not quite the same sort of thing.

So yeah, that is part of the focus now in terms of the collection functioning but of course

just the nature of the discourse around it means a lot of it ends up being focused on the mbappe even if as i agree with you there is something broader going on there definitely and finally sid you know rail madrid are 24th in this giant table not guaranteed of even a playoff spot so it all looks like they'll just win it again doesn't it that's just what they do you just can't write them off can you uh i mean you know the 24th place the next game is atlanta away and so actually you know there's there's a chance give because look we're all focusing on last night.

And then, of course, part of the argument, and I think quite rightly, part of the argument is, well, it's Liverpool and they're brilliant at the moment.

And Angelotti very, very pointedly last night said, at the moment, they're the best team in Europe.

But then also, they were...

They were beaten really comfortably by Milan.

They lost in France.

They had to come from 2-0 down to beat Dortmund, albeit they did then score five goals and we can't overlook that.

And you do look at this and think, they're not that great at the moment, but we have sort of seen this before.

And I guess this brings us to a much broader debate, which is about you're 24th in the league but you could still win it and you sort of think I can't help thinking is the league really for anything what I mean obviously let's see how this plays out but but no it was it was interesting there was a on on on Spanish was it the radio or TV last night I think it was on the radio last night one of the one of the kind of pundits who's a goalkeeper former goalkeeper at the Alsofyad he said look I don't think anyone doubts they'll get through.

And there was a bit of me that thought, well, what's the point then?

If you've played five games and you've lost three of them and there's still no doubt, what's all this for?

Yeah, I mean, they could get a playoff against the tricky side.

Well, we'll find out.

Well, look, Sid, thank you so much.

I don't know what time you got to bed, but to be on the pod at 10 past five in the morning just shows your commitment to the Guardian is it knows no bounds.

Well, it knows some bounds, to be fair, but

yes.

Yeah, no, that is true.

That is true.

It knows some bounds.

Cheers, Sid.

Pleasure.

Cheerio.

Sidlo there, presumably in the air now.

Actually, by the time you listen to it, not in the air, unless he's taking a very circuitous route back to spain the thing is lars mbappe is such a fascinating story um and we will get to liverpool and we can obviously move on to connor bradley in this bit but greg says i know mbappe's good because you guys tell me he is but i've only watched him play maybe 10 times and apart from the world cup final he's always been pretty average i guess my question is are you sure he's good and if so then when Yeah, I'm very confident that he's good, but that was definitely an issue with him playing at PSG, because there's like a team no normal people ever watch, uh, except in the knockout games in the Champions League, where they were frequently not very good.

So, so, so that's, that's kind of it, but no, he he and you just even see signs of it now.

He's incredibly rapid, he's skillful, he, he can, he can strike the ball.

Like,

if you're if you're this discombobulated about him, I understand it because he's had us, he's had a couple iffy performances, but I will actually recommend going to an internet video site of your choosing and watching some highlights just to because he is he is very good at his best.

What I'm wondering about him come on is anyone can look good on the highlights you know i watched this true giovanni lascelso highlights and thought spurs had signed pellet

there weren't quite so many goals in the licenzo uh lace elsoce elso highlights package though he he also has his moments uh i i think with mbappa

i find it really difficult to talk about because i think with him there's stuff going on that we're not fully aware of which is often true when a player has like an abrupt drop in form and it was kind of hinted at uh during the international break when Deschamp had to explain why he wasn't in the squad.

And he was saying things like,

The most important thing is that Kylian can rediscover happiness playing football.

We had reports in L'Akeep from sort of unnamed people close to Mbappa saying that he's having

a mental issue, that he's not having a great time at the moment.

And stuff like this obviously can affect performance in a huge way.

And I think, even if,

yeah, even if he's not a person we um instinctively feel very sorry for for for a lot of reasons uh that we've gone through over the years here I think that's something we should be a little bit mindful of but but this kind of non-performance did seem particularly damaging because from the footballing perspective the question has always been how do you make him and Vinitius play together when they want to operate in the same area of the pitch well Vinitius wasn't there so it was this you know there's plenty of space for Mbapa to be exactly where he wants to be and do exactly what he wants to do And it was a big occasion, of course, against a strong opponent.

And

yeah, he wasn't very good.

And

he looks very, very out of sorts.

Kieran says, Do Madrid move on from Trent and look to sign Connor Bradley instead?

And that's the other side of this, Barry.

Bradley was so good in this game.

Yeah, he was fantastic.

It was his first ever Champions League game, I think.

And

I'm reading various reports,

you know, having him bappe in his pocket.

And

he pretty much did.

Uh, that tackle he put in on him, which

you know, really got Anfield on his feet, um,

was superb.

I thought also a little risky because if it hadn't come off, it would have been a straight red card.

But, um, you know, that's just me being clucking unnecessarily.

Uh, and he could have scored, he had a brought a brilliant save out of Thibault Courtois as well, so he was good with the ball, without the ball, a brilliant defensive performance, and it was indicative of just a near perfect Liverpool performance.

They could have won by more.

Courtois to make some good saves.

And as they say, you can only beat what's in front of you.

And I think what was in front of Liverpool was a big name, iconic European heavyweight that was missing.

several key players through injury and a couple more key players,

hello jude hello killian who were on the pitch but did little or nothing good to say hello dude you could have said hey but hello works as well too good for that sort of thing you've got to rise above

i've been up a long time max i could have actually joined that call with sid i've been up a very long time it is worth pointing out how comfortable liverpool were we're here and worth talking about what anna slott has achieved so far and it is only so far but like jurgen klop had never beaten rail madrid in six attempts Liverpool hadn't beaten them since 2009.

They've only lost once this season.

It's sort of an incredible start.

17 wins in 19 games, you know, motoring along in every competition.

Arna Slot did say after the game that, you know, if we beat Real Madrid at the back end of the competition, then that's when it really matters.

And, you know, Jürgen Klopp just lost a couple of finals.

So maybe unfair comparison, really, given sort of what was on the line in this game and then what um you know what what clot faced with his round madrid um teams but definitely um you know slot has what he slotted in perfectly um into into into the job he he doesn't go around as in the same way that clott did you know he as soon as he came in he said i'm not going to be like pumping my fist towards the cop it's not the way he wants to go about it subtle tweaks to the team um coat-jones coming in and making i think a really big difference and influence in um the side.

The combination of three up front, whichever three it is,

seems to cause different threats.

And even sort of Darwin Nunez, who has a lot of critics and isn't always perfect in front of goal.

I felt like his work in that first half and the threat that he caused was

immense to Real Madrid at times and probably deserved his goal.

But

I wondered whether he might have made some changes actually, because they're in such a good position in terms of the Champions League.

I wondered if Sunday's game against Man City was going to be more on his mind, but clearly very sort of comfortable and confident in that the team that he selected were able to beat Madrid and then go on against Man City.

And they didn't really burn up that much energy in the game either.

So it was...

quite a comfortable 2-0.

If anything, it flattered Real Madrid.

It is fascinating this with the fixture list about how we were all thinking.

They're finally going to play someone good, right?

And so they played

Abi Leipzig and they beat them, but Abi Leipzig have got two wins in the last eight, so maybe not actually good.

They beat Levikusen, but of course they've been pretty up and down.

It's not a super strong title defense, so they're not great.

And then they play Real Madrid, but they have all these injuries, and Mbappe is having a weird time.

And now, finally, they're going to be up against Man City.

There, at least, for that.

It's raising a philosophical question.

Maybe nobody are good.

Maybe actually Liverpool are the only team that's good.

And

just everyone else in the world are bad.

Maybe this is the situation that we're in.

Or just

the way, you know,

the chaos theory or whatever that just as just as you're about to play Liverpool, you get bad.

And so they'll go the whole season.

You know, teams are on form and they're not on form.

And suddenly two weeks before they're about to play Liverpool, just like the wind goes out of their sails.

Well, interestingly, this run of games where we went, now we'll see what Liverpool are made of.

It started against Chelsea and they beat them.

And so you had Chelsea, Leipzig, Arsenal, two games against Brighton, Berlin,

Villa, Southampton, Rail, Madrid.

And everyone, oh, some tough games there.

And Southampton.

Southampton's the one they made the heaviest weather of, I would say.

That's a good point.

Michael says, is there a genuine decision for Slot to make to keep Keller Hay in goal when Alison comes back from injury?

Obviously, he saved Mbappe's penalty.

Mark, you're shaking your head.

no i i don't think so um

no you you pick your best goalkeeper um kelleher has done very well as the number two um clearly liverpool don't feel like he's the number one because they've already signed a sort of new goalkeeper for next season as well and as well as keller has done um no i i'd go straight back to allison once he's he's properly fit but it does show the um I think advantage of those teams that are able to have two goalkeepers that you can rely upon and

That difference between the first goalkeeper and the second goalkeeper at Liverpool doesn't feel to be as vast as maybe at some other teams.

Is there anything particular that makes you think about that right now, Mark Langdon?

Out of curiosity.

We'll get to a spot in Fraser Force to wear in his flip.

Most Sala says he's disappointed.

Liverpool have not offered him a new contract, and he feels probably more out than in in terms of staying before the end of the season.

We're almost in December, he said.

I haven't received any offers yet to stay at the club.

As I said before, I haven't received anything yet about my future.

Only the third time, Barry, that he's stopped in the mixed zone.

Jamie Carragher said he was very disappointed.

If he keeps putting comments out, his agent puts out cryptic messages that is selfish, that is thinking about themselves and not the football club.

So he could sign a pre-contract with a team abroad in just over a month.

He's on what $3.50 a week.

If he signed a three-year deal, he'd be 36.

It's a tricky position, Liverpool, are in, isn't it?

It is up to a point.

I'm inclined to agree with Jamie Carrier on this one.

I don't think it's a conversation to be had in public.

It was a quite deliberate move by Salah to stop and chat to whoever he spoke to.

He pointedly said, I haven't had any discussions with Liverpool.

Presumably, his agent has, and those discussions are ongoing.

He, by all accounts, wants a three-year deal with an increase in wages.

i suspect they probably don't want to risk offering him three years because we've seen how quickly players can lose their mojo and now admittedly he is playing well at the moment but he knows how popular he is with liverpool fans this this was

a very calculated move on his part and not one i would necessarily approve of but he's perfectly entitled to do or say whatever he wishes i also think it was extremely disingenuous as well because he said, I think word for it, he said that it's out of my hands, which is like, well, it's clearly not out of his hands.

Like, if he, if he decided, hey, I've, I've had a great career here.

I love being here, as he says he does.

I made an absolute pile of money over the last few years.

I probably don't need more money at this point, but I like being at Liverpool.

So I'm going to take a wage cut and stay for as many years as they want me to stay.

If he turns around and does that, I think that contract gets signed very quickly.

So, like, it isn't completely out of his hands.

and saying so, I think, is untrue.

All right, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll begin with the Aston Villa event.

Not because it was the second best game of the night, I should point out,

but we probably have more Villa fans than Ben Fica fans listening to this, so we'll start with them next.

HiPod 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.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Sean, who is a Villa fan, says, is it about time we gave goalkeepers more protection?

So, Morgan Rogers scored in the 93rd minute, perhaps the first thing that happened in the game.

Ruled out for Diego Carlos putting his arm into DiGregorio in the Juve goal.

I think DiGregorio made the most of it.

Mark, you watched, you got all the way to this, I presume.

You did have it on your main screen.

Whether you did all night, we'd forgive you for not seeing this moment, but they were a bit unlucky, were they?

Yeah, I mean, i did have it i the it was about five to eight and uh producer joel had asked if you know not everyone could watch liverpool against real madrid so i um unselfishly said i'll go villa main screen and barry did say never do that and he uh proved uh 100 um right because it was a poor game i felt it was um a a soft kind of free kick that was given um for the foul by Collis but they were having having watched it sort of in real time.

I thought it should have been a goal.

The more I watched the replays, the more I understood why it was disallowed, even if the goalkeeper did make the most of it.

And after the game, Emre and Ollie Watkins both kind of said, Yeah, you know, fair enough as well.

So it doesn't feel like a robbery or a disgrace.

I think the game in total was very tight and deserved to finish 0-0.

There was one real moment of quality, and that came from Martinez in the Villa goal when he kept out Conseil Sal's header.

I think it could only have been like one more ball rotation.

It would have been over the line.

So he did fantastically well to scoop that away.

But this was a game between a Villa team that was short on confidence.

And when you are short on confidence, you don't do things quickly.

And they were taking three touches instead of one or two and just slowing the game down, which suited Juventus.

And it's worth saying from Juve's point of view, I mean, they were absolutely decimated by injuries.

They only had four outfield substitutes to call upon, were missing players all over the pitch.

And probably the biggest loss for them was Vlavic up front because Weir

was kind of there as a nominal number nine, but I don't think that's the job he wants to do on his own up front.

And so Juve were powder path, Villa not in their greatest moment of the season.

And I think that's why it played out in the stalemate that it did.

Yeah, I was always worth thinking that if, you know, if Diego Carlos

softly did did anything to me, it would put me off because, you know, he is a unit, isn't he?

But the flip side to that is, I kind of wonder if you ever see like De Gregorio in a nightclub, if you could just sort of nudge him in the side and see if he goes, ah, if he just immediately goes on the ground and like rolls around.

I do wonder about the nervous systems of

summer footballers really should like be taken to a lab and studied for science.

You know the thing when you hit people with the hammer in the knee and then you see what happens?

Like with that, because they just seem to be put together in a very different way than a lot of other human beings.

I would say, though, Lars, that you, you kind of, you know, the rules of football and the nightclub are not quite the same.

You wouldn't want someone to go in for a slide-tackle Colin Bradley star in a nightclub either.

I would like to see that.

And

next time I'm in a nightclub, I want to see sliding tackles all over the gaff.

I think that'd be tremendous.

Langdon has clearly never been in the swan in Stockwell.

I was going to say, the chances of me bumping into A, being in a nightclub at all, B, Di Gregorio being in the same nightclub, C, me recognizing him

under the lights while Chumbawumba is playing, and then D, thinking, I'll shove this guy who I've never met.

It seems quite a hypothetical situation.

Let's go to Celtic Bruges.

Ryan says, an hour.

Brackett's separate emergency pod on the Celtic own goal, please.

Barry, you had full focus on this game.

Perhaps more focus than Cameron Carter-Vickers, which, given he was playing,

it's probably the wrong way around.

Yeah, I kind of watched his own goal unfold in real time, and it was as if time slowed down.

What have you done?

So it's Celtic won, Club Bruges won.

Brendan Rodgers described it as a game of two halves and said afterwards that Celtic were much better in the second half.

I would not necessarily agree with that at all.

I thought they kind of got away with this one.

The highlight of the game was undeniably Club Brugger's goal uh celtic were on the back foot under pressure from the brugger press nicholas coon uh played a ball inside to cameron carter vickers who was just inside his own penalty area and he passed it under pressure in the direction of the far post where he thought casper speichle was standing

except casper smichael was standing at the other post so whatever the width of a goal is um i should know but i don't off the top of my head.

That's how far away Schmeichel was as the ball trundled into the corner.

And then it was very much head in hands time for Mr.

Carter Vickers.

And it wasn't even a case.

He didn't even try to blame anyone else.

He just, head in hands, then hands on hips.

And he's just like, you idiot.

I would imagine that's what he was thinking about himself.

It's certainly what everyone else was thinking.

um and yeah celtic were very poor in the first half their press was poor they were when they had the ball they were too slow very easy to play through and then um they made some changes in the second half uh

bernardo came on in midfield uh and and made a big difference club brugger missed a couple of pretty decent chances and then Dysine made a scored with a wonderful strike after chopping inside a defender, which, you know, basically sent him into the graveyard next to Celtic Park.

Draw!

I think Celtic were lucky enough and they'll be happy with a point.

The problem for them is the quality of the opposition they face in the Champions League is largely so much better than the quality of opposition they face in the domestic league.

So they have to just adjust their game so dramatically for each competition.

I did like Mark recording the own goal saying, is that playing it in from the back?

And the French commentary, which someone put in the WhatsApp, it was so good.

C'est terrible, cartoons vico, c'est terrible was lovely, wasn't it?

I want more commentators just shouting, that's terrible when something happens.

This is this is what I want.

It's almost like he did, you know, the thing is, you're not meant to put like back passes on the frame.

You're meant to like put them on the outside of the post.

It's like he tried to do that, but almost but didn't quite get it, which means he like completely put it in the bottom corner, which then made it impossible for Smike Hill to get there.

It was, yeah, but do look up the French commentary.

I do recommend that.

Yeah.

Celtic, do, Mark, have Zogrub away, young boys at home, Villa away.

I mean, they should at least get to the playoffs.

You know, they could feasibly win, what, two of those three?

I mean, three is not inconceivable.

Like, they could get in the top eight.

They could get in the top eight.

I don't think they'll get in the top eight.

I think nine to 24 is where Celtic will finish.

Now, they're in a good position for that.

And I think this was a decent point against, I think, an underrated team, actually.

I think Club Brugger

outplayed Aston Villa when they met them on match day four and played reasonably well in this game.

I think, according to like the, there was certainly one computer rankings that had Celtic winning the Champions League fixtures draw in as much as they had the easiest run.

Now, you've still got to get a...

Do you get a trophy?

Do you get a trophy for that?

You don't.

Well, not at the moment, the supercomputer trophy.

But, you know, but Celtic have made the most of it.

And

I think they'll now finish between 9th and 24, just on Club Brugger.

I mean, for a team that

had been given a penalty like they were for Tyro Mings and then an own goal like Cameron Carter.

If their name's not on the trophy, it should at least be on the 9th of 24 themselves.

I think they should now make the playoff round as well.

Two brilliant brilliant games now.

Monaco 2, Ben Fica, 3, 5 goals, 2 disallowed that were in minutes of each other, a red card, a very late winner.

And last, in the context of the competition, a huge win for Ben Fika in a game that, I mean, it was just ludicrous.

Yeah, and it was a case of

the subs from Bruno Large, who's in charge of Benfica now.

Remember him?

He was at Wolves for a while.

He put on Zeki Amdouni, formerly of Burnley, and Attu Cabral in the 65th minute.

Both of those forwards ended up scoring

late in the game with two assists by two great crosses by Angel Di Maria, who's still doing things.

Scored a hat-trick at the weekend, if I'm not mistaken.

So yeah, a pretty wild game.

I mean, our dear friend Will Unwin was actually at this game, though he seemed to be mostly upset with the referee based on his sort of messaging on Blue Sky.

He was writing that

the ref is putting on one of the worst refereeing performances I've seen in the professional game.

So that's a thumbs down to the ref from Will.

Yeah, I thought the Cingo was sent off wasn't in the 50th minute.

It felt like a harsh.

That looked very

header, didn't he?

Just won a proper League Two header.

In League Two, that's a standing ovation, Champions League.

What are you doing?

I have to say, I was more surprised to discover Angel Dumouria plays for Benfica than I was to discover that Junior Hoyland and Dwight Gale play for Hibbs.

The only other thing I noted from this game was Cabral's header he sort of head-butted the defender afterwards and it reminded me of that do you remember that neil ruddock header in the 3-3 i think nigel clough scored two for liverpool they came back maybe from 3-0 or 3-1 down and neil ruddock scored a header but clearly got smacked in the head at the same time and was sort of celebrating but at the same time in sort of total agony and it was a real peak i suspect it's probably pre-barclays actually it was like peak you know 90s premier league um uh psv meanwhile, were 2-0 down to Shaktar with three minutes to go, Mark, and they won 3-2.

They did.

Yeah, a brilliant comeback from PSV.

I didn't expect them to be 2-0 down in the first place, as to be said.

That sort of shocked me at half-time when Sikan and Zubkov had put Shaktar 2-0 up.

But the Pedrinho

red card, was it 20 minutes left,

just tilted the game back to give PSV a chance.

chance there was a fantastic goal from Tillman that was that to make it 2-2 I can't even remember now the the order of the goals so that was the 2-2 one yeah he's hit it from 30 yards into the top corner and and then Pepe who's been on a remarkable goal scoring sort of form in recent weeks for for PSV

scored the winner I thought that Peter Bosch, I don't, do you see his reaction after the goal?

I mean, he was sitting on the chair, he was just sitting down.

Yeah, sitting down on the chair while everybody around him in Eindhoven was going absolutely sort of berserk.

So, even one of his assistants came over and started shaking him as if to try to wake him up.

He was probably angry in that kind of weird way that coaches are that they got themselves into a position where they were 2-0 down at home to a team that they should be beating.

They recovered the situation.

They did have 35 shots in the game, PSV, and 18 of those were on target.

So, you know, they were chasing the game for a long time and eventually all that pressure counted.

It was just one of those games where a goalkeeper has the game of his life, Rysnik for Shaktar and still comes out on the losing side.

He made some brilliant saves.

Malik Tillman's opening goal is that he'd a free kick out wide and everyone's expecting him to cross it and he spots a little tiny gap between the post and the keeper and hits it bang on target and Rysnik can't quite keep it out.

And I was thinking, oh, that's the goal of the night for me.

And then a couple of minutes later he scored a better one so it's classic ball stay off mr tillman it's such a brilliant ball if the the view from behind the goal and the way he strikes it and it just stays so pure it is ball stays ball finish of high quality yes las and it's also possibly my favorite type of goal which is a goal that i think a lot of coaches would be annoyed at him for attempting because he's almost 30 yards out.

You're pushing for an equalizer late, late in the game.

You've got four players in the box.

Just get it wide and get a cross-in, or just try to find an open.

Like, don't shoot from there.

You're definitely not supposed to do that.

And I absolutely love it when you have like, you have just a half second.

You can tell, oh, he's going to shoot.

That's really stupid.

And he whacks it into the top corner.

That's,

I love that.

That's a good reckon.

But 35 shots in this game PSV had.

So as much as I think we all instinctively kind of want Shaktar to do well and to get results, I think you have to say there was some level of footballing justice in this being a home win in the end.

Yeah.

Did you not like it when Mark said that they'd have 35 shots?

Did you want to just...

Oh, yeah, I missed that.

I was probably looking up something else.

I mean, that happens.

That's okay.

Gary, do you want to say how many shots they had?

Just to let's round off.

I don't know how many shots they had.

Neither do I.

I wish someone would tell me.

Let's go.

Bologna, Lille.

Lille won 2-1.

Let's rattle through these last four games.

Last, what did you make of this victory for Lille?

It was a game that happened.

I feel bad for Bologna because Bologna is is one of those classic stories of a team that really performs above expectation and does brilliantly well to get in the Champions League.

And then they get completely picked apart and they can't really make an impact in the tournament.

But I mean, Lil are playing well.

Bruno Genesio has them doing good things.

I think they're fourth in Liga now.

And yeah, good result for them.

But it's kind of sad to see Bologna kind of

following a pretty predictable trajectory, I guess, you would say.

But I think it's still, yeah, it's a shame that this is how it goes quite so often.

Dortmund 3-0 in Zagreb, Mark.

Larsin's finalists in a pretty strong position now, aren't they?

Yeah, they're sort of 17 shots out in this game, Max, Dortmund.

But in terms of sort of their Bundesliga and Champions League form,

they seem to raise their game, really, for Europe at the moment.

They made what could have been a tricky away game because Stuttgart were absolutely hammered away to Red Star.

So this could have been an awkward game, but it wasn't.

Jamie Gittens, who's probably one of those players, actually highlights Dortmund's form in the Champions League and domestically, because he seems to come alive in the Champions League, scored the first goal.

Garrassy's goal right at the end kind of, I suppose, just flattered it and

the final scoreline to make it 3-0.

But an important win because they are a team with so many sort of the usual suspects struggling to make the top eight.

Dortmund are in a position where they might be able to sneak into it.

I seem to remember, Barry, you and I rowing about how many games there were on the opening Champions League night.

And me saying, oh, look, Stuttgart are really good.

This is, I think they were playing Real Madrid.

And I was like, these guys are great.

And they're not as great as I thought they were.

They got absolutely done by Red Star.

Red Star's first points of the competition.

hammering Stuttgart 5-1.

So I apologise, Barry.

I watched this game.

I can't remember the one you're talking about.

I mean, I'm struggling.

I think I've actually done

Dynamo Zagreb goalkeeper Danny Jedel Zagarach a massive disservice because I think I gave

Shaktar's goalkeeper the credit for his performance.

So apologies Danijel Zagarach.

So that's how difficult I'm finding this Champions League.

I watched this Red Star Stuttgart game.

It was quite entertaining.

Stuttgart actually took the lead and then got battered 5-1.

They kept getting done on the counter and completely lost the plot in the second half.

And it was very easy for Red Star.

There were no standout,

particularly standout goals that I can remember, but the Red Star players were just so happy, just absolutely thrilled.

The stadium was bouncing, and they're now in the exalted position of 31st in this

long, long table.

I think it was Radinich who scored.

the fourth and fifth, but when he scored the fourth, he sort of went on a lap of honor.

And the running track is enormous.

There's just like seven miles between the pitch and the stack.

And he was just running forever.

And he probably didn't get back on the pitch until the 87th minute.

And he scored again in the 88th.

Finally, last, Durham Gratz

got their first point to the competition.

They beat Girona.

The highlight of this game is Ivan Martin's miss for Girona.

It really is up there, isn't it?

Yeah, you got there ahead of me.

That was my main sort of takeaway from this game with apologies to Sturm Gratz, who will be delighted to get that result, of course.

But

I mean, it's not great podcasting content, is it?

But just look up the myths, Ivan Martin.

You have to find some, whether it's on a computer or a phone, any sort of broadcasting device that's connected to the internet.

Try to find a clip somewhere.

Because it is one of those, I don't.

It probably was easier to score than it was to get it where he got it.

Like, I don't love it when we say things like, ooh, I could have scored that.

I couldn't.

I would have fallen over trying to get there.

Like, even this.

You would have scored it, Lars.

I think it would have just hit you and you'd have got in.

Because I have quite a lot of mass, and for once, that might have worked in

my advantage.

I could have just made sure the ball hit me somehow and then proceeded in a sort of general direction towards the goal, and that would have done it.

I would not have been able to lift it quite as high as the player was in the end.

So I think possibly I could have.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll look ahead to the Premier League weekend.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here, too.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Only one place to start then.

Ann Field, Mark, for Liverpool, Manchester City.

I mean, I guess you have to give Manchester City a chance because they're Manchester City, but

I don't know how, and maybe this is the time because we all say, actually, I just don't think they've got a hope, and this is where they'll prove me wrong.

Yeah, I mean, they've got more than just

they have got hope.

You know, they're not.

We've all got hope, Mark.

When hope is gone, we have nothing.

They're not like a League Two team going to Anfield.

I think it's the first time in about six years they've been outsiders for a Premier League game, which goes to show sort of

how dominant they've been over the last

five or six years.

They haven't been great at Anfield, even when they've been at their best.

It's always been a ground where they struggled and had some very difficult times.

Champions League, particularly when they got frash.

But there have been other Premier League games as well where

they've not dealt with the Anfield atmosphere and it's going to be like that again because for Liverpool,

they'll feel like this

massive step towards the Premier League title if they can beat beat Manchester City.

I just don't think City are defending well enough.

There are all the other, you know, a lot of things going on, but just defensively, absolute shambles at the moment.

And even when they were winning games, there were game, you know, times like Fulham

should have scored more goals against them.

They're conceding far too many opportunities.

They look so vulnerable on the counter-attack.

Liverpool are as good as anybody on the counter in Europe.

And I expect Liverpool to win the game.

I think that it's an unbelievable opportunity for them to really put City

in an even worse spot than they're in now.

And Lars,

City Centre midfield could not cope with Tottenham's, and then you'd expect they won't be able to cope with Liverpool's because Liverpool's midfield is probably better than Tottenham's.

Yeah, so I'm really fascinated to see how this pans out for City the next few weeks because I don't...

I don't see how Guardiola is meant to solve this with the pieces he has available to him.

I don't, because that midfield that they played against Spurs doesn't look athletic enough to cope with

Premier League opponents.

Now, Guardiola talked about how

this team is kind of built to have control.

When it becomes like box-to-box games, they don't have the physical characteristics to cope with that.

But they're not able to control possession in the way we used to see them do either.

So they do become open these games.

And even before these games against, I was looking at some numbers over the international break as i do before the spurs and fainod games they were conceding a 37 more through balls than they did last season so almost 40 more through balls seems bad they're like the teams are getting through them in the way we just haven't seen before uh not that i can remember under guardiola and i don't know like how the how can a sort of uh rico louis gundergan and bernardo silva midfield stop liverpool like i tend to think not and then what are you maybe put a kanji in midfield?

Is this something you can do?

I mean, Stones isn't fit either, I don't think, right now.

Do you think Larsie could

imagine Pep doing it?

But like, they've got players who could play on the counter, right?

You could play a low block and play Haaland and I don't get some pace.

Doku, is he fit?

And someone else on the right and say, right, we're going to go Antonio Conte about this.

The problem with playing a low block is that you need players who are comfortable defending without the ball.

I mean, I don't think you have the players necessarily to sit off and chase and sort of block.

This is not something they're good at.

And I think it's like it's a little bit disrespectful to the teams that are good at that to assume you can just flick a switch and, oh, we'll just sit back.

No, that's actually something you need to work on.

And you need to have players who are good at that.

I think it's a very difficult thing to suddenly start doing.

And we've seen before with Guardiola that when he's in trouble, like if you think of his first season in the Premier League when the team wasn't that, he was struggling to make it work, his response was to be even more high pressing and become even more wedded to his principles so it tends to be like he tends to double down on the things he believes in more than do what what we were just suggesting now but again i don't see how it's meant to work so i'm and but this is guardiola is an incredibly intelligent man and an incredibly intelligent manager so i'm kind of fascinating to see how he will try to solve this how do you say it bad I think Liverpool will win comfortably.

And yeah, I don't really have much else to add, to be honest.

I do think they will win this comfortably, and then City will officially be in crisis.

Right.

Other games that are, I mean, I suppose Ruben Amarin's first home game, Mark, is against Everton.

Everyone sort of said you don't really want to start with Ipswich away because it's sort of, if you win, no one will, you know, really say anything.

And if you lose, it'll be bad.

I mean, the same could be said for Everton at home, right?

Yeah, I mean, I didn't really see much change in Manchester United in that first game, and maybe we shouldn't expect overnight

sort of dramatic change.

I would say that the midfield needs swapping around.

I was very surprised that Casemiro and Ericson were the two that started against Ipswich, and would imagine as time goes on, once the players are fully fit, Amarin will swap that.

The biggest, I suppose, concern I would have for United in terms of being able to beat Everton is just they don't score enough goals Manchester United.

They had this little spell under Van Nistelrooy, but mainly against Leicester where they cut them open twice.

But over the last couple of years, their attack is quite powder puff, and I'm not sure how they just changed that without going back into the transfer market.

Shirksey, don't think it's a

elite centre forward.

Hoyland was thrust into a very difficult situation where he was asked to be this main man for such a big team when he was still developing his own game.

Rashford, I just think he scored against Ipswich, but the rest of his performance just wasn't up to much.

So,

you know, Everton might just feel like they can go to Old Trafford and get a 0-0 and sort of shut United down.

I think it might be a bit of a slog

for United.

Everton, meanwhile, you know, Everton can't stop scoring, can they?

So, you know,

they'll bring the excitement to this one.

Lars, you've got Chelsea in third, home to Villa, Arsenal in fourth, away to West Ham.

So

they're both very good chances given Villa's form.

And okay, West Ham did win on Monday, which confused everyone.

Yeah, that was...

Do you expect Chelsea and Arsenal to win both those?

Yeah, because Jacob Steinberg had a report in the paper saying that Lopategi had two games to save his job, and those games were away to Newcastle and then at home to Arsenal.

I thought, God, that's a bit harsh.

I mean, if you're West Ham Boston, you have to get something out of those two.

But then, of course, he won at Newcastle.

So maybe there's life yet in the Le Pategi project.

I tend to think think with Arsenal having Matano go back and just looking smooth and wonderful again, that that's going to be a rough one for West Ham.

Fascinating about this Chelsea Villa game because Villa are sort of not great and have been not great for a little while now, not just in terms of the results, which obviously they haven't won in, I think it's

eight, nine games now without winning, but they haven't looked very good either, I think, in that period.

So it's kind of getting a little bit urgent for Villa to to turn that around in terms of games this weekend i think spurs is really interesting just because the fact that earlier in the season when spurs have played really well they've tended to follow that up with a just an absolute stinker and in some kind of way like when they trans united at old trafford their next league game was the collapse against brighton if only there was a word to describe

when they well i feel like that word gets described to yeah we can have that discussion a different time it's like whatever spurs does that's not good people call it spursy i think it it needs a more narrow definition.

But yeah,

also when they beat Villa 4-1,

they followed that up by losing to Galtaserai and then having that terrible performance against Ipswich.

It's been like a little very up and down with Spurs this season.

And yeah, since they were very up against City.

It would be good for them if they could afford, could find a way to not be very down against Full.

Yeah, and actually, Vicario missing, and we sort of talked about this briefly, didn't we, when we were talking about Creeving Kelleher?

We've also talked recently about Alex McCarthy having to play out for Southampton because it's what Russell Martin wants to do, and he wants to do it with Aaron Ramsdale.

Fraser Foster isn't twinkle toes, Mike.

I don't want to start abusing Fraser Foster yet because he could be brilliant.

And Lord, I hope he is.

But that's trickier for him.

Yeah, I'm not going to start abusing Fraser Foster the size of him either.

I'll leave that to others.

He is just such a different goalkeeper to Vicario and would not appear to have the strengths required to sort of be the backup goalkeeper for what Posta Koglu wants his team to do.

And that's to, you know, want the goalkeeper to sweep up because of the high line.

And, you know, he's also got to be...

Posta Koglu said that he doesn't need the goalkeeper to be amazing with his feet.

But I would say that Fraser Forster struggles to even be sort of on that competent level.

He's more of an old-fashioned goalkeeper and a shot stopper than he is somebody that's going to start attacks.

And one of the biggest problems Spurs have had when he's been in goal is that the defenders are so nervous of passing the ball back to him.

And if you then press the centre-backs and they've got nowhere else to go,

it causes issues for the rest of the team.

And if you have to defend deeper because the goalkeeper can't do the sweeping up, then that means everybody else is playing deeper and you don't get to press the way you want to.

So I think

I was driving back listening to Five Live Radio when they announced that Vicario was out with this broken ankle.

And it just like, just, can we just not have two days of good things?

I was really enjoying the Spurs content that was going on

from the Man City game.

But I mean, Postagoglu says he's got full faith in Forster.

You have to believe him then when he says that he's happy with him as he's number two.

He kind of has to say that, though, under the circumstance.

If you ask him, and he's like, no, he's a bit crap, mate.

I mean, to be honest, it's not so good.

If he thinks he's a bit crap, he should have got rid of him in the summer or

sort of upgraded.

So, the very excellent FB ref website has so many good stats.

As you can tell, I've been looking at this in recent weeks.

And one of the stats is: how often does the goalkeeper get it launched?

It's the sort of the John Bruin stat.

I'm very excited about this.

For the goalkeepers across the league, percentage of passes that were launched, passes longer than 40, 40 meters.

Spurs are, unsurprisingly, Spurs are bottom there.

Only 7%

of balls from the goalkeeper were launched.

So from Vicario.

He's a non-launching goalkeeper.

Whereas in the other end of the spectrum, 78% of the time, the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper plays the ball anywhere.

Yeah, Forest, he gets it launched.

I mean, Pickford and Everton are second with 55%, but 78% is pretty wild.

78% of the time of the Forest goalkeeper has the ball.

He'll just boot it away.

There's no no ball is happening there.

But no, the point is, the Spur is really

the second closest team is Fulham with 18% of the ball being launched.

So 7 is extraordinarily low.

They are absolutely dogmatic about playing it out from the back.

So I do think he does need to be a little bit decent.

But lastly on this,

on a slightly flippant note,

I always think of Fraser Forrester as being very slow, but it's possible that he's actually just very big.

You know, very very large objects, they look slow when they're moving

because they're big.

So maybe he's like a very large plane you see in the airport.

It looks like it's not going very fast, but actually it must be.

Maybe it's just a sort of a perspective problem.

Could an Airbus A380 play out from the back better than Fraser Flaser?

This is the question I really want to know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Headline in The Guardian, Barry, that Rupert Nisteroy is set to succeed Steve Cooper as the Leicester manager.

I mean, you wonder if

they just watched Man United slice through them twice when Ruben Nistroy was there and go, well, that'll do.

Leicester had considered Nico Kovac, former Bayer Munich and Wolsberg boss, and Carlos Corboran is at West Brom as possible candidates.

Very hard to say if Ruben Van Nistrooy is a good appointment or not, isn't it?

I have no idea whether he's a good appointment or not.

I think they were hoping or wanted to avoid having to pay anyone compensation.

So he's a

good good pick in that regard but otherwise i mean he he did perfectly well in his interim spell at manchester united he's been good previously or all or done all right previously at psv is it won a cup with them and he's a bit of an unknown quantity isn't he i believe um

Leicester's players had their Christmas party in Copenhagen earlier this week and were seen posing in front of a sign that said, We miss you, Enzo,

as in Maresco.

So

does that suggest a loss of a lack of love for Steve Cooper?

I have no idea.

But yeah, good luck.

Rude seems like a nice fella.

Did they take the sign?

Did they take the sign with them?

Or is it, does it say?

I only read this, so I don't know if it was like a sign that was already up somewhere or if it was a homemade banner.

Let's finish with some classics.

John says: Given his absence from the platform, does Mark Landon consider Blue Sky to be the vegetable of the social media world?

Yeah,

I've got very little time for social media at the best of times, Max.

So, and I'm looking to get off them rather than sort of add to the workload.

So, yeah, I mean, Blue Sky could be the cauliflower of social media for all I've got.

But

I am going to South Korea at the end of next week.

And

there are, I mean, if any listeners want to sort of throw me some food challenges, I mean, I'm there for a week and I was reading in The Guardian that they've had their worst snowfall in November for 100 years.

So I'm not sure how much sort of getting about I'm going to do, but I'm...

Apparently I've got to try kimchi and if I don't

it's going to be seen as kind of like a national disgrace and the people that I'm working with are I mean I think you can get it I think you can get it in Essex

I'm told it's very I'm told it's very different right okay

I'm told it's very different and soul to Benfleet yeah mark langdon trying Korean food I think is the content we really need to get going on tick tock and all these platforms we get to film it if big John can make an Instagram success of just shouting Bosch after he's had a Chinese then you know I'm all for it maybe maybe I've found my calling you must film this and put it on some sort of platform maybe send it to Joel or something.

Mark Langdon tries Korean food.

I would watch it.

That's all I'm saying.

There you go.

You have one viewer.

I'm not sure how many more you'd get, Mark, but there you go.

One is good.

Speaking of viewers and that part of the world, Max, I made the unfortunate mistake of putting the screen grab of me on Japanese television in my pub WhatsApp group chat.

And one of my mates got on to a friend of his in Kyoto whose wife said the literal translation of the show's title is World Idiots and Stupidity

how did they know then he also got a download of the entire show

so it's actually called fully exposed stupid special

and I'm on it and it ends with the three co-presenters all covered in guns.

So

I am here for Fully exposed

stupid special.

I love the idea they're sitting in the meeting and they've just seen a little clip of you just sitting in a bar talking about Peter Grouch and going, This guy looks like an idiot.

This will be a clip.

It's amazing.

It's just amazing how pertinent that is.

Who's seen that in the ideas meeting?

Gone, I've got something.

Yeah, what is it, Brian?

Well, you'll never believe it.

Oh, that's tremendous.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you, Max.

Thanks, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Cheers, Barry.

Say you narrow.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

The Sidlow interview is produced by Max Rushton, and our executive producer is Phil Maynard.

This is The Guardian.