Liverpool pass their first big test as title contenders: Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly, Liverpool's first big test of the season, and they pass it a deserved 2-1 win over Chelsea Curtis-Jones, the standout player.

Comshon Herr Tuchel, bring in in das Fluxeuich.

Arsenal's in discipline costs them again.

William Saliba's first of a red card, handing Bournemouth an advantage.

They gladly take.

Great set piece coaching from Sean Cooper, and that's from an Austin McPhee fan.

Man City scoring injury time from their 1,000th corner at Wolves.

Gary O'Neill not happy with the decision.

It was a bit of a vary weekend.

West Ham implode at Spurs after a bold substitution from Big Ange, looking worryingly like a plan B.

It's conceding an injury time winner to a scuffed Jordan I who shot after being 2-0 up, the most depressing way to lose a game.

Then there's Manchester United having a good half, despite the dry blood of Matthias Delicht.

Villa win a fun game at Fulham.

The eternal Danny Welbeck strikes again for Brighton and Everton winner Ipswich.

All that plus, we'll give Wilson a minute on Sunderland.

There's some incredible US ranch news.

Your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glenn Denning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

The difficult second pod for Sam Dalling.

Welcome, Sam.

Hi, Max.

And Jonathan Wilson, welcome.

Morning, how are you doing?

I'm very well.

Thanks for asking.

Let's start at Anfield.

Then Liverpool 2, Chelsea 1.

We said it was the first real test, Barry, for Liverpool.

And as I said in the intro, they passed it.

I think they deserved to win.

They were more balanced than Chelsea.

It was a really good game, I thought.

They certainly did pass this test

with flying-ish colours.

I didn't think it was that good a game.

I thought it was good in spots.

It was very competitive.

And I think ultimately, the more

well-balanced, more experienced

team emerged winners.

But I think Chelsea came out of it with quite a bit of credit.

They're, you know, a very young side going to Anfield.

That's a tough game.

And they far from disgraced themselves in defeat.

And

I thought it was interesting that the man of the match, Curtis Jones, was a player or is a player that could have been moved on by Liverpool if they'd landed one or both of their targets who were playing in midfield against Curtis Jones.

That was quite interesting that, you know, I'm sure that was probably on his mind as well.

You know, they wanted to get these guys in, and I probably would have had to go somewhere else.

And I'm going to show them.

And he did.

And,

yeah,

Liverpool definitely deserved to win this, but Chelsea were okay as well.

Is it too far to suggest a master class in a central midfield performance from Curtis Jones, Sam?

Too far.

I don't know.

It's a funny one, Curtis Jones, isn't he?

I remember when he first broke through, he was

18-year-old.

He scored that screamer in a cup game against Everton and immediately said afterwards, oh, actually, I'm a bit disappointed I'm not getting more game time.

And this is like one of the best midfielders in the world.

He's not getting into Klopp's the manager, so he's never lacked for confidence.

I think Arnie Slott suits him, and I think he said that from quite early on.

There was this theory that Liverpool last year, and under Klopp, they're the chaos furry, they're so quick, they go from back to front really quickly and almost bypass the midfielder, and it's just the willing runners is what you need in there.

And this season, they're going through midfield a little bit more, and that seems to have Jones thriving.

Like on the highlights, he was just everywhere, he was involved in every single little bit of play going forward,

tackly putting on Carl Palmer at the back.

It was almost an old school box-to-box midfielder performance, which I love.

I mean, we'd like to go back to the 90s, bring me more box-to-box midfielders.

Wilson, what did you now we're looking at Liverpool and they've, what, 10 wins in 11?

That is a good start, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, I mean, we've we talked about this, or you, sorry, you talked about this last week.

I talked about it, but not here.

They kind of, you'd expect that from the teams they played, which is not fair on them, particularly.

It's not a criticism of them, but this was their first test, and I thought they were excellent.

I thought Curtis Jones was excellent.

And I actually thought last season Curtis Jones might be the Calvin Phillips replacement for England, but then he went and you know, he got injured before it was a chance to try him.

And so his career,

every time he gets inside and starts looking good, he gets an injury.

So hopefully this time he gets a proper run at it.

And I think that balance of him and Gravenberg works quite nicely at the back of the midfield.

Neither of them are a six in the way that Fabinho would be, but both both of them sort of have a bit of defensive edge to their eight-ishness.

Uh, to if we're using that terminology, and and you know, he does make those late runs in the box, you know, as Sam says, as a boxing box midfielder would have done.

But

I think the problem with boxing box midfielders now, or it has been, how do you use them in the modern midfield?

The modern midfields tend to be split into two zones.

These days, you get very few teams that are in three lines.

It tends to be a minimum of four.

And we're very used to the idea of a 4-2-3-1 of a midfield being split into those two bands.

And a boxer-box midfielder, sort of the danger is, I think he saw this say with Paul Pogba, even Stephen Gerald towards the end of his career, which of those two bands is he actually in?

And he doesn't quite fit into either.

Whereas I guess Curtis Jones, having grown up where that's always been the way of it, he is maybe a bit more adaptable.

And

he still can make those late runs in the box.

He still can be a threat going forward.

But he seems fairly comfortable playing pretty deep and operating alongside another similar player in Gravenberge.

Gravenberg is slightly more defensive, but not much.

And it's so sort of like they've recreated a Fabinho type figure through two players, but of course, you then have much greater flexibility because both Gravenberg and he are so good on the ball and capable of going forward as well.

Yeah, because I mean, he won a penalty, he almost won another, and he scored the winner.

So

for a player who's supposedly lying deep, that's not bad going.

Well, and he and Gravmutch stifled Cole Palmer.

That's as quiet a game as Cole Palmer's, well, apart from he's been playing for England recently, but it's a very quiet game for Cole Palmer.

Sam, lots of refereeing in this game.

He probably got it all right, didn't he?

The penalty that was given, the one that was overturned, the

booking for Toysin will get to Arsenal, don't worry.

I thought actually, despite the sort of howls of protest at everything, especially the absolute shock on

Colwyll and Toysin's face when the penalty was given?

Like, literally, like, they couldn't believe it.

It was like they'd just seen the end of the sixth sense.

Um, but I think they've got it all right, I think.

In a word, yes, I think I do agree with you.

I know, I'm sure I knew coming on we were going to have to talk about refereeing.

It saddens me.

There was a lot of refereing in this game, there was a lot of refereing

over the weekend.

If you take VAR out of it, we're still talking about refereeing because we're just talking about the decisions without them having been re-ref.

But yeah, and this occasion, I think

they're slightly subjective, aren't they?

Those denying a clear goal scoring opportunity.

It's about the general direction in which the player is running.

I think you take all the words out of it.

I shouldn't, as a lawyer, actually, the devil is in the detail.

You should be looking at words and it's all about interpretation of words.

But if you go on

feel and the sniff test, like it just felt like, okay, yeah, it was a yellow card for Toys.

And he wasn't quite, he was running towards the Lino, sorry, assistant referee on the far side.

I'm sure Arsenal fans will disagree, but I'm not going to poke that bear.

That's not in my nature.

So yes, it's the answer to your question, Max.

Wills has raised his hand.

What?

Because you want to poke that bear?

Well,

no, I feel that the bear keeps running onto my stick.

I don't think I'm doing the poking here.

Got it.

It's bear to stick rather than stick to bear.

Is the bear in a natural position?

I genuinely...

Does that not work as an analogy?

This time of year probably should be hibernating, shouldn't it?

And I really wish it were, rather than sitting on social media abusing me, which is all the bear seems to spend his days doing now.

If people can't see the difference between the Arsenal, between the Saliba incident and the Tosen incident, I mean, it's the willful blindness of it.

I just don't, I just don't understand.

They're clearly different situations.

The Saliba incident, the ball is bouncing into Evan Nielsen's path.

He's sort of 95% certainty to run onto that.

I don't think he's that likely to score, but it's a chance, which is all you know.

The law says nothing about how likely you are to score the chance.

In this instance, the ball is swinging out towards the touchline.

Colwell is, what, five, ten yards away?

Whereas Ben White was a good 30 yards away.

And this ball is swinging towards Colwell.

Colwell is the favourite to get to that ball, if anybody does.

It might just go out of play.

Whereas Evan Nilsson was running onto it.

If you wanted a training tool for why one is a red card and one's a yellow card, you couldn't find two better examples.

These are absolutely, yeah.

And this idea that controversy means that referees are doing their jobs badly.

controversy here just means that fans are looking at it stupidly.

Both these decisions were obviously right.

The penalty, the penalty that was given, definitely right.

The other one, I think, could have gone either way.

But it's, and, you know, I guess the argument then is, is that enough to overturn the on-field decision?

That's maybe a slightly different argument.

But it's not a scandal that that was given or wasn't given.

It's a sort of subjective call and you go with it.

It's none of these things are a disgrace.

Producer Joel made a good point about Trent Alexander Arnold, which he was very good defensively.

And I think when Trent Alexander Arnold is good defensively, you know, kept Sancho quiet.

They changed that half-type Bortenetto on.

No one ever mentions it.

So I just thought I would mention it because it's only mentioned when he's miles out of position, which is actually not necessarily his fault either, because he's meant to be in midfield sometimes to attack.

I mean, you've already said it, Barry.

Chelsea were okay in this, right?

They are coming together.

They've got strength.

They've got threats.

Nicholas Jackson took his goal brilliantly.

His run was brilliant as well.

And they just were not quite as good as Liverpool.

Yeah.

and there's no reason why they should be because Maresco's building a new team.

I think Nicholas Jackson, as good as he was, is still quite raw.

I think they could probably do with a better goalkeeper than Jose Sa.

I thought he could have done better for the.

I mean, Jose Sa didn't have a great game for them.

Sorry.

He had a pretty, to be fair, he had a pretty good game for Wolves.

I get them.

There's a series of Iberian goalkeepers that I just cannot distinguish from each other.

It's just a mental block.

Robert Sanchez,

I thought, I don't think is quite good enough for Chelsea.

I thought he could have done better for the goal yesterday,

but maybe I'm nitpicking.

There is no reason why this team should be as good as an older,

more experienced Liverpool team that have been more or less playing together for a very long time.

But Chelsea are certainly in a better place than they were last season.

Speaking of

goalkeepers, David James saving two penalties from the same kid at half-time was a great effort, wasn't it?

Saved one, kid gets to retake it.

You know, you're at the cop.

You've got one job here, J-Mo.

It was a bit like, I remember playing a charity game where Dave Besson was in goal, and

it was a game for John Hartson because he was just better.

And it was like England beat Wales, you know, footballers and inverted commas celebrities.

And Dave Besson had one job, which was to let in the John Hartson penalty and absolutely no chance.

Palm, very much like the save from Aldridge, it was.

Anyway, to the vitality, Bournemouth 2 Arsenal.

Nil, you were at the game.

Anne says, can we please skip over the few Arsenal fans crying conspiracy?

Because the vast majority of us correctly believe it was a Stonewall red card.

We've covered that.

I think we've covered it pretty well.

The discipline is interesting, Wilson, isn't it?

Because look, they've dropped points in three games this season.

In all those games, they've had a player sent off.

Three red cards in eight games.

I think they've had five more than any club since Boxing Day 2019.

So I don't know if that is a coincidence or just a pattern.

But when we're talking, as we always do with Arsenal, on the fine margins of three, four points, this could cost them the title.

I mean, they've just chucked away seven points for no reason.

You know, these are seven points they've, they've, yeah, if you're going to win the league, you have to get 90 points.

That means you've got 24 points you can afford to lose maximum.

And they've just given away seven of them by getting players sent off for stupid stuff.

Now, maybe they'd have dropped points against City anyway.

But those three red cards, two of them are for kicking, you know, second yards for kicking the ball away.

And one of them is whatever Trossard was trying to do,

stupid pass or misplaced pass, whatever.

And then Saliba panicking.

And, you know, Evan Nielsen, if he just lets him go.

Evan Nielsen's got, well, yeah, chase him.

I mean, when I say let him go, I mean, don't foul him.

Just chase him and try and catch him up.

Yeah, Evan Elson's got 50 yards to run before he's going to shoot, maybe 45 yards.

There's a good chance that you get a foot in.

There's a good chance he's touches heavy and

Raya can get out to it.

Maybe he puts the shot wide.

Maybe Raya saves it.

At most, I think that's a 20% chance of a goal.

So what you've done is you've said, right, rather than 0.2 of a goal, we'll take the red card.

Whereas even if they had conceded, at 1-0 down with 11 men, they're much more likely to get something from a game than a 0-0 with 10 men.

So it's that scrambling of the brain, which is, I think, is so characteristic of Arsenal under Arteta.

I know that without Odegaard, it's difficult, and without Saka, it makes it even more difficult.

And so they didn't have in-swinging corners on Saturday, which means they've lost a lot of their threat.

That I looked at the stats for this, and it was 4.4% of all corners they've taken since in the last three years

had been in-swingers.

Sorry, had been outswingers.

And the first three, because Death and Rice was taking them from the wrong side, were all outswingers here.

So they've lost a key attacking weapon.

I do get that.

But on the other hand, if you're title contenders, you can't just panic because two of your players aren't there.

You've got to work out a way of dealing with it.

And that's what Arsenal seemed really bad at doing.

And even from the start, the approach seemed incredibly cautious.

And I know one of their strengths this year, and this is the first away game they'd lost this year in the league.

One of the ways they do that is not to concede goals.

So there is an element of caution how they play, but there's sort of a sense of despair that they haven't got a couple of their creators rather than just thinking, well, our squad's good enough, we can cope with it.

It's just characteristic of the way they can't deal with adversity.

And I feel like I say this every time I'm on, I get hammered for it every time I'm on, and then the next time I'm on, they do the same thing again.

Yeah, there was no way they're going to hold out in that game.

It never looked like holding out, uh, having gone down to 10 men.

They're just really bad dealing with adversity.

And I do wonder whether Arteta is to an extent to blame for that.

That there is a kind of his,

I,

you know I just I dislike saying this because I feel I'm on the same side of an argument as Richard Keyes and you know I found myself in recent weeks on the same side of arguments as people I tend to think I should be on the opposite side of arguments to but I do wonder whether his sort of petulant touchline behavior sort of creates this sort of culture of of oh we're being persecuted we're being cheated there's nothing we can do here uh whereas yeah you just got to get on and win the match you've got to get on and play the game as it is not as as you'd like it to be and you know declan rice talked about the way they've i mean his phrase was we've kicked ourselves in the foot three times this season which i guess isn't as bad as shooting yourself in the foot which is which is good i mean what he means of we've kicked the ball away two times in eight games this season

yeah exactly if he had kicked himself in the foot rather than kicking the ball it would have been a lot better but you you then start to think you know this sort of i don't know it's the the childishness of it that maybe rather than bringing in a team of pickpockets to make them alert just bring in a naughty step or something just i mean i'm not a parent i've never tried to impose discipline on children.

I wouldn't want to.

But just make them more disciplined.

Stop them doing stupid stuff.

Sounds like you're poking the bear to me.

No, the bear's running on my stick.

It's not me.

No, I do think

Wilson has a point there about Arteta's behaviour on the touchline and his catastrophisation of everything seeps through to the players and some of the fans.

After this game, Roy Keene, I think, said it, and since backed up by Gary Neville, you know, just go and beat them with 10 men.

And I think that's quite disrespectful to Bournemouth, who were very good in this game.

And I think even with 11 men, Arsenal might have struggled to win this game.

As is always the case, we're talking about how bad Arsenal were and not how good Bournemouth were, but they were superb.

Their opening goal from that training ground corner was superb.

I will continue to say that Lewis Cook is the most overrated midfielder or underrated midfielder in the Premier League until he is finally rated and gets his place, the place I think he deserves in England.

Squad, if not team.

I think he possibly should have been at the World Cup.

Don't know if he'd have played, so it probably wouldn't have made any difference.

Or not the World Cup, the Euros.

Yeah, I'd just bore him.

We're bloody good in this game.

Great when Ryan Christie said it worked, you know, like, you know, like the doc from Back to the Future.

Any strong thoughts on this game, Dan?

Strong thoughts.

I love the surprise on Ryan Christie's face, actually, at the interview.

He said, well, you know, it's a good training ground routine, but actually, it's not usually me on the end of it.

It just so happened to come off.

I found that really endearing.

On Arteta, I do wonder if he's starting to learn.

Actually, one of the big surprises to me was his post-match interview.

He actually didn't come out ranting and raving and blaming the ref.

And maybe you could argue that that's because it was a red card and there was no arguing it, but that hasn't stopped him in the past.

So I do wonder if maybe there's a little signs of him maturing and realizing that that ranting, raving, jumping up and down, kicking every bottle there is on the touchline might not help his side.

And he's trying to be a bit more zen.

Maybe he's having sessions in the week where he just sits in a dark room and meditates for a little bit.

Someone gives a bad foul, gives a bad decision in training ground ref, and Arteta goes off and meditates.

I like to think of that.

Yeah, but you're no, but you're right, Barry.

Bournemouth Wilson were excellent in this game and they, you know, they took advantage of the space, space, attacked well.

They are one of those sides which on their day can be really

exciting to watch and good.

Yeah, they were really good.

I really liked them as a side.

I like going down there.

I like watching them.

I think Semenyo's a, I think Water on one flank is really good, but Semenyo's is a really, really brilliant player.

And I was just sort of thinking this over the weekend.

You've got Semenyo, you've got Fataru, you've got Jordan Ayu, you've got Inyaki Williams, you've got Mohammed Kudis.

How on earth earth are Ghana in the position they're in in Couple Nations qualifying where they've got to win their next two games and Hope and Sidan don't take a point in their last two games just to get to Morocco?

That front five, I mean, obviously you can't play all five of them.

I was about to say, is the Ghanai and Lee Carsley sticking them all in at the same time?

It's just, just, and you know,

they've got...

A player who can play on either flank.

They've got players who can play centrally.

The balance should be there.

It just doesn't make any sense.

They're in the mess they're in.

I do wonder whether, I mean, we'll get on to it, but I do wonder whether that played into Kudis' behaviour, his frustration at Ghana getting beat Tina and Siddhan and being abysmal.

But Semenyo, I think, is a you know, it was twice he skinned

Ben White in quick succession in the second half.

Yeah, he's he's just a great player to watch.

And I guess the good news for Bournemouth is if as long as they don't sell him in the summer, chances are he is going to be available Christmas, January next year because he won't be at the Cup of Nations.

All right, that'll do for part one, part two.

I'll begin at Molyneux.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Wolves won Man City 2.

Sam, you were at this game.

Oh, I felt for Wolves.

I thought they were great in this game.

You know, we saw the game last week, a couple of weeks ago at Brentford, where they were hopeless.

They took the lead, they had chances.

And just, I know Man City had a million corners, and you were like, well, eventually they'll score.

But you just thought they'd held out long enough.

I think it was 27 seconds left when that John Stones header goes in.

It was a masterclass in how to play Man City.

Not particularly,

not much magic in it,

but they went to five at the back.

Three in the middle, I think Pep Guardiola said afterwards, they weren't just sitting in front of the back three, they were holding hands with the back three.

I really enjoyed watching Craig Dawson, who basically did.

Do you remember in the Champions League final when G Sung Park man-marked Lionel Messi and just ran around after him and just got in his face the whole time?

Anytime Harland went in the box, Dawson was doing that with him, and they were just grappling.

And he gives up probably half a foot on him, a fair bit of width.

And you could just see him getting frustrated.

And actually, it was the other massive Norwegian centre forward who scored what was a really good goal.

That ball across from Nelson Somedo.

It was whipped from the right.

It was inch perfect.

I'd be surprised if he's hit a better cross in his life.

And the finish wasn't that easy.

And I heard some Wolves fans at halftime say, well, yeah, he's fine, but he didn't do much apart from the goal.

And I thought, what else do you want?

I mean, Haaland didn't do anything.

That was the equivalent down the other end.

But it was just, it was so harsh on Gary O'Neill.

But

he's a details man, and it felt like the plan so nearly worked.

And I really like him.

I don't know if it's because he's a charming man and he has these really white teeth and he speaks really articulately, but you get sucked in to what he says.

And their fiction list has been really, really difficult.

And it felt Modern U felt like a ground that was together with him and the players.

So while 1.98 doesn't look great,

I think there's hope for them.

But yeah, they'd have been, and that's a sucker punch yesterday.

That really is.

And I know we'll probably have to talk about the VAR element of that, won't we?

Yeah, I mean, we can do, because it was actually quite fun, because I couldn't work out if the goal was given or disallowed originally.

I thought it was given, then disallowed.

And then

imagine the day broke it down.

Well, didn't they?

It was like 30 seconds.

The Wolves players are just...

you know, on the floor, devastated.

Then Gary O'Neill, somebody says something to Gary O'Neill, presumably not the Set Pete's coach they sacked last week.

And then he runs out with his iPad and he's furious, and then they go to the screen, so then Pep's furious, and Man City are furious.

I don't know what you made of it, Barry, but in the end, I think probably the right decision.

I think it was probably the right decision.

My only bone of contention would be it looked like the ref

didn't get to see Bernardo Silva backing into Jose Sa, who had a busy afternoon yesterday because I played

like well this game.

He went to Mersey's side and didn't didn't play as well as I thought he might have

against Liverpool but I suppose he can be excused that given it was his second game in quick succession if that goal had been disallowed I'd have won a game of last man standing and been over a grand up so I really wanted it chalked off but I don't think I can have

many complaints what's annoying is

I didn't see this happen live.

I was walking somewhere and I was listening to it on five live and the commentary team didn't quite seem to know what exactly was going on.

So it was unclear.

So I was, you know, when I did eventually see it later, I think my beef with Wolves is that flurry of corners that gave away at the end, at least two of those could have been avoided.

And they had chances to clear their lines.

There was one in particular where Jean Ricner Bellegarde headed the ball out for another corner when he could have put it further up the pitch or out for a throw-in.

and that you know, it's a tiny little thing, and the guy's exhausted, and he's just get this ball away, and hopefully, the final whistle will go.

But that could have made all the difference.

Yeah, maybe Bellyguard doesn't have the heading ability of a Glendenning or a Pinnock.

We'll, of course, get to that.

Yes, Sam.

Interestingly, Neil said afterwards, he almost called Jorgen Strand Larsen, the striker, out, because he said the fans get on my back because they think I take a centre-forward off after 60, 65 minutes but i've spoken to the lad a few times and maybe he hasn't adapted to pace of the league but actually you can see after 65 minutes that's it his race has run and he's saying well you know if our six foot four centre forward is in there defending as well maybe we clear one of those corners so i just thought it was interesting he said it with a smile on his face but you don't often see managers call out those little details in public meanwhile wilson city are are they lulling us like they're not being great but they're still winning and they haven't you know, we haven't got to Christmas where they turn around and win 25 games.

And they've had a relatively comfortable fixture list so far.

I mean, okay, they've played Arsenal at home, they've played Chelsea Way, but certainly since Rodri got injured, they haven't had hard games.

Yeah, I mean, they can see the opening goal a worrying number of times.

I mean, on the Stones goal, I sort of agree that the way the law tends to be interpreted now, that probably should count.

However,

I still think Bernardo Silver is interfering with Jose Sarr.

And the point Barry makes about him backing into him, he's technically not offside when that happens.

But what that does prove is he's within sort of a step because he takes one step away from Joseph Sarr.

So say Stanza's header had gone as Sarslang there to his top right corner.

Even if he can't see Bernardo Silver, that's almost worse if he can't see him, he knows Bernardo Silva is somewhere there.

So his whole movement is predicated on the, I know that Bernardo Silver's somewhere over there.

So I don't think you have to be in the eye line or or touching a player to be interfering i think i i sort of that you clearly you could find examples where this would be absurd but i basically think players in six yard box are always interfering certainly within the line of the posts are always interfering now it might be that the action is very much at one post and somebody's down in the ground at the other and that wouldn't be true but as a sort of rule of thumb i i think you know if you're within the line of the post in the six yard box it's very hard for you not to be interfering because the keeper he knows you're somewhere somewhere close by, so it has to be in his in his mind.

However, having said that, I do think the way the Law Ten has been interpreted that the goal should stand.

Yeah, well, Gary O'Neill wanted to compare it to a goal that they had chalked off against West Ham, which

was different.

But I wonder if you, you know, I don't know.

Because

whenever an attacking player is kind of standing on the keeper, quite often the pundit says, well, the keeper's just got to be stronger.

But it does affect, you know, like I wouldn't be totally against like a mini-force field where you know, you're not allowed.

I don't know.

I don't, I mean, maybe I'm talking nonsense here about an attacker standing on the keeper and you know, how we feel about that generally.

No, I don't mind attacker standing on keepers, um, but I just then think that when you're considering off-site decisions, that has to be taken into account that it doesn't have to be right on him for him to be interfering with him.

Yeah, I'm fine with a bit of sort of nudging of keepers.

I think that's all to the good.

I think keepers have had it too easy for too long, but equally,

just because he's not right there in his face doesn't mean he's he's not you know got into his head somehow it'd be a wonderful addition to the tv graphic though wouldn't it you draw the red line and then you get the mini force field around the

yeah yeah really nice really nice or if you could actually make it like real

and then so players who try and get in and sort of like like like sort of like an electric fence yeah they just can't can't get through it to the top of hotspur stadium spurs four west ham one A really fun game this.

Spurs were excellent.

We'll get onto that change.

But West Ham fell apart, Barry, in the second half.

Their midfield appeared to disappear.

They lost their discipline.

They had a man sent off.

There was that brawl.

I don't know if Mohamed Kudis can get an extra ban because

there were three separate red card offences.

He only got shown one.

It took me a while to unpick the bones of that watching it rock and roll, as they say, in cricket,

trying to figure out who he is and when.

And it's worrying for West Ham because they've done really well against Ipswich just before the break.

Their fans will have taken a lot of heart from that game and gone into this latest swath of games

with confidence.

And that will have evaporated.

There is a suggestion they should have had a penalty at but you know when they were 4-1 down but I don't think that would have made the slightest bit of difference.

In in more goal goalkeepers, I get confused about news.

I don't think Alfonso Areola is quite honoured this season.

I think his distribution is poor and

he let in a soft one there as well.

So

I really hope it was him.

Wilson Ange took off James Madison, who was having quite a good game, had set up Kudasevsky's goal, brought on Pape Saar.

It did change the midfield.

Is it too far to say that Ange is, you know, that is a plan B for Range?

That is making it a bit more defensive, but in doing so, make Spurs more attacking?

Is it a plan B?

I don't know.

I mean, what was interesting was you saw as the first half ended, he said to Saar, get warmed up.

So he obviously knew, it was already in his head from

you know, I'm guessing sort of midway through the first half, there was something he might do.

And I guess maybe he had it in his head all the way along that maybe we do need to shore this up but it just sort of makes sense you know just you know i just think teams these days to play with only one holding player midfield it's uh unless your two sort of other midfielders in the midfield three

are

are sort of box to box players to go back to that discussion it's it's very hard to

to put that much defensive pressure on a single player.

So if you think of a modern midfield as being the six as a deep-lying one, the ten as the creator, and the eight as a sort of link player, and the eight, I guess, is where you've got a bit of flexibility to change the balance that you can play quite a defensive eight or quite an attacking eight.

And I just sort of think if you can play quite a defensive eight, who can also get forward at Curtis Jones, then that gives you far more options, it's far more flexible.

And I sort of

not against the experiment of playing Madison quite deep, and I think you can get away.

I mean, he did well at Old Trafford, didn't he?

With a different against different midfield, he looked very good there, but I mean, playing against an actual midfield, it's much harder.

So the idea of playing a passer back there and having sort of a somebody alongside him who is running and his tackling for him, I'm not saying Madison can't run, but to do his defensive running for him.

And then you have him as the sort of distributor of

keeping the ball moving.

So in the way you had sort of Pilo and Gattiso would play together.

I'm not totally opposed to that.

And I feel a bit sorry for Madison because without really having done anything wrong, it feels like he's almost lost his place in the team because Kudosevsky's playing so well as the 10.

Um, but maybe for the balancer Spurs, maybe that is the best way of doing things to play with the two deeper line players.

The thing is, Madison had a very good first half here, it wasn't like he played badly.

No, no, but it's purely about the balance, is what I'm saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, and that, but that's an interesting point you make about Kulasevsky because I think if you if you'd asked the Spurs fans to put their you know starting 11 at the start of the season, they'd never have Kulasevsky ahead of Madison in the 10.

Because he like Madison glides and is just like a nicer watch in that role, looks more 10-than Kulasevsky, but

that shows the impact that Kulasevsky has had.

He's been great.

I mean, the game in the first half of Brighton, Kulasewski was brilliant, and I guess you could play him on the right, but then you lose Bennon Johnson, who's scoring goals.

So, I mean, you know, it's a classics and a nice problem to have, but not if you're James Madison, it's not no.

Um, to St.

Mary's, Southampton two, Leicester three.

I mean, we we talked of the agony Sam for Wolves and Gary O'Neill, but to lose like this, I mean,

that shot from Jordan Io took about half an hour, didn't it?

And you're going, come on.

Like, I think, what, it was like the eighth minute of injury time when he struck it, and it went in in about the 15th minute of injury time.

Yeah, if you put yourself in the place of Southampton fan, watching that from the other end, just bobbling across, and you can see it, you know where it's going, and you can see it's going in the corner.

Look,

they're just not that good, Southampton.

Are they?

Russell Martin, they play good football fair play they were 2-0 up and it's another one of those the ryan fraser sending off sort of changes it doesn't it and you can make an argument that actually well if he just lets him score uh in if in that moment he just lets him score then it's two or when you've still got 11 men at least but in those split seconds you just can't make those sort of decisions i don't think maybe the top top players can i'm not sure ryan fraser can but I just can't see where they go, Southampton.

Well, I can going down, but other than that, I can't see where they go.

Russell Martin, he's got his principles, and that's the modern way.

And I think he knows he'll be safe because he'll take them down, or he might get sacked later in the season.

And then next year, he'll pop up at Real Madrid or something.

It's the kind of tried and trusted Vincent company route for him.

But they're just not quite good enough.

And you look at their players, and they run around a little bit, and well, they run around a lot, but a lot of them are championship players, and they're just showing that you can't quite make the step up.

But yeah, heartbreaking.

They must have thought this could be the win.

If you're not going to win that game, where are you going to win a game?

There are

some positives that struggle to find them that Southampton can take from this game, insofar as they could conceivably have been four or five-nil up

before Buenanote pulled one back from Leicester.

Joe Rebo smashed a header off the bar.

Mad Hermanson had to save really well from Flynn Downs.

And there was that almost incredible own goal from Vout Fass.

Oh so good

where

he was saved by his keeper

and Southampton were denied what looked to me a pretty clear penalty.

So there are a few positives not you know there are only so many positives you can take out of a

or so much heart you can take from a 3-2 defeat when you've been 2-0 up and haven't won a game all season.

But yeah, Abdullah Fatau changed the game for Leicester when he came on he was great yeah yeah I mean he's out of the first but the strike that hits the bar in the build-up to to Leicester winning that penalty is is so good isn't it I mean on on the I thought that was the biggest referee mistake of the weekend I thought most of the refereeing decisions were correct but you know I who is pulling on

shirt for about five minutes and

what was I can't remember what the exact phrase from the PGMOL was something like you know he's of no consequence it's not quite that oblique, but it sort of implies that there's nothing, Hono Actu is just not good enough at football to influence what's going to happen in that moment.

And that does seem, that does seem ridiculous because obviously Vardy, you know, Fraser on Vardy is a shorter shirt pool, but it was quite significant.

Vardy is definitely, well, not definitely, but almost certainly going to score.

But it still seemed, it seemed harsh to me that that rule.

kind of exists Wilson.

It seems to me it's a bit of a fudge to say we just don't want to give penalties for every shirt pull because there'd be so many.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.

And that,

I mean, I guess the problem you get with shirt pulling is you often get instances where both players are pulling the shirt.

And the problem is that if you only see the end of a clip, you might only see the defender pulling the forward.

And I guess you don't want penalties given for that where there's been mutual shirt pulling.

But, you know, there's nothing in the laws that says a player's got to be about to get on the ball.

I mean, I think in that case, he certainly would have been making a decent challenge for the ball, whether he got on it or not.

But there's nothing in the laws, you know.

The ball could be down the other end of the pitch.

And, you know, if you pull my shirt in the box 120 yards away, it's a big pitch.

It's a big pitch.

110 yards.

So with high

part in use, you might get 120.

That's a rugby pitch, something.

Wait, I think it's 108, the standard length of the Premier League pitch now, isn't it?

So

I think it can be between 100 and 130, but the Premier League stipulates 108.

So anyway, let's say 108 yards away,

even allowing for a slight diagonal.

It's still a penalty.

doesn't it?

It doesn't matter where the ball is, unless as long as it's in play.

Um, so I, yeah, I

and you know, if if somebody holding your shirt for you know a good sort of five yards of running isn't consequential, then there's never been a shirt ball that's been consequential.

Uh, John says was Roy Cropper in the away end at Southampton singing 2-0 and you fucked it up, the best thing we will ever see in the history of the Premier League.

I'm I'm not a Coronation Street man, so it didn't mean a lot to me.

I can only imagine if it had been Dr.

Carl Kennedy or Harold Bishop.

I would have been over the moon.

So I presume if you are a Corrie fan.

It would more or less be the equivalent of Harold Bishop, coffee shop

owner slash greasy spoon proprietor.

In which case, absolutely sensational.

That's what I want.

If Harold Bishop and his tuba were, you know, playing smutty,

profane songs, you know,

in one of the terraces, oh, well, I would be, I mean, literally, the pod would be nothing else.

I think, as far as I know, and I'm not sure how I know this, but I'm pretty sure whoever plays

Harold Bishop is a

massive AFL fan.

So

I'm not sure whose team is.

If I cross his path, I'll find out for you.

Chris says, which managers have lived happily ever after on the back of calling out media fairy tales and falsehoods?

This is Eric Ten Hag before the game saying noise is only coming from some of you in the media creating stories and fairy tales and bringing lies.

I do like the idea of the Eric Ten Haag fairy tale.

I mean, it wasn't a fairy tale of a second half, Sam.

That is going too far, but they did play very well in the second half of this game.

They scored two brilliant goals.

I'm hard-pushed, and Barris said this to me yesterday, I'm hard-pushed to find a sort of better 45 minutes from Ten Haag this season, certainly.

Yeah, and it's an exciting front three, isn't it?

They've got their Garnacho Hoyland, who I think

has taken a little bit of time, but it's a lovely finish.

And Rashford was really bright.

He was involved in a lot of what they were doing.

Even into sort of the dying embers of injury time, he was running around end-to-end.

And I know that's the minimum you expect, and it's not really what he's paid primarily to do.

But that pass, the assist he had, I don't think I saw a stat before the weekend basically listing a whole load of goalkeepers saying that they've got more assists than Marcus Rashford this season.

So he has now at least drawn level with them.

But it was bright and it was a brave selection, wasn't it, from Tenhar?

Because he played Casemiro, Erickson, and Fernandez as a midfield three for the first time since they'd lost to Brighton at home last September.

What did he talk about?

They used the delivery incident at half-time as fuel.

They conceded that goal when he was off the pitch and they just played some lovely, fun football.

And we know they can do that.

There's obvious talent in that side.

And Gonacha probably should have had more than one goal, actually caused a fair few issues down that left.

I think he had four or five shots across the course of the game.

So you could argue that he should have had more than one.

But as ever,

we've seen these little glimpses over the last year and a half, two years.

You go, oh, there's a good 45 minutes, but brilliant.

But are they going to build on it?

No, is the answer.

Probably not.

But

you never know.

I mean,

obviously, we got a million messages about Ethan Pinnock scoring a header.

And he scored that header.

Obviously, Barry, he'd have scored it even if Man United had 11 players on the pitch.

But that was quite a significant hole

that Matthias Delicht not being there

caused, and it was a bit odd, wasn't it?

Afterwards, Eric Ten Haag saying, you know, he should have been allowed on the pitch because it was dry blood when we're all watching blood streaming down his head.

You know, I mean, it wasn't quite like pools of it, you know.

Well, I think that was the third time he had to go off to get that wound patched up.

I think it was the second occasion that the blood was pouring out of this hole in his head.

But

I think the only people you can blame for that, the fact, you know, you have, if you are bleeding, you have to go off the pitch.

You know, it's a medical thing.

It's a.

It's safety, right?

Yeah.

Because diseases can be passed through blood.

And if, in the first instance, the Manchester United medical staff had put a big one of those big sort of condom

bandages on his head, he'd have been fine.

You know, he

so

it's it's a

pretty bogus argument from Eric Ton Hag,

but United got away with it.

Yeah, if it's all right for Terry Butcher, it's all right for anyone else.

I mean, I guess there is an argument about blood substitutions.

I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I don't know what you think, Wilson.

Concussion substitutions are sensible.

You shouldn't necessarily be penalised because your player is bleeding.

If your substitutes are ready, it doesn't have to take ages.

Yeah, I mean, I guess the question is: would your subs be ready?

I'm not sure it's practical to have every sub constantly warmed up all the time.

You don't want a sort of of three or four minute wait while they get the sub on.

You might as well just patch them up in that three or four minutes.

But

I do sort of fundamentally agree that I'm not sure putting pressure on the medical staff to do their jobs quickly or more quickly than they would naturally do it is necessarily a good idea.

So, yeah, a temporary substitution for blood.

If you can work out a practical way of doing it, in principle, I wouldn't be against it.

I mean, that's sort of the reason why they haven't got quiz shows where doctors have to patch people up really quickly against the clock, you know, with,

you know, Bradley Walsh in the middle going, you've got eight seconds, you know,

tourniquet this leg, the main artery's gone.

Is it the blue team or the green team's going to win?

Anyway, I'll pitch that to

you at some point.

Yeah.

Of course, surely you and Carl Kennedy would be the ideal host.

Exactly right.

My dad's a doctor.

He could do, you know, he could be the expert on the, you know, he could be just on the sideline.

I could bring in my dad for expert opinion.

Anyway, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin with a fun game at Craven Cottage.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Our full and one Villa 3.

Bit harsh, Barry, on this game to be in part three, really.

I thought it was a really good game of football.

Villa might have shaded it, but there were some fine margins moments in this one.

Yeah, struggling to remember.

Now, I don't remember the first goal.

I know you loved it, where Bert Leno just got the ball launched.

Better than any Marcus Rashford assist, I can tell you.

I saw it described in one match report as a pass, and I was thinking,

that's

it.

He got it launched.

It bounced a couple of times.

Pau Torres couldn't deal with it.

And Raul Jimenez, who can't stop scoring at the minute until he did later in this game, took control of it and put it in, stroked it into the bottom corner with his left foot.

That gave Fulham the lead, and

they went on to lose the game.

A good performance by Villa.

I thought Villa might slip up here actually, because Fulham have been playing very well, and they weren't terrible in this game either.

But

who's Joachim Anderson

pushing over Ollie Watkins for as clear a red card as you see,

although he did plead his innocence with considerable Elan.

That more or less finished it as a contest, didn't it?

Yeah, I mean, the penalty misses also, but that was a pretty shabby penalty from Pereira, wasn't it?

Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, it didn't look great.

I mean, Rao Kimenez, he scores that one, and then he misses a header.

I think it's from a corner.

It's one, he's got 10 and 12, and he glances it wide, and you think, oh,

he really is your centre forward.

You want him to put that in, and then it's maybe a different game.

It was fun.

I think I enjoyed Jonathan Pierce.

I think he summarised it well on Match of Day.

He said at one point, he said, oh, Fulham won, Aston Bill of II.

Good stuff.

And I thought, I need to hear more of that in football.

It was good stuff said, and it was fun.

Actually, Jonathan Pierce, my favourite moment was when,

was after the Fulham goal, you know, being...

get it launched direct football he took a pop at the coaching manuals the actual the manuals themselves who said you've got to play out from the back.

I also, I mean, it's interesting because Jimenez misses that header and then Walking scores a much harder headed chance.

Although he's being marked by Emil Smith Rowe.

And if you watch Smith Rowe, he sort of defends like the Church Hill dog nodding.

He just sort of, you know, just

does a little sort of nod like this.

It's just absolutely woeful attempt

to try and stop that.

We talked about Curtis Jones Wilson and, you know, Thomas Tuchel, New England manager, looking at him, perhaps looking at Morgan Rodgers as well, who seems to have a bit of everything.

Yeah, I think, I mean, he's a similar type of player, isn't he?

He scores goals,

but you know, he puts in the graft as well.

So, I mean, England have a lot of very, very good young options as long as you're looking for midfielders.

If you're starting for centre-forwards and fullbacks, it becomes a bit thin on the ground, or goalkeepers, or centre-backs.

But midfielders, were great.

To St James's Park, Newcastle-nil Brighton.

One, Sam,

you were there.

I think Brighton, even Herzler, said it.

I quite like dishonesty saying they probably didn't necessarily deserve to win this game.

But Danny Welbeck, we hope he's okay.

He's got injury.

I wonder if this is the best he's ever played.

Like, he is currently in this sort of Indian, endless Indian summer.

Yeah, and he's...

I think he's got five already for the season.

His best in the Premier League is nine.

He did that a couple of times for Manchester United.

But I remember when he first broke through.

So Alex Ferguson loves him.

I couldn't find the quote before we came on, but I'm sure Ferguson,

before he played much first-team football, was saying Welbeck should be the main man at England's next tournament.

And there's plenty of people who feel that had Ferguson not left Manchester United, Welbeck wouldn't have left.

One shot, one goal, it was their first chance.

It had that air of inevitability.

Although I thought, you know, Brighton rode their luck at times and they were playing it from the back and almost got caught.

But

it's ominous for the rest of the league because Brighton for years, or a couple of years, have been, they can win 4-0, but they can lose 4-0.

If they can start to grind out results, because second half, he brought on an extra defender and they shut up shop.

And that was very un-Brighton.

It was almost a more mature Brighton.

And it's actually their reserve side because

of all the teams, I think there's 22 different nationalities in the Brighton squad, and they're basically everywhere.

A lot of them are off playing in Africa or in Japan.

So people like Matoma were on the bench, and Siso was on the bench.

Estu Pinyan, they're still missing Jal Pedro.

Minte, the lad Newcastle sold for PSR reasons who all Newcastle fans were thinking was definitely going to score.

He wasn't even in the squad.

So actually to do that without a first choice 11 to becker back because Van Hecker's really key at the back and he came off the bench for the last 15-20 minutes.

So there's probably six players.

And for

the last couple of managers, particularly last year, I mean, Dazerby made like 12 or 13 changes for every game, didn't he?

But actually, Hertz has been more settled.

He tried not to tinker with it as much.

But I think after the the last international break, they drew 0-0 with Ipswich, and he sort of realised that with those long flights and that the demands on the players, they're not physically going to be up to it.

So, to go in, it was a brilliant result for them.

Uh, yeah, they were a little bit lucky, but they also Newcastle didn't really look like scoring in that last half hour.

At the time, you want to kick on Brighton completely negated the threat.

You're a Newcastle fan, Sam.

I think I'm right in saying you weren't overjoyed at the takeover three years ago.

Is there a sense that among some fans that it hasn't quite been what

people might have expected?

Yeah, but I think football fans' expectations are by and large,

completely wild.

I don't think, yeah, I wasn't overjoyed by it.

I'm still not, and there's the news of the involvement of the Saudi or the potential involvement.

I'd be interested to know where those leaks are coming from.

I think there potentially is more to come out there.

I think we can all guess.

And if I was that person, I'd be steering a wide berth of any embassies in the near coming weeks.

Yes, potentially.

I don't think anyone envisaged that Jacob Murphy would be starting on the right-hand side of midfield, steer it back to football.

And that is why

there's not an England coach, it's an England manager, because I was at Goodison Park a couple of weeks ago.

Eddie Howe was at Goodison Park a couple of weeks ago.

He watched Jacob Murphy with a 40-something year old fullback not take him on a single time.

And he thought, two weeks of pondering, I'm going to start him again against Brighton.

And he was abysmal.

So I don't think anyone expected that to be the right midfield option.

What do Newcastle fans, you know, what's what do you, I mean, I don't know what will happen, but do you sense that

Piff, you know, from what you know, maybe just are sort of, they're still interested, but they're not as interested as they were because, you know, they're trying to buy the whole of golf and the whole of boxing.

They've got other things to do, right?

And boxing certainly gets a, you know, that is rasmataz, right?

And it doesn't feel like it's their main interest.

And these are people that are generally used to living in a world where money buys you everything you want and they're coming up against laws and written barriers that doesn't allow them just to spend money in a free way.

And that's probably quite frustrating.

I think I still think it's good.

I think it's very good for football that that stuff is in the way.

But yeah, you get there.

The worry is that their interest dies out from a football perspective and you go, okay, the project was ahead of where it should have been when they got in the Champions League.

But they've got these players,

Matt, Isak and the Bruno Guimarez.

If they don't get into Europe again, they go.

And so what you haven't done is replaced, they didn't kick on this summer and then they lose some of their better players.

So so i just there is a worry it's fizzling out to the extent it ever really got going bar a one season of wonderful trips to the sanciro and dortmund etc i think a big test of just how interested piff are and and certainly the the the sense i got over the summer was that they possibly hadn't realized how restrictive psr was and they have all these other interests in sport um even in football you know they've they've got the saudi pro league they've got the world cup in 2034 um they're retrenching anyway so Neom, this new city they're building in the desert, I think now it's going to be 15 times smaller than the initial plan suggested.

So, that's pretty significant retrenchment.

But

there's a sense that St.

James' either needs a massive overhaul or we need to build a new stadium.

There's talk about maybe building a stadium in Lees Park, which is not far from the present site.

But yeah, the present site is so perfect.

It dominates the city.

You come into the city, you can see the stadium.

It's so central.

It just feels part of the city and leaders park's not a million miles away you probably still get a sense of that but whether they're prepared to put in the enormous money you'd need to you know to to to level st james and rebuild it there i think that's going to be a real test of just how invested they still are yeah i mean i think it'd be good if they rebuilt it if they got the away fans a bit further away that would be

the problem they've got is that two sides of the ground you have listed buildings you've got these georgian terraces that they can't build out into so they can build behind the gallagher out towards the metro station.

And is it Biker Grove?

Is the other side of it?

Is that so?

So, I mean, if they've got that, surely they build out to Biker Grove, that would be a huge stadium,

but it is listed.

Don't you touch Jeff's mutton chops to Portman Road, Barry Ipswich-Nil Everton 2.

Is this a new dawn for Everton on beaten four?

It's beginning to look like they've got their act together, certainly.

Um,

unbeaten four, what is one, two, they've avoided the hail of seven seven seven bullets uh the freaking group uh

are taking over and all looks well in the world as far as everything are concerned i

i don't think i was ever particularly worried about them because we we've seen them do this season after season

um

but this is a game I would imagine Ipswich would certainly have targeted as, you know, we can get three points here.

And they came up pretty short.

Jack Clark had a good chance early doors to put them ahead and he inexplicably shot high over the bar for more or less the penalty spot when the ball was teed up perfectly for him as he's a former Sunderland player.

I've given me the benefit of the doubt and say there was a bobble.

I don't know if there was.

And yeah, Michael Keene, who many Everton fans think should be nowhere near their side, he scored a spectacular effort.

He comes up with the odd, you know, worldie every now and then.

And I think this was one of them.

No one was expecting him to lash the ball into the roof of the net from that tight angle

after a corner was recycled.

So, yeah, good, good win for Everton.

And I think they're first on the road this year, maybe.

I don't know the answer to that.

Take my word for it.

I take your word for it, Barry.

Absolutely right.

And

Nelson Forest played Crystal Palace tonight.

We'll talk about that on Wednesday's pod.

Wilson Sunderland, top of the championship.

I still don't trust it.

I still think they're very young.

They're very inexperienced, but they are playing well.

They've got a centre forward now, which helps.

Wilson Isador, who I think is the first player I remember Sunday called Wilson.

And he's a great finish against Hull, but he looks like a centre forward Sunday been missing since Ross Stewart got injured against Fulham in the Cup.

And they've become a lucky team, which is, I don't remember this ever happening before.

The Melee mistake for Leeds and then the referee doing a lovely little blocking run at a whole corner before Sunderland broke.

So

it's way, way better than I was expecting.

I still not convinced it's going to last because I think Burnley, Leeds, Sheffield United, West Brom are really good sides and probably have a bit more depth than Sunderland, but great for now.

And Chris Riggers looks amazing at 17 in midfield.

Cambridge United's first win of the season, 2-0 at home to Wigan.

Lord knows how bad Wigan are, and also Lord knows how bad Burton are because our first win of the season, and we're not bottom of the league anymore.

It's extraordinary.

Off to the playoffs we go.

In Gary Monk, we trust.

Trust the process.

Absolutely delighted with that.

Now, Barry, finally, on Thursday, we mentioned very early stage plans to be in the United States of America for the 2026 World Cup.

Floated the idea that we might need a place to stay for a month or maybe a bit more.

Could we say thank you to David, Ben and Stewart, who have between them offered us two ranches and an off-season ski lodge in

superb

in California, Houston and Colorado.

David rides a horse to the shops.

So, you know, that's the hot favorite at the moment.

I'll stay with David then.

One of them's got a media room.

It's exciting, isn't it?

Anyway,

of course,

if we end up staying there, it'll be by the book because sadly our guardian overlords have things like principles but it's probably for the best but you know this is it but they are also quite thrifty that is true you know there could be some compliment oh yeah i don't know how does it work when we go this podcast is brought to you by ski lodges of colorado yeah i mean i'm in hi max max you know hi football wiki fans max here barry's here too exactly

so look they're just the first three offers you know if you do have some big old pile in beverly hills let us know um And that'll do for today.

Oh, Wilson, you want to mention your podcast?

I didn't know anyone was allowed to have another podcast.

That sounds like a ludicrous idea, but carry on.

Oh, yes, please.

It's called It Was What It Was.

It's me and Rob Draper.

It's basically the rest of his history book for football.

So two middle-class, middle-aged white men talking about things that happened in the past.

But recently, we've just done a long series on Rigo Saki.

And today, I'm off to interview Rafa Benitez.

So that's a little preview of what's coming up.

Sounds like, to me, like you're missing a comedy Irish sidekick, which all good podcasts.

I can't tell you what a relief that is.

There's no funny Irishman on a podcast.

Is it even a podcast?

That's what I say.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Wednesday.

This is The Guardian.