Villa ticket prices and Leicester’s great PSR escape – Football Weekly Extra

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Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. We'll begin with Aston Villa's ticket pricing for the Champions League, the first time they've been there since the early 80s.

Speaker 2 And fans are accusing them of being out of touch. Villa claimed they're compelled to do it because of PSR.
We'll discuss if this is a valid argument. While we're on PSR, how fun.

Speaker 2 When is a football club not a football club? Leicester City won, the Premier League 0. The Foxes win their appeal because they weren't in the Premier League when they were charged.

Speaker 2 Is getting relegated just a clever loophole? How weak does this make the Premier League look? And what about clubs who broke PSR and got punished? And clubs who didn't and got relegated. It's a mess.

Speaker 2 Then to the Internationals, even though he has Carr in his name, it doesn't sound like Lee Carsley has a handbrake. But will he have any players as the dropouts begin?

Speaker 2 Mark Langdon wants to tell us off for being dour about the new Champions League format. We'll answer your questions and that's today's Goean Football Weekly.

Speaker 2 Joe says, how does this pod affect me? Welcome Barry Glendenning. Hello Max.
Hello Mark Langdon from The Racing Post. Welcome.

Speaker 5 Hi Max.

Speaker 2 And Garth says, Lars came back. Nice of him to rub shoulders with us.
TV star Lars Sividson, hello.

Speaker 1 Hi, hi, Max. Just a word of caution there.
I think the last time I was on television in the UK was in sort of March 2020.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you remember what happened very shortly after that, but it wasn't a harbinger of anything good in terms of world events.

Speaker 1 So I'm very, very nervously checking the news now because we did have a bit of a pandemic last time.

Speaker 2 Someone somewhere believes that you, the conspiracy that you brought on the global pandemic, Lars. I'm here for it.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Dean says, I feel like villa ticket prices could start a discussion that could fill the pod. And actually, you three of you got very exercised in the WhatsApp group about this.

Speaker 2 Most fans will have to pay between $70 and $97 per home game.

Speaker 2 The Aston Villa Supporters Trust said, we met with the club towards the end of last season to discuss season ticket prices, including the Champions League, if we were to qualify.

Speaker 2 We made it clear pricing should be no higher than that of a category A game.

Speaker 2 For the club to announce these ticket prices well above that is extremely disappointing, especially given the recent matchday experience with delays of over 30 minutes getting into the ground, issues with access to seating and toilet facilities.

Speaker 2 The Football Supporters Association tweeted some truly eye-watering prices from Aston Villa for their first European Cup campaign in decades.

Speaker 2 The thing is, Lars, that Villa sort of claimed that they need to charge this to fulfill PSR obligations, you know, and the Mirror reporting yesterday that they were really close to falling foul of this.

Speaker 2 And had they not sold Douglas Louise on the 30th of June, they would have done.

Speaker 2 Does that feel like a legitimate argument to you?

Speaker 1 Well, no, the PSR made me do it, it's my least favorite argument of anything, really,

Speaker 1 in the world. Because it's like

Speaker 1 you know what the rules are.

Speaker 1 It's over this sort of three-year rolling period.

Speaker 1 You can read a calendar, you can read your accounts, you know what you can spend and you know what you can't spend. Just

Speaker 1 the idea that no one's responsible for their actions anymore just explodes my brain.

Speaker 1 We saw this with Eric and Hogg as well, suggesting that, you know, I didn't really want to sell McTominay, but, you know, we have to because of the rules.

Speaker 1 Whereas United, I mean, have the second highest net spend in world football since the summer of 2022. So it's like it's a consequence of other actions.

Speaker 1 It's understandable that clubs want to maximize their income, but it feeds into a conversation I think you were having on the last pod about the extent to which the extent to which clubs

Speaker 1 are seeing their fans just as consumers.

Speaker 1 They should can and should be gouged as much as possible.

Speaker 1 And the sort of the awful sort of double-edged sword here is that that a lot of fans will see, you know, the more money, the more the more money they put into the club, the more they sacrifice, the more loyal they feel.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it makes it even more important to them. Whereas, of course, from the club's perspective, it just means they're very dumb consumers that can be exploited even more.

Speaker 1 And it's kind of, it's very sad to see that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's interesting, Mark, that UEFA has capped the amount clubs can charge for away tickets in the Champions League at 60 Euros.

Speaker 2 And, you know, there are, you know, away ticket price caps, I believe, in the Premier League in the EFL, but but the authorities can't cap home prices. You thought they might be able to do that?

Speaker 5 I'm sure they could if they really put their mind to it. I think it's easier to do it for away tickets because there was a perceived unfairness

Speaker 5 around kind of what some clubs were being charged compared to what others were for visits to stadiums. But I mean, I think this is absolutely just it feels absolutely disgraceful, really.

Speaker 5 I saw on um on twitter one guy say that it's going to cost him and his daughter nearly 700 pounds to watch aston villa's four um champions league games and they've already got season tickets um that just feels unsustainable i know um and aston villa season ticket holder stuart ellis i asked him what he felt of it um he said it's outrageous He was away for the Bio Munich game and now feels like he won't bother with at least two of the games.

Speaker 5 He said he might go to Celtic if there's jeopardy on that one, but seriously considering not going. And

Speaker 5 that just feels like a mess. They were so excited back end of last season to qualify for the Champions League.

Speaker 5 The club is on the up in just about every way really in terms of the managers got everybody believing that good things are possible.

Speaker 5 They've got an exciting football team that's doing well on the pitch. But

Speaker 5 I think from Aston Villa's point of view, it's not only about them, it's about all football fans really, because

Speaker 5 how powerful would it be if there was like a two-week strike in the Premier League, for instance, where nobody went to a game? I know that it's not going to happen and

Speaker 5 impossible to say that it will, but going to a stadium and moaning just is.

Speaker 5 It's the worst of all outcomes. You're giving the club the money.
You're not really making an impact.

Speaker 5 I've done it myself.

Speaker 5 I was at Tottenham last season when everybody turned their back for one minute because

Speaker 5 the club had...

Speaker 3 Because of the high line.

Speaker 5 That was through my fingers, Max. But no,

Speaker 5 because they're starting to phase out OAP prices.

Speaker 5 But one minute doesn't make any difference. The only reason I did it was so that I kind of blended in with everybody else.
I didn't really feel attached to that. West Ham fans were kind of releasing

Speaker 5 black balloons at Crystal Palace.

Speaker 5 And then minutes later they're on the pitch celebrating a goal that or certainly sort of you know over the advertising hoardings of a goal that was scored and you know the football teams need to

Speaker 5 need to think about the kind of the medium to long term because the only reason I'm interested in football is because my dad took me and was able to take me at much more sensible prices back in kind of late 80s, early 90s.

Speaker 5 I don't think he would be able to take me now at the kind of prices that we're talking about. And that's why I love football.
It wasn't a TV event for me. It was somewhere where you go to the stadium.

Speaker 5 I think for now, for many sort of younger fans, it is a TV event, or it's maybe not even a TV event.

Speaker 5 It's watching YouTube of somebody else telling you what's going on as kind of, this is what football is now.

Speaker 5 And At the moment, it's kind of, you've still got the kind of older sort of fan kind of propping up, but eventually that will go.

Speaker 5 And by the time actually the big problem comes, the clubs won't care because the people making these decisions will be long gone.

Speaker 5 They would have flipped the club probably a couple of times and it'll be somebody else's problem. But it will become a problem, whether that's in five years' time, 10 years' time or 20 years' time.

Speaker 5 It's it's completely unsustainable.

Speaker 2 And actually, Barry,

Speaker 2 the problem is, isn't it? It's that constant debate about market forces and

Speaker 2 trying to introduce sort of socialism into football or like having a club going, all tickets are 30 quid because we can make money in another way.

Speaker 3 No, that won't happen. I mean, I agree with the lads, this is scandalous, but it's not particularly surprising because Villa know exactly what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 They announce these prices, their fans get outraged for a couple of days and then pay the money they're being asked for and file into Villa Park for these matches like a docile flock of sheep.

Speaker 3 And that's not to be disparaging of Villa fans. Football fans everywhere are the same.
And it's a textbook example of fans loving their clubs, but their clubs don't love them back.

Speaker 3 They don't care about them. And as hard as that is for some fans to accept, it is the fact of the matter.

Speaker 3 You know, Mark talks about these half-arsed, ineffectual protests that never work and that many people don't even notice.

Speaker 3 You know, whether it's marches in inverted comets to the ground or turning you back on the team or not entering the stadium until the fifteen minute mark.

Speaker 3 If you're going to protest, the only pro way to protest is to do it properly. Now any time anyone moots, you know, a a boycott of a game, people say, oh, well, if I don't go, my ticket will be sold.

Speaker 3 Someone else will take my seat. But if seasoned ticket holders don't go, their seats will be empty.
Now, I don't know how many season tickets there are at Villa Park.

Speaker 3 I presume it's around 30,000, maybe more. If there's 30,000 empty seats at a game, that's going to be very embarrassing for the club.

Speaker 3 And people say, oh, well, why should I take a financial hit by buying a ticket and not going? But by buying a ticket and going, you are taking a financial hit. So

Speaker 3 a protest, it has to involve, you know, a bit of sacrifice. It has to hurt you to hurt the club.
And if that means taking a £70 hit or a £90 hit for the greater good, then so be it.

Speaker 1 I remember you had this conversation about the dynamic pricing stuff

Speaker 1 on the last pod. And I just, there was a phrase in there.

Speaker 1 I think it was Valencia who put it out that, like, in line with trends in other entertainment events and things around the world, that really sort of got my hackles up a little bit because you see this as a justification quite often from clubs that say, well, if you go to the theater, it costs this much.

Speaker 1 If you go to a concert, it costs this much. But the key point here is that, like, if you go to,

Speaker 1 let's make it cold play. I know you like them.

Speaker 1 If you go to a cold play concert and like Chris Martin is like constantly falling over and vomiting on himself, there's like no expectation that the fans will like support him and get this back on track.

Speaker 1 You know, whereas football have this, there is this symbiotic relationship between the fans and the club where the fans are expected to provide atmosphere and support and whatever.

Speaker 1 And you're not expecting them to behave as normal consumers. Because normal consumers, if the game is crap and the team is terrible, they'll just not come back next week.

Speaker 1 That's that would be what it would be like.

Speaker 1 But clubs are very quick to expect loyalty and support and whatever, but they reserve the right to treat fans as just any old bunch of customers, just particularly gullible and stupid ones, is how the clubs insist on treating fans.

Speaker 1 And I just think they should be really careful with that. If you insist on treating fans as just customers, at some point they might start acting like just customers.

Speaker 1 And I don't think football clubs would like that very much.

Speaker 3 I think, Lars, if you're going to use

Speaker 3 the lead singer of a popular band falling over constantly and vomiting at himself, Oasis might have been a better analogy than cold play.

Speaker 1 Well, in this case,

Speaker 1 that's another sense where

Speaker 1 someone insisting on rinsing their fans during a cost of living crisis. I mean, maybe that seems even more apt.

Speaker 2 And also, actually, the analogy is better, I think, with the theatre. You know, like a long-running play, as if a real fan, I suppose some do go week in, week out.
to cats.

Speaker 2 You know, there are cats ultra that go week in, week out.

Speaker 1 It's slightly different, isn't it? But again, if the, if the if the characters kept like again

Speaker 1 randomly attacking each other on stage or just kind of falling down or just for forgetting the words, like you would maybe stop going every week then.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Mr. Mistopheles coughs up another furball.
We're like, come on, I'm done with this. I burned my season ticket to cats.
On the subject of PSR, let's talk about Leicester City.

Speaker 2 They've won their legal dispute with the Premier League over an alleged breach of profit and sustainability rules.

Speaker 2 They had been charged with a 24.4 million breach, which based on the punishments that Everton and Forrest got last season would have resulted in the club club being docked up to seven points if found guilty uh the premier league said it was surprised and disappointed um

Speaker 2 and uh subsequently the premier league have requested let's say to submit their 20 23 24 accounts by the end of december to establish whether they breached psr for that period as far as i can tell mark

Speaker 2 that this charge has fallen apart because

Speaker 2 Leicester got relegated and so they weren't in the Premier League when the Premier League said you've broken the Premier League's rules.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean they they moved their accounting records

Speaker 5 quite shrewdly from May to the end of June when they were in this kind of.

Speaker 2 You call it shrewd. I mean others might call it otherwise, but yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So someone's moved up in the world and you know you do more admin, I guess, these days.
So you have more of a

Speaker 5 football club like lawyer or accountant and that is their job to kind of look at this. They knew they were in trouble.

Speaker 5 Are there any loopholes?

Speaker 5 I kind of almost admire

Speaker 5 the way that they've gone

Speaker 5 about their business of moving the accounting back to the end of June, put them in this kind of no man's land of, you know, that they weren't regulated by the Premier League nor by EFL.

Speaker 5 I think the big embarrassment here is for the Premier League who like

Speaker 5 their case seemed to sort of resolve around the fact that

Speaker 5 Well, everyone knows what the rules are supposed to mean and you know we're all just going to be in it together and it's absolutely crazy that they've come to a situation where they haven't got watertight rules and that not one of the kind of very expensive, I'm presuming, early paid kind of Premier League lawyers has looked at the contract and said,

Speaker 5 what about if somebody just does X, Y or Z?

Speaker 5 And yeah, so I mean,

Speaker 5 it's a huge embarrassment to the Premier League. Leicester still might end up with a points deduction because

Speaker 5 they will have another sort of case against them for other seasons. But yeah, I sort of half admire what Leicester have done.
And

Speaker 5 yeah, it just shows the Premier League up as not really being

Speaker 5 sort of fit to run their own PSR rules.

Speaker 1 So this is calculated on a basis of like a three-year rolling registration period, you're at right. So that's 156 weeks.
I'm really good at maths, signal.

Speaker 1 156 weeks.

Speaker 1 So for the last two weeks of the 156-week rolling period, Leicester were technically speaking not in the Premier League, which means they are exempt for any kind of consequence for what may have happened in the preceding 154 weeks.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can kind of see the Premier League's point of view here: this is clearly ridiculous. Like,

Speaker 1 they very clearly overspent, and they very clearly overspent in the time they were in the Premier League. But I guess, yeah, maybe that is the future.

Speaker 1 If you're in PSR trouble, got to get yourself relegated. I mean, if Todd Bowley and the boys are listening to this, I mean, this could be a way for Chelsea to make things add up this season.

Speaker 3 Well, what Leicester have done is completely legal. They've exploited a loophole.
It's very much not in the spirit of the law, but

Speaker 3 that doesn't matter, and they don't care. They've made the Premier League look like chumps.

Speaker 3 All this just makes me think

Speaker 3 Manchester City and Lord Panic, they're just going to make mince meat of the Premier League, aren't they? They're like, absolutely.

Speaker 3 It's a completely different scenario, but they are going to run rings around the Premier League.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 they definitely haven't been relegated in this period, City. You would say.

Speaker 2 I mean, it does seem completely mad that there's a time when you have fallen out of the Premier League, but what shoot haven't done the league ladders yet? So you're not in the championship yet.

Speaker 2 And the EFL said, look, we share the frustrations of the Premier League.

Speaker 2 It cannot be right that clubs potentially escape the scrutiny of the agreed rules and sanctions due to movement across the decisions.

Speaker 2 And also, interestingly, despite the PSR rules being described as flawed by this independent commission, the Premier League's got no plans to redraft them because they're in the process of being phased out the league has introduced a trial of so-called squad cost control rules thanks for all staying awake this season under which clubs spending on players coaches and agents will be limited to a maximum of 85% of their football revenue I don't know if that includes buying hotels and selling them to yourselves and net profit loss on player sales the league hopes these rules will replace psr next season for clubs competing in europe the limit is 70 percent in line with UEFA regulations.

Speaker 2 I suppose, Mark,

Speaker 2 if you're not a Leicester fan, if you're a Leicester fan, you're like, oh, this is great. But then it sort of just becomes, you know, you're supporting lawyers.

Speaker 2 And we're talking about fans going to clubs, you know, with the Villa thing, you're supporting your lawyers. And the Everton and Forest fans are going, well, what? Well, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 And then the teams that finished below Leicester are going, well, this is also ridiculous.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, there weren't too many that finished below.

Speaker 5 Well, that's a good point, Leicester.

Speaker 5 They ended up in the same kind of situation in in terms of the championship.

Speaker 5 I think the anger from Everton and Nottingham Forest fans should be directed towards the Premier League if they've got it rather than towards Leicester.

Speaker 5 They've got better lawyers. But I think PSR has proven to be an...

Speaker 5 I was going to say an absolute failure, but I mean, I suppose if it has helped in some ways calm down some of the spending, then it's probably not a bad thing.

Speaker 5 But overall, the kind of the profit loss kind of for everybody here, I think is well in the negative. The idea that selling youth team players is

Speaker 5 the way forward. The fact that you're able to move a hotel around and that's considered right.

Speaker 5 The cost being lumped on to supporters in terms of ticketing prices. I don't think any of this has come out

Speaker 5 in a way that makes the Premier League kind of a better place to be. So I haven't looked into these new rules, Max, but hopefully

Speaker 5 you'd be hopeful.

Speaker 5 You'd be hopeful that they're at least a little bit better.

Speaker 1 Well, I would worry a little bit about Aston Villa because I was in relation to the ticket pricing stuff. I was looking at their finances.

Speaker 1 And according to the all-powerful GOAT of football finance reporting,

Speaker 1 Swiss Ramble, his excellent sub-stack,

Speaker 1 for the last years we have numbers from, which is 2022, 2023,

Speaker 1 Villa's wage to turnover ratio was 89%.

Speaker 1 89% of money that comes in, came into Aston Villa that season went straight back out into wages.

Speaker 1 Now, I don't know how the squad cost is calculated, but I suspect if 89% of your turnover goes straight into wages, you're not going to come in under 70% on the squad cost anytime soon.

Speaker 1 So they might be one of the clubs who have some issues there as well. I just would like to see clubs take more responsibility for their actions on this.

Speaker 1 Stop going like, oh, well, the rules are this, so we have to do that. Well, maybe just spend less money.
How about that?

Speaker 1 Maybe just look at what you make and look at what you're allowed to spend and sort of try to aim for that rather than just overspend and then look for people to blame and look for people to shift the costs onto.

Speaker 3 Villa should probably spend some of their revenue on a plumber who might and then they might avoid the embarrassment of

Speaker 3 the gents' toilets at the halt end

Speaker 3 overflowing with rivers of piss during their game against Arsenal earlier last weekend or the weekend before.

Speaker 5 You say that, Barry, but that happened at the Tottenham-Milan Champions League game a couple of years ago, before the match, at the new Whiteheart Lane.

Speaker 5 And as I was kind of half deciding whether to go in and sort of brave it or not, the bloke behind me just shouted, oh, this smells like the old Whiteheart Lane.

Speaker 1 Isn't it brilliant?

Speaker 1 Maybe not everybody forgets it.

Speaker 2 That's what we want. We want good ticket prices and it's a stink of dry, stale urine.
And that'll do for part one.

Speaker 2 Part two, we'll talk about actual football and Lee Carsley's first game in charge of England.

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Speaker 2 Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Ireland, England, on Saturday at 5 o'clock.
Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Ollie Watkins have withdrawn from the England squad.

Speaker 2 This is the international break that nobody wants.

Speaker 2 Arsenal fans are furious that their players haven't dropped out.

Speaker 2 They seem to think they're the only ones that stay there and eventually it'll just be Declan Rice and Bacayo Saka getting knackered against 11 Irishmen.

Speaker 2 We talked about it on Tuesday but Mark as a fellow England fan what do you make of what Lee Carsley has said and done so far?

Speaker 5 I've been reasonably excited by a new squad. I think that that has always feels fresh.
The Southgate era had definitely run its course. Even when he was sort of making surprising decisions,

Speaker 5 the same old arguments about the handbrakes being on were still there. So,

Speaker 5 you know, to see new faces is never a bad thing. You spoke about Gomez on earlier pod this week.
Interested to see Morgan Gibbs White, I think, a very talented player.

Speaker 5 Maybe not exactly what England need at the moment, given they've got many players that that can sort of fill that position and probably too many as it is, but he's somebody that I think deserves an opportunity.

Speaker 5 I think Gomez is somebody that looking to just,

Speaker 5 has he got that ability to keep the ball? You know, that argument has just gone on for too long now. And

Speaker 5 he has shown bits of that at Lille. And I'm also pleased that you can go abroad.
and get selected because I think Southgate did have a bias towards the Premier League.

Speaker 5 There were times when Chris Morling and Tamori particularly were playing really well in Syria and were kind of just disregarded as if they were playing in sort of League Two.

Speaker 5 Tammy Abraham was another one before his kind of injuries that were scoring a lot of goals at one time.

Speaker 5 And I think that Carsley hopefully is showing even in the short term a path that if kind of the young player gets stuck or even an experienced player, there is an opportunity to maintain your England spot if you're kind of not in the Premier League and I think that that that's a positive vibe.

Speaker 5 As far as Carsley goes though my concern for him is that this is a much bigger competition for him than it is those England players. You've already mentioned some of them that have withdrawn.

Speaker 5 If he has a bad Nations League, I think it becomes very difficult for the Football Association to appoint him

Speaker 5 on a long-term deal. Whether the players are that fussed about the Nations League, having been relegated from the last one, I'm not so sure.

Speaker 1 So his biggest job might be to motivate those players to be as eager as what he is um to get the wins i suppose luz perhaps in his favorite is a lot of the players know him and they might you know do it for the gaffer type yeah and also just be with england having been relegated into league b or the b tier of the nations league they're in a group with greece ireland and finland like they did this

Speaker 1 England have got an incredible squad like they they got to the final of the euros for a reason that that they shouldn't that that group should not be a problem with any sort of you you could pick an all-out B team and still comfortably win all your games in that group, really, if they're operating at anything close to maximum capacity.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to, I'm going to say that, so Mark or Max doesn't, so no one can accuse you of sort of English exceptionalism or whatever. Like

Speaker 1 one of the foreigners on the panel who quite likes making fun of England,

Speaker 1 I am here to say with that squad, you should have no problem whatsoever in that Nations League group.

Speaker 2 Barry, I don't know if you know this, but

Speaker 2 Jack Grealish played at youth level for Ireland, and Deckman Rice actually played for the senior side three times. And Lee Carsey obviously played quite a lot of times for Ireland.
39.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What do you...

Speaker 2 I mean, actually, on a serious note, like, there have been problems before when Ireland have played England. That was a long time ago.

Speaker 2 Presume it'll all be fine.

Speaker 3 I would expect so.

Speaker 3 I expect there to be a lot of... pantomime booing of Declan Rice and Jack Grealish.

Speaker 3 I hope the Ireland fans, I presume it'll be a a full house give them loads

Speaker 3 i wouldn't foresee any problems at the ground possibly outside the ground or in the city centre i i imagine england fans will probably congregate around temple bar there is

Speaker 3 dublin city centre is not a safe place to be at the moment because there's a lot of problems with um people basically bullying immigrants uh and asylum seekers.

Speaker 3 So there's a lot of violence in the city centre.

Speaker 3 I suspect there could be problems that might not have anything to do with Irish football fans, but just Irish people that are an embarrassment to their own country, which is slightly ironic because they're complaining about people who want to live in the country and will probably offer a lot more.

Speaker 3 to the country.

Speaker 3 So yeah, there could be problems. I don't foresee problems in the stadium.
Ireland fans aren't violent. They're not aggressive.
I think if anything starts, we know who will start it. But

Speaker 3 it takes two to tango, doesn't it? And I don't think Ireland fans would get involved. Beyond that, I think this is a, you know, England should win this game.
I have a feeling they might not,

Speaker 3 because I think the Euro hangover. And

Speaker 3 so for Hymer Halgrimson, the new Ireland manager, this is his first game. It's a free hit for him.
And if he can knock it out of the park, he will instantly endear himself to Ireland fans.

Speaker 3 And And he's had a free hit against England before in 2016, and he biffed that one out of the park. So let's hope he can do it again.

Speaker 2 And much as my pain, it was worth it now for the Steve McLaren watch-along on Sky Sports News. It was one of the greatest bits of television.
Yes, Lars?

Speaker 1 I'm just curious about this game.

Speaker 1 I'll be watching it intently, seeing if we will have someone score and then have to do a muted celebration because they've scored against their former country, which isn't something you typically see in international football, but that could be good.

Speaker 3 What I really hope is that if Declan Rice or Jack Greelish score, they give it back to the Irish fans. I want cupped ears, you know, finger to the lips, shushing gestures, the works.

Speaker 2 It would be amazing if Declan Rice put his hands up, you know, and said, you know, and got a round of applause for all that he's given Irish football.

Speaker 1 It would be absolutely sensational if he did that.

Speaker 2 One interesting point, Mark, is that, you know, Harry Kane looks like the only centre forward there, right? Solanke's injured. Watkins has pulled out.
Tony's not in in the squad.

Speaker 2 I think Anthony Gordon played up front for Lee Carsley in a sort of, you know, nippy, false nine-ish type way, I guess, in the 21s.

Speaker 5 Yeah, he did.

Speaker 5 And I think that was maybe one of the reasons why Football Association kind of bumped Carsley up slightly. Yeah, they won that tournament.

Speaker 5 As an international coach, you do have to sometimes think on your feet and

Speaker 5 kind of change things around because obviously in a tournament situation

Speaker 5 or even in this squad level, you can't just buy another forward. So you have to come up with creative solutions.
And he did do that.

Speaker 5 I suppose I'm not expecting Ireland to be defending anywhere sort of near the halfway line. I imagine it'll be sort of edge of the penalty box.

Speaker 5 And the same will go for the other games really that England are playing. So whether Gordon's sort of his qualities would be suited to that, I doubt.

Speaker 5 But that is in Carsley's locker to be able to create and find new positions for players.

Speaker 5 And I thought Gordon was underused at the Euros, and he always looks dangerous whenever I see him for Newcastle.

Speaker 2 When will Gareth just make some changes?

Speaker 2 Barry, Craig Bellamy's first game in charge of Wales against Dark Horses Turkey Friday night, 7.45.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so Wales are in the second tier of the Nations League in a group with Iceland, Montenegro and Turkey. Craig Bellamy's first game.
I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of team he puts out.

Speaker 3 Well, I know what kind of team he's going to put out, but how they play, what their style is going to be.

Speaker 3 I think Craig Bellamy will be a good manager for Wales. If even half the reports I've read about how meticulous his preparations are, how in-depth his knowledge of

Speaker 3 football in general, coaching, data analysis is, and his knowledge of the pool of players available to him and of Welsh players at all age levels. Is if even half of that is true,

Speaker 3 he could be

Speaker 3 you know the next Lobanowski.

Speaker 3 So people are worried about his hot-headed nature. You know, Craig Bellamy, he's growing, he's quite old now.
Um, he's a middle-aged man. He's he's not the young Craig Bellamy of your.

Speaker 3 I never saw him get particularly animated on the touchline when he was company's uh number two at Burnley and when he was in charge of the team when company was banished to the the stands

Speaker 3 he he was always very measured in his post-match interviews even if things hadn't gone his team's way as they generally didn't where as far as Burnley were concerned so I think he'd be a good manager and I would imagine he'd also be very fair with players and if if you he will have very exacting standards and if any anyone who fails to meet them will probably get kicked to the curb but otherwise I think he'll be good and Wales do need a new manager rob page was was did a decent job but things were getting very stale under him my only concern for craig would be the very limited sort of players he has at his disposal uh dan james is probably one of their better ones and he's out for this game aaron ramsey uh is captain but i think rambo's uh best days are long behind him well just on the subject of uh craig bellamy's temper uh i was nearly subjected to Craig Bellamy's temper once.

Speaker 1 Back in the olden times when I worked for Norwegian television, I was kind of covering the Oluna Socia adventure at Cardiff quite closely, and he was on the coaching staff there.

Speaker 1 And I was once in the players' tunnel at the stadium in Cardiff, and I got a text message from like HQ asking me to do something that I didn't want to do.

Speaker 1 I forget what it was, but at least I swore sort of muttered under my breath, or maybe over my breath, I said a bad word.

Speaker 1 Unbeknownst to me, that was just as Craig bellamy was walking past me in the players tunnel and and he immediately did a heel turn and kind of squared up to me and looked like he was quite keen on punching me in the face uh and was like you what mate and i was like no no no no that was i was very much like muttering at my bosses in absentia no not you craig bellamy um and that managed to kind of diffuse the situation just about and he sort of looked at me again and sort of disappeared off down the tunnel.

Speaker 1 So that's that's one. So as far as I'm aware, one national team manager who's definitely wanted to punch me at some point.

Speaker 1 Could I mean maybe if Moisey gets the Scotland gig, that could make it too. So I mean an exciting development for me.

Speaker 2 And you've got the Moise anecdote in your locker. So look, we'll save that for another day.

Speaker 1 Even less interesting than the anecdote I just deployed on us. But I figured

Speaker 1 what is International Week for if not this sort of nonsense?

Speaker 2 Barry, Scotland. play Poland.

Speaker 2 They're in League A, aren't they? So that's tricky. Poland, Portugal, and Croatia.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Scotland's nations league record is terrible. They've only won once in 12 attempts, and that was against Gibraltar.
Scotland's fans, obviously, provided some very memorable moments at Euro 2024.

Speaker 3 Their football team, not so much, took one point from three games. And fans at home were very angry with them at how poor they were.
They still failed to win a game at a major tournament.

Speaker 3 I have no idea how many attempts it is at this stage.

Speaker 3 Steve Clark, he probably need, you know, some decent results in this nations league to retain confidence of the fans, and it's going to be difficult to get results because it's been promoted to this division.

Speaker 3 Portugal and Croatia are very difficult games. Poland are more or less in the same situation as Scotland, had a very underwhelming, typically underwhelming performance at the Euros.

Speaker 3 Noel James Forrester, Greg Taylor, for this.

Speaker 3 Ryan Gould

Speaker 3 of the Vancouver Whitecaps fame, he's in

Speaker 3 and could make his first appearance for Scotland. And yeah, I'd say Scotland could really do, or well, Steve Clark could really do with a win here.

Speaker 5 And if you finish in the top two in League A now, they've extended the Nations League. So it used to be you had to win the group to get to the next phase, which is the semi-finals.

Speaker 5 But everyone knows there's not enough football at the moment.

Speaker 5 So we extended the nations league by um another round so um yeah there's a quarter finals before the semi-finals and final brilliant brilliant and there's also relegation playoffs which i think are a new thing as well it's you know making making a competition

Speaker 3 a lot of people already have no understanding of more competition

Speaker 1 you know well done uefa

Speaker 2 um quickly barry uh northern ireland luxembourg how are the how's northern ireland shaping up?

Speaker 3 Northern Ireland are in the third tier. They're in a group with Luxembourg, Bigleria, Belarus.
You know, this team is obviously pitting teams of the same sort of ability against each other.

Speaker 3 They play Luxembourg, I think it's tonight. Yep, tonight.
Johnny Evans is retired. So Michael O'Neill is going to rotate the armband.

Speaker 3 as he sort of auditions various successors and Sunderland defender Trey Hume will be wearing it tonight.

Speaker 3 You know, the way people are always obsessed with who's the captain of a team, and it really doesn't make any difference. So, I was impressed.

Speaker 3 Trey Hume was asked, you know, will the burden of the captaincy weigh upon your biceps or your shoulders and affect your performance? And he went, Look, it's not really going to be any different.

Speaker 3 I'm just putting a bit of cloth around my arm.

Speaker 3 So, well done, Sunderland's Trey Hume.

Speaker 2 He sounds ideal for the job.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so Michael and Eal has basically said this competition doesn't really matter how we do about it. It's all about developing a very young and inexperienced squad, and he's probably right.

Speaker 2 Elsewhere, Ronald Kuhman's given some quite strong reasons for leaving Stephen Bergwine out of his squad after Bergwine moved to Saudi Arabia. The book is basically closed to him.

Speaker 2 He knows what I think about this. When you're 26, your main ambition should be sporting, not financial.
These are choices that players make.

Speaker 2 I've never been in that situation because I could go to Barcelona. Not like Kuhman to say, hey, I was good good at football.

Speaker 2 He could have said it, Ajax, that's not bad, is it? You have to respect that choice, but personally, I wouldn't have moved.

Speaker 3 Sorry, just to be clear, didn't Randall Kuhman take someone who plays in the Saudi pro league to the Euros?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Vinaldum was in the side. Yes, Genie Williams.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and

Speaker 1 he did address that. He said something along the lines of, you know, Vijnaldum had a difficult situation at PSG.
He needed to play.

Speaker 1 But it's like, probably could have gotten a contract somewhere in Europe, couldn't he? So

Speaker 1 it's not an entirely valid reason. But it's an interesting subject because I wonder, like, is Ivan Tony going to be considered for selection, for instance?

Speaker 1 Because I would always think once a player decides to basically kind of pack it in in terms of elite club football, if you move to Saudi, you're no longer playing at a credible level day to day.

Speaker 1 But there can be a situation where you have players who play in a position where you're a little bit short and you really need someone.

Speaker 1 So given England's slight sort of striker shortage, I do wonder how the Tony thing will develop in the next couple of years.

Speaker 2 Speaking about players who play in Saudi Arabia, did anyone see Cristiano Ronaldo suggesting that he, once he realizes he's got nothing to offer Portugal, he will step aside?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 does anybody want to tell him?

Speaker 1 No, no.

Speaker 2 You crack on, Cristiano. Luis Suarez has announced his retirement from international football at Uruguay's game against Paraguay on Saturday will be his last.

Speaker 2 He played in nine international tournaments.

Speaker 5 Most memorable, would you go handball, then the bite then some of his goals but but you know i don't know mark when he was crying i thought like fair enough like he's got he's got a bit of scoundrel in him but we'll miss him not an easy person to love if he doesn't play for your team i think it it's fair to say um given all the incidents i thought he was over criticized though for the the the handball um against garner i that was a

Speaker 5 and a very natural instinct. I'd actually been surprised if any professional footballer just allowed that to go in at the time that it was.

Speaker 5 So that didn't feel like kind of as disgraceful as some of the other things that's been involved in as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah, actually, do you know what? The Patrice Evre racism thing completely slipped my mind when I was, you know, gently saying a bit of scoundrel.

Speaker 3 Lars, Norway.

Speaker 2 You've got Kazakhstan away, Austria at home. You've got some good players.
What's going on? Will you be good yet?

Speaker 1 I mean, we have some good players, but mostly in the same area of the team.

Speaker 1 Defensively, things are slightly concerning.

Speaker 1 That shouldn't matter against Kazakhstan, but it's more likely to matter against Austria.

Speaker 1 And I've also, I've been on a whole sort of.

Speaker 1 I know this is the international window nobody likes.

Speaker 1 I am kind of hyped for international football. I really enjoyed the Euros.
I had a great time with the Euros. I enjoyed football more during the Euros than I think I have for a while.

Speaker 1 And I'm now like more keen than ever to see my country actually get to one of these things.

Speaker 1 and doing well in the nations league can end up mattering you know i know if you're an english listener it feels like the nations league doesn't matter because i think for the clubs who are going to qualify for the tournaments anyway they they they kind of don't but

Speaker 1 they can be coefficient things to be

Speaker 1 there's some there's some sense in the the nations league it it can make your difference and but i but i i even that even with Even with that at the back of my mind, I'm

Speaker 1 not massive. I gotta say, I'm not massively hyped for Kazakhstan away.
Like, that's not, that isn't a huge one. But on Friday, I mean, France plays Italy on Friday.

Speaker 2 If they bring in dynamic pricing for Kazakhstan away, Lars, that's not gonna.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Trouble being the airlines very much do dynamic pricing.
So I think the flights to get to Almaty is not the cheapest place in the world to travel to.

Speaker 1 I guess the only sort of big thing from Norway Corner at the moment is that we've had a player reject the Norwegian national team this week. We have Osam Saraoui, who I I believe is born in Norway.

Speaker 1 I know he's born in Norway, but he plays for Lil now. He's decided to represent Morocco rather than the Norwegian national team, having been involved in the under,

Speaker 1 the sort of various age groups previously, but not been capped properly yet.

Speaker 1 And that's prompted some soul searching in the Norwegian footballing sphere about whether enough is being done to you know, reach out to players who have other options, but who might not be in the senior squad right now.

Speaker 1 And it also prompts the question of should we even be doing that? Is it more a case of just let players pick whichever country they feel affiliated with?

Speaker 1 So that's been a whole debate, which is, I wanted to bring up because I think that that might be something that happens in other countries as well.

Speaker 1 And it is a fascinating thing about modern international football is that more and more players have more than one country they could play for.

Speaker 1 And to what extent should FAs basically be trying to recruit players or should we just wait for them to do what they want to do?

Speaker 1 That is a subject that fascinates me a little bit. And that's been kind of coloring the whole thing this week for us.

Speaker 2 Anyway, that'll do for part two.

Speaker 2 Mark will defend the new Champions League format in part three.

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Speaker 4 Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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Speaker 2 Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. Mark, you wanted to launch a defense of the new Champions League format.
Are you in the pocket of Big UAF?

Speaker 2 Is that Leonardo Shefferin in his shiny shoes sitting next to you? Were we too dour? Were we too... Barry wasn't, of course,

Speaker 2 but yeah, I was a bit football dinosaur about it all.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I was doing the washing and drying up while listening to the pod, sort of getting more angry at kind of the suggestion that it was Barry.

Speaker 2 Scrubbing the meat off a big baking jar.

Speaker 1 I can see it, a roasting tin dripping everywhere. Yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we did have lamb steaks, actually.

Speaker 5 But yeah, it was uh it i i agree with barry that i think the worst outcome here is that it's as dull as what the current champions league um group stages are um i think that playing eight different teams is better and now you can argue i totally get the point that there's too much football and you know maybe six is better but you know you you guys were sort of saying that you know you wanted the sort of revenge factor of playing the same team again sort of you know three weeks later i i mean i'm much more excited by when I looked at the fixture list seeing the fact that teams are playing against eight different teams felt more exciting immediately to me um you you spoke about the fact of you know it kind of uh robbing fans of trips to good away cities or whatever but yeah taking that back that doesn't make sense because you still have good away there's actually more there's now four to choose from rather than um three uh there are more games at the level for each team so a pop one team never used to play against another pop one team in the group phase, but now they'll play two games against sort of a fellow big hitter.

Speaker 5 I also think that will encourage the teams at the bottom to not feel like they're kind of tailed off, you know, right from the start because they're playing against two teams theoretically at a similar level because, you know, a pop four team used to...

Speaker 5 just be massive outsiders against everybody they played. They've now got at least a couple of matches where

Speaker 5 you will want to have got a chance of winning. If you look at, I thought you were disparaging about kind of when you get through to kind of the top eight, oh, that's done.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's not because you're seeded right through. Your league placing determines your place in the draw for future rounds.

Speaker 5 So the higher up the league table you finish theoretically, the better chance you've got of winning the competition or getting easier draws.

Speaker 5 And we've seen a a lot of teams, the usual suspects, be through after three matches, and there's actually nothing for them to play for. In this case, you will want to finish first or maybe second,

Speaker 5 third, etc. So it'll keep everybody honest, I think, until the end.

Speaker 5 I'm going to get a little bit mathematical now, but the Monte Carlo method...

Speaker 2 I mean, you've already, as producer Joel says, you've already ripped us a new one. You've torn us apart here.
This must be how the Premier League felt.

Speaker 5 here we go carry on so the monte carlo uh method is where you run a series of simulations to kind of model um it can be anything you know an nhs would do it on on various things but um from a football point of view or a sporting point of view kind of 10 000 sort of runnings of a competition for a computer is seen as a generally a good guide and i think that that suggests that for you to get um you know in the top eight you're going to need uh there's 76% chance you'll need 15 points.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 a lot of teams are going to have to keep winning to get into that top eight.

Speaker 5 And then if you look at sort of some of them teams, like Bayern, Liverpool, Barcelona, only got a 50 to 60% chance of actually finishing in the top eight.

Speaker 5 And a lot of big teams that we kind of come to expect

Speaker 5 into Atletico Madrid, they're less than a 50% chance of qualifying for the top eight, which again, I think will make the playoff round potentially better.

Speaker 5 I know from sort of in F1, I was speaking to somebody who does the analytics for a team and they actually do a million simulations of each race. So

Speaker 5 after about two laps, they know exactly what's going on. I mean, one real race is shite.

Speaker 1 Imagine a million simulators.

Speaker 5 So yeah, so this was done on 10,000 and some of the data there is from a Twitter site, Twitter handle, Football Meets Data.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I just felt that at worst, it would be, as Barry says, like just as bad as what the current format is.

Speaker 2 You've made it sound like the greatest football tournament it's ever been. But you know, you have like you make some really good points.

Speaker 3 And I well, watching your face there, Max, as your arguments were just dismantled one by one, was an absolute joy.

Speaker 2 No, I was just afraid there's none of them are really my arguments. I just said it looks psych.
I, you know, I hadn't done much.

Speaker 1 Well, blame the lads who are

Speaker 1 cheering to defend.

Speaker 5 Maybe I wouldn't have been so bullish if Belika was sort of on the floor.

Speaker 2 I'm throwing O'Claire and Chowdhury under the bus there, Mike. Many apologies.

Speaker 2 Since we have two Spurs fans on,

Speaker 2 we might as well do five minutes on how their season started, Lars. Do we have to?

Speaker 2 Well, I just feel like they should have nine points.

Speaker 2 I feel like we should be sitting there going, second season of Ange is going great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're not, though. I'm

Speaker 1 slightly worried about two out of the three performances, and the one I'm not worried about was against Everton. So, you know, that could be who knows.
I just,

Speaker 1 there's an element of that draw against Leicester and the defeat against Newcastle.

Speaker 1 It just kind of felt like games we'd seen a lot of times before in the attempt at Tottenham have a lot of possession. They do very well getting to the final third, but

Speaker 1 they get a little bit like the decision-making in the final third and finding the right pass at the right time. That seems to be a problem.

Speaker 1 So, with all this territorial advantage they have, they don't actually create that many huge chances.

Speaker 1 And then they concede unnecessary and slightly daft goals, possibly as a consequence of playing with a very high amount of risk. I feel like we've seen that film quite a few times now.

Speaker 1 So it worries me that within that exact trajectory kind of happens in three in two out of three games at the start of the season. That makes me feel like lessons haven't really been learned.

Speaker 1 And that's something that would concern me a little bit.

Speaker 5 I'm worried that the next game is against Arsenal. And if that result goes badly at home, I feel like

Speaker 5 those that are still on the fence as to whether this is the right way to go will maybe tip the other way

Speaker 5 given who the opponents are.

Speaker 5 I'm more in your camp, Max, that I felt pretty comfortable watching those three games in terms of the overall performance and the fact that their three sort of strikers were missing against Newcastle.

Speaker 5 If you include Lancashire as the third one behind Rich Alison and Solanke, that did impact, I think, the overall result.

Speaker 5 The second goal for Newcastle, I prefer to look at that as really good play from Newcastle. Joe Linton got out of the press, and

Speaker 5 it was a

Speaker 5 great pass, great run, and

Speaker 5 Tottenham were undone in that moment. But I was happy enough with the three performances so far, but not the results.

Speaker 5 I've avoided Tottenham content this week because

Speaker 5 it's getting quite noisy, I would say.

Speaker 1 I would just impress upon the panel that I'm much happier in general than I was during the sort of nonsense era of sort of Mourinho and Conte, where the club was just completely misguided in its sort of general direction.

Speaker 1 And I accept that conceding the odd, unnecessary goal is kind of just an offshoot of wanting to play in the manner that I enjoy watching them play. I just think when

Speaker 1 you're making some sacrifices,

Speaker 1 it's the short blanket theory that Sid always brings up. Is that a Rafa Benitezism? I think it is.
It's like in football, you can either cover your legs or you can cover your chest.

Speaker 1 Like one of those things are going to stick out.

Speaker 1 And there's one area of the team that Tottenham's current approach is not covering very well. And that's fine.
I'd much rather watch a team that does that.

Speaker 1 But then you do actually have to have a bit of killer instinct when you do get to the final third.

Speaker 1 And maybe this will transform when Solanke becomes available again. I think the lack of a clear centre-forward who makes sort of centre-forward runs has been a bit of an issue.

Speaker 1 Trust Tottenham to sign a striker whose like chief weapon is that he's always fit and available and never gets hurt. And then he immediately gets hurt.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is the kind of thing that just very spursy, isn't it?

Speaker 2 John says, having narrowly missed out on Jamaica, isn't it great that Steve Bruce still got himself a dream job by the beach?

Speaker 2 Yes, Blackpool have appointed Steve Bruce as their head coach on a two-year deal, his first job since being sacked by West Brom in October 2022 uh we wish steve bruce all the best although i say that as another team struggling near the bottom of league one i i wish him no luck at all because god we need we need some teams to struggle if we're going to survive john bruin did an excellent football daily yesterday where it was just

Speaker 3 one sort of club announcement after another saying you know uh huddersfield Hull, Sunderland, whoever, West Brom, Newcastle, announcing the departure.

Speaker 3 We'd like to thank Steve for his efforts, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just a big long litany does.
And then the Blackpool announcement.

Speaker 1 We welcome Steve Bruce.

Speaker 2 That isn't fair, is it? I mean,

Speaker 2 you could do that with any manager. He's a lovely man, Steve Bruce.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we wish him all the best. No, we don't.
I don't wish him all the best, but I hope he has a nice time all the same.

Speaker 2 Nick says, who from the pod would be unable to sit in row A of the Milton End at Fratton Park?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Sheffield United's fan services tweeted ticket information for our trip to Portsmouth, including Portsmouth have advised that supporters under five foot four will not be able to see the pitch if they're seated in row A.

Speaker 2 If you're below this height, please select a row further back. I mean, that's not tall, but like, it's not tiny, is it? A lot of children will be under 5'4.

Speaker 2 And even if you're 5'5, like, you... like can you see all of it at 5'4 ⁇ 5?

Speaker 1 What happened? Big Kileroy was here. This man peeping up.

Speaker 5 I might be okay, Max. I might just be all right.
Depends how my hair is styled.

Speaker 5 I might have to flatten it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's as Joel says, it's just like the neighbor from home improvement.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Angel Gomez would struggle. We need to see over that.
Anyway, that'll do for today. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you, Lars. Thank you, Max.
Thank you, Mark.

Speaker 5 Thank you, Max. Thank you, Barry.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Put a weekly is produced by Joel Grove.
Our executive producer is Phil Maynard. We'll be back on Monday.

Speaker 1 This is The Guardian.