Noni Madueke: Chelsea hero and villain of Wolverhampton – Football Weekly podcast

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Maybe Chelsea have a plan after all.

Nonni Madowake takes aim at Wolverhampton and then scores a hat-trick.

Six goals.

Cole Palmer looking great.

Nicholas Jackson scoring and Pedro Netto having a nice time at his former club.

Brighton beat Manchester Manchester United as usual.

Josh Zerxi in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then Jao Pedro completely unmarked in injury time.

Thankfully for Eric Tinhag, the Crisis Club at the moment are Everton.

Their second hammering of the season this time at Spurs.

Arsenal ride their luck.

Brackett's Ollie Watkins off day to get a massive win at Villa Park.

The instant impact of Leandro Trossard.

Arne is slotting right in at Anfield.

Ipswich scored way too early at the Etihad.

Damal Pitts and some clothes lines at Bournemouth.

Thomas Suchek and Jared Bowen save a ballboy.

Fulham season is off and running and once again we won't talk about Nottingham Forest enough.

Lots to get through, plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

Jonathan Wilson, hello.

Morning, how are you doing?

I'm good, thank you.

And Matthew says, no questions.

But what a stellar panel.

Seb Hutchison has to be one of the best commentators in the business.

Yes, the man who carried Andros Townsend at the Euros.

Welcome, Seb.

How are you?

Who wrote that, by the way?

Well, Matthew wrote that bit.

I wrote the carried bit.

Okay, good.

But really, I'm having a go at Troy over Andros, really.

But, you know, you were both great in the Euros, may I say?

Thank you, and thank you on Andros' behalf as well.

Oh, great.

Can you get him now?

I'll log off and I'll get him on.

Hold on, give me five minutes.

Great.

Anyway, let's start at Mollin.

You were there, weren't you, Seb?

James says, is Madowake turning up in Wolverhampton, calling the entire place shit and scoring a hat-trick the turning point Chelsea needed?

Or are they going to sell him instead?

It was a brilliant game, Seb, wasn't it?

I think the first half was the best, a most enjoyable first half I've covered for some time.

It was chaos.

And I think it was very Chelsea as well.

The way they started, you thought, they've got some good players.

And then before you know it, it's 1-1.

Wolves were flying into tackles.

It was a rivalry I didn't realize existed until that day.

And I don't know if that's Madweke's fault.

Probably he played a huge part.

But for some reason, Kunha really, really disliked Nicholas Jackson.

And I couldn't really work out why during the first half something's gone on i don't know what it was but maybe that will come out at some point lee hendry was next to you wasn't it because i i you were doing the comms for international tv so i i i listened to your comms and he couldn't believe any of it i mean he was it was almost like he'd just been born that day he was absolutely loving but to the point where i think lee claimed that palmer's goal was already the goal of the season which is

i always think is an amazing shout in game week two and uh yeah, I thought it was a good goal from Palmer.

I wouldn't maybe rank it that early.

I'll give it a few more months, maybe.

But

I found,

I love games like that.

I mean, who doesn't unless you support one of those sides or manage one of those sides?

And certainly the first half, I would love every single Premier League game to be like that.

Wouldn't that be amazing?

The second half, I think the first 15 minutes, I do believe Wolves forgot.

Maybe Lamina and João Gomez forgot about that area they have to cover in front of the defence.

That disappeared very quickly.

And so did Wolfs' chances of winning the game.

Although even at 5-2, I think Lamina had a shot that went in and then was disallowed.

And I was thinking,

do I say at this point, game on again?

I don't know what to say in a match like this.

It felt like it.

Anything was possible.

Nonni Medweke then, Barry.

I mean, it is great, isn't it?

He posted an Instagram story on Saturday night that said,

everything about this this place is shit.

He then posted damn wrong Instagram account at You Lot Are Fast,

which makes you wonder what private Instagram accounts of footballers are like.

And I mean, it does give rise to so many questions.

How much of Wolverhampton does Notting Bad Waker get to see before a game?

I mean, they don't do an open top bus tour before they play, do they?

And then to go and score a hat-trick.

I mean, the whole thing is sort of perfect.

Yeah, as someone who has in the past incurred the wrath of the entire population of Wolverhampton for comments I made on this podcast, I feel Nonny's pain,

but he got to sort of retaliate immediately when he became the subject of the riar and was booed from the first whistle.

Often in these games, you know, when there's eight goals, it's hard to remember

them all and comment on them individually.

But Nanny was very helpfully, more or less, scored the same goal three times, which I thought was nice of him.

Three assists from Cole Palmer.

And then after the game, you know, all very good finishes.

He kind of had Ryan Aitnuri on toast.

He didn't know whether he was coming or going.

And Madowake

pretty

accomplished on both feet, which didn't help Aitnuri's cause.

After the game, Madowake said in an interview, you know, I'm Ice, Cole Palmer's fire, channelling his inner House of the Dragon.

And I did watch series two of Ice.

I'm one of the weirdos who sat through the entire boring second series of House of the Dragon.

And one of the main plot points in that is Queen Rhinera Targaryen didn't have enough dragon riders, you know, people to ride her dragons.

And that is not something that would happen at Chelsea.

There's no shortage of dragon riders there.

So Nani Madowake came into the lineup, made his case for his inclusion in their next game.

And I really enjoyed this game.

As Seb said, it was totally chaotic.

But Wolves definitely have issues.

They had a shocking finish to last season.

They haven't started this one particularly well.

They've sold Max Killman.

Nelson Samedo was suspended yesterday, and they either need to up their game in defence

pretty, well, not pretty quickly,

or else get some defenders in.

They do have a very difficult opening to the season.

I mean, I think seven of their first 10 games are really difficult assignments.

This was

almost always going to be one of them, and they've come out on the wrong end of a tonking.

Yeah, yeah, they've played Arsenal Chelsea.

They've still got Villa, Liverpool and City in the sort of next seven.

Matter of fact, he did say, I just want to apologise to everyone that I might have offended.

It's just a human mistake, an accident.

It wasn't meant to be out on my socials like that.

I'm sure Wolverhampton is a nice town, and I'm sorry.

I mean, the thing about Chelsea Wilson is, and we've said it every time, like, of course, it's batch.

The club and the plan is batch it, but they have got loads of really good players at the same time.

Yeah, I saw people sort of trying to claim that, oh, yeah, everybody's been too hasty to say it's chaotic there.

But that was an incredibly chaotic game.

Yeah, that first half was as chaotic as football gets, which was great.

That was why it was so good to watch.

But the idea that this means the chaos is over is nonsense.

I mean, maybe Madowake playing like that, it slightly takes a sting out of the Vahim Sterling situation that that would obviously be worse were they struggling to get a tune out of their wide forwards.

I think you saw Madowake

his pace, the fact he's good with both feet, the link up with Palmer, which I guess comes from their days together with England at youth level.

All of that suggests that he is the better option on the right.

So it's obviously a good thing to win a game of 6-2, but the idea that this somehow

second half suddenly justifies everything that's gone before, particularly when they didn't even start the game with any of the nine players, nine players, ten players they've signed this summer.

Yeah,

it's still chaos.

If they were just losing all the time, that wouldn't be chaos.

That would just be bad.

Chaos means there's good and bad.

So

it remains chaotic, but obviously it's a much more possible chaotic this week than it was last week.

And in terms of Wolverhampton, I think Molyneux is quite a nice guy.

I enjoy going there.

I think, unfortunately, the very good falafel shop that's between the station and the stadium has now closed down.

Which, given it was like £4, one of the best falafel wraps I've ever had, maybe they, yeah, we should have just charged more.

Anyway, too late for that.

But I did go there during lockdown, and I do remember, I think it was one of the lowest moments I've had during lockdown: there's an underpass you go under.

So you've got the sort of town halls behind you to the right.

You go under an underpass, and Molyneux in front of you.

And that underpass was completely deserted.

There was sort of, you know, some ancient chip wrappers sort of being blown about by this kind of quite cold wind.

And this is a sense of,

I mean, it really felt like there was a pandemic on and everybody being killed.

There was nobody about.

And then got into the stadium.

And the thing I remember, and it was a real sort of, you know, it was like going to Pompeii or something, that the board outside the Bookies had the odds on first scorer, clearly from the last game when anybody had been there, which was sort of, six months earlier.

There was definitely a not a shitness to it, but a bleakness to it that day.

So, Madwayke, because the falafels have gone.

I'm not saying it's shit, but it's shitter than it was when the falafel shop was there.

That's all I'm saying.

Got it, right?

That's not to write off the entire place.

Just if they could bring back that falafel shop,

it would take it back to the levels it used to be at.

I'd just like to say for the benefit of listeners that Wilson visibly grimaced when I started talking about

House of the Dragon and then went on a three-minute monologue about Falafel shops,

it was because I didn't want to spoil this because I'm two episodes in.

I found it quite a slow burnout.

And so it's been a bit of an effort.

It doesn't get any quicker, I can tell you that.

I mean, if it didn't get any quicker and you told me the key thing that happened, that would have been really.

I would have been worse than Wolverhampton.

Anyway, let's go to the Amex, Brighton 2.

Manchester United 1.

Daniel says, are you planning to have your biannual, I can't believe Man United lost to Brighton?

Nothing like this has ever happened before discussion again.

Maybe you could just replay the segment from one of the five times it's happened in the last three years.

Manchester United have not won their opening two Premier League games since 2017.

I think before this game, I think we all thought Brighton might or probably would win.

Jonathan, you were there.

How was it?

Well,

I've seen all three United games so far this season, and they've all been quite similar in that they're clearly a bit better than last year, but probably not enough better.

And so that first half hour, I was sort of of thinking, God, what am I going to write here?

Because,

you know, they're okay.

The local commentator from whatever the Radio Manchester, whatever, was sitting behind me.

Was you not brilliant, they're pressing brilliantly.

I thought, sure, they are.

They're pressing okay.

Were you on co-cons?

That'd be nice.

I mean, if anyone's to play me to co-comms, I'm quite, quite,

quite happy to do that.

And then they just don't do really simple things well enough.

So,

you know, Rashford loses the ball cheaply.

It's a really sort of ill-conceived pass.

It was never going to get to Bino Fernandes.

They lose possession.

Dallo then just doesn't make any effort to close down Japedro.

There's loads of time to put the ball in.

Maguire maybe could have got there.

There was certainly the clip that came up on the monitor in the stadium.

You could really clearly see him saying to Casemiro, I couldn't see the ball.

So Casemiro had said to him,

what on earth are you doing?

How come you haven't cleared that?

And he was just sort of sad, I couldn't see it.

So I don't know if that was shown sort of more widely, but I don't know if he was referring to that first ball in or when it comes back across from Matoma got behind Nasrawi, both of which were a winger shouldn't be getting behind a fullback like that.

And then the fact that Welbeck is sort of just unmarked, three yards out, nobody's gotten away.

It was just every bit of that goal was bad from a United point of view.

And yet, it wasn't even the worst goal they conceded that day.

The winner was just bewildering.

I mean,

Ten Haag

kind of,

he was sort of asked,

does it bother you that nobody picked up the three Brighton Blazers at the back post when there were nine players, nine United players in the box?

I annoyingly said eight in my match report, and I only realised on telly afterwards, I think Anthony just takes a step into the box right at the last second.

He's nowhere near the ball.

So it was nine United players in the box, but none of them in the back half of a six-yard box.

And the thing Ten Hague was more angry about was the fact that nobody tried to show a dinger onto his left foot.

They let him cut back onto his right foot and dink the ball across.

So, again, everything about that goal is just horrendous defensively.

And that's not to do with processes or shape or pressing.

It's just really basic application.

And that, I think, is what continues to be worrying about United.

There's just some really simple stuff that they don't do that really ordinary teams would be annoyed not to do.

I did think when Dillicht looked around, I was like, why is nobody, why is nobody there?

I just wonder if the sort of penny dropped for anyone, ah,

this is what it's going to be like.

The other brilliant moment said was Josh Zerxe as well.

I mean, it's really unlucky, but it's also absolutely hilarious that he

basically had a, was just in the wrong place completely, and that meant Man United didn't get what would have potentially been a winner.

What I love about moments like that is the way he's apologising as he's sliding towards the line.

It's almost like,

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

This was a good move, and it's not going to count.

And oh, my goodness, me.

I find him a fascinating player, Xerxe, because he's a classic case of one of those players where you have to watch him to describe him properly.

And by that, I mean when he arrived, so many people had thoughts about what type of player he was.

You know,

have they bought the same player as Hoyland?

Have they bought just a big lump up front?

And he's not really, he's not that at all.

He's a player we've already seen from his goal from the first match day against Fulham.

He's a player who has deft touches, links up the play a little bit, but that makes me think where does he fit into this Manchester United system long term?

Because I essentially thought that was the role that they're asking Bruno Fernandes to play at the moment.

I find Manchester United fascinating at this point in time because if you had gone back 10 years ago and you'd ask Manchester United supporters, going away to Brighton is a tough match.

And if we get anything from here, it's going to be quite the result.

The readjustment in the minds of Manchester United supporters now, as you said, the local commentator waxing lyrical about their pressing.

I mean, how far the great have fallen, that that is their standard now.

But yet they cling on, the club clings on to this idea of signing the biggest names in the world.

And I think that just drives them on.

That's the one thing that they can fall back on every summer.

We'll sign a player or players that people have heard of.

And that will keep the commercial flag flying.

But as a club competing for the biggest trophies, how far they've fallen off that pedestal, it's unbelievable.

To be fair, they have signed one of the biggest players in the world in Joshua Xerxe.

He was enormous.

Like, I'm not saying he's unfit or that he's fat or anything.

He's just a really big bloke.

He's the biggest, he's got to be the biggest Premier League player since Tom Boddleston, who I know left Manchester United in the summer to take up a role with England on 21s.

Almost like Carrington literally just wasn't big enough for the both of them.

Speaking of signings, and Kieran Maguire tweeted this, and it's a point made a lot, Barry, but Brighton's starting eleven cost £75 million.

And two of those, that Minter and Pedro, cost 60 million between them.

So the rest of them, and Gilmore nine, so, you know, if you take eight of their players, cost nothing, basically, four million quid.

Like, together it's less than Anthony.

Are you saying that Brighton are a well-run club with a good recruitment policy and academy?

But even that is that is

a revelation.

I know.

Yeah, I mean, we're we're already doing that thing we always do and lots of people do where we're analysing Manchester United's dismal performance and not really giving Brighton any credit.

But Manchester United lost, I think, 14 games last season in the league.

So at what point are we going to stop being surprised when they lose matches in the Premier League?

It's a very regular occurrence and Brighton are a really good team.

Fabian Herzler seems to really know what he's doing.

His substitutes were a lot better than, or his substitutions were a lot better than Eric Ten Haggs.

He made a triple substitution on 88 minutes.

Yassini Yari, Simon Odingra and Jorginho Rutter came on and they all contributed to the win.

Brighton are hugely, hugely impressive.

The mixture of academy graduates in their really cheap purchases and Yankuba Minta who they bought from Newcastle really looks like a good player.

Admittedly, I've only seen him play twice.

I hadn't really heard of him before he left Newcastle for Brighton in that fire sale at the end of June.

I mean, Manchester United weren't as terrible as they have been in various games we've seen them lose.

But I do think that FA Cup final win, which, as impressive as it was, really did cover a multitude of sins.

And I still not sure what Eric Ton Hagg's master plan is.

I don't know if he has one.

And

I don't think he'll be there come season's end.

I think he could be gone by Christmas.

I wonder if Danny Welbeck had just stayed there.

If they'd be better.

We said he was eternal last week.

It's his 100th goal, career goal.

I did write, what's your favourite Danny Welbeck goal?

I mean, points for remembering.

He's 67th.

Thanks, Sam.

Yeah, mine too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Could any, but that's interesting, isn't it?

He's got 100 career goals.

And apart from yesterday's, I can't remember any of them.

And I know that he scored last week.

Well, that's not a criticism of Danny Welbeck.

I don't know what it is, but I just can't.

Well, he scored 100 career goals.

I think

six of them have been against Manchester United.

I presume quite a few of them have been for Manchester United.

But when they were saying it was his hundredth goal, I presumed it was his 100th Premier League goal.

Because 100 club goals for he's

not particularly young as Danny Welbeck.

It doesn't seem a huge amount.

I think his first for Manchester United was 2008.

We're going back a fair portion of time.

Was it him who scored that sort of clever flick against Sweden?

Yes.

Yeah, that was a.

I mean,

I had to check who it was.

It wasn't that memorable a goal.

But it was a quite memorable goal.

Well, well done.

In year 2012.

Right.

Yeah, I can't remember it.

But I really, I mean, it seems to get better every year for me, yes, Barry.

On talk sport, Gabi had Bon Lahore is a regular presenter or co-presenter, and they always introduce him as Aston Villa's record goal scorer with however many goals it is.

He scored for Villa.

And I often think I cannot remember a single goal that Gabiag Bondlahor ever scored.

Not one.

There we are.

He's in the same bracket.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two will begin at Villa Park.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Guardian Football Weekly.

So, yeah, Villa Nil, Arsenal 2, how they needed Gabiag Bonlahor, Barry.

Because, Baz, Ollie Watkins just had a day, didn't he?

It felt like a game.

And I know it's such a cliche that, you know, goals change games and you, you know, if you take your chances at the right time, but two massive chances for him.

Yeah,

he missed more or less an open goal after being teed up by Morgan Rodgers, who capitalised on it or pounced on a Gabrielle mistake.

A goal you would expect Watkins to score in his sleep.

And then in the second half, when Amadou Inana's deflected shot hit the bar, bounced off, he had the whole goal to aim at.

And unfortunately,

from about six or seven yards, and unfortunately, his

was a diving/slash stooping header.

He picked the one bit of the goal that David Rea had managed to get back to his feet and block.

It was a wonderful save.

It proved to be the turning point in the game.

Then Leandro Trossard came on, scored one, helped create the second.

Leandro Trossard, clearly not happy at not being in the starting lineup.

I suspect he will be in the starting lineup for Arsenal's next game.

Does it feel like a statement win for Arsenal, that said?

Like, it is not easy to go to Asnovella.

They got beaten by them twice last season.

To win this game, and they had a bit of fortune, but they really contributed to the game as well.

Like, feels huge, I think.

Yes, I think with the present Manchester City in the Premier League, I never know what a statement win is because a statement win is statement wins every single week to maintain, to keep up with what they're doing.

I think Arsenal are in a special place in terms of the way they're playing and their aura defensively.

I actually thought Villa at times had opportunities to get through them, and of course, Morgan Rodgers, you know, being

compared to Jude Bellingham after one game.

These sort of things can happen in matches.

I don't think they're going to concede many goals this season, Arsenal.

I do think, though, and you're going to go on to talk about Manchester City, of course, but the main difference between the two clubs, I think, is represented in Kai Havertz and Martin Erdegaard and Haaland and De Bruyne.

And when you watch De Bruyne, he just gets on with it.

When he gets the ball, he looks to hurt the opposition immediately.

Erdegaard tends to take a few too many touches and Arsenal, you feel, are going to have a problem at times this season breaking teams down and may have to work a lot harder to earn victories and that could be the difference in the end I mean we're talking you know the margin was only two points last season but let's just talk about this game here to win a Villa Park is of course a statement victory in in the normal sense but it's impossible to know this it's early just because of you know Manchester City went to Chelsea a Chelsea we were praising a second ago and and won there and I think they won there easily actually ultimately in the end so we'll have to look back retrospectively at this result come right come possible points deductions I don't know something I know who knows should we should we stop recording now and let's come back in let's talk about Ip Switch

what do you think Wilson what did you make of this performance from Arsenal you can read it one of two ways you can read it as he was incredibly professional they drew for the sting

they knew they had greater strength on the bench and

it picked them off in the end.

I think that would be a very generous way of reading it because it relies on Ollie Watkins missing two great chances.

Or

the other extreme would be to say they got away with it, they're incredibly lucky.

And I think the truth is somewhere in between.

I think where

if you're looking to be positive for Arsenal, what you can say is there were, and I'm saying this in the context of a team who got 89 points last season who were clearly brilliant.

But there were times when they seemed to just lose a little bit of self-belief in games last season, the Bay Munich game, a Fulham game, a a West Ham game, when they conceded the controversial goal at Newcastle.

There was sort of 10, 15, 20-minute periods in those games where they wobbled.

They were under pressure on Saturday and they didn't wobble.

So that would be the positive.

Now, whether that is something that's there long term, whether it's a one-off, what would have happened if Watkins had scored one of those goals?

Yeah, we'll have a better idea as we go forward.

What you would say, if you compare,

if you're an Arsenal fan looking at how do we beat City,

you would look at what are the equivalent results last season, where are we gaining ground?

And Chelsea picked up two points on last season by winning at Chelsea,

where they'd drawn.

Yeah, the 4-4, City, yeah.

And Arsenal have now picked up three points from Villa, a game they lost last season.

So from that point of view,

Arsenal can think, yeah, we're, you know, in a direct comparison with City,

we're in a place where we need to be at this stage.

But, yeah, two games in, it's exceptionally early.

And I think

there are reasons to be concerned with the way they played in that first hour.

It is worth, as you mentioned, Barry, just for the middle-aged

of us listening and talking right now, the ability of David Red to get up so quickly after falling on the ground is just something I just cannot possibly believe.

I'd have been there for about 25 minutes.

And Dave says, what was the best moment of the weekend?

And why was it Ben White smashing the ball at John McGinn?

Because John McGinn had just kicked it at William Saleva.

Absolutely right.

Enjoyed that tremendously.

To the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Tottenham 4, Everton 0.

Tottenham needed this.

Everton really didn't need this.

They've started with two defeats, 3-0 and now 4-0.

It would be funny if they just incrementally went up by one every week for the rest of the season.

I wouldn't rule it out.

They haven't won a Premier League game in August for the past three seasons.

I mean, the fans afterwards went to yell at the players as they were getting on a train, which obviously seems slightly pointless thing to do afterwards.

But,

Barry, I mean, it was pretty bleak for Everton.

There's it could have been an awful lot worse.

I think they were lucky to get away with four.

Jordan Pickford obviously gave away one of those four, but he also made some very good saves.

And it was very good of him having conspicuously given away was it the second goal?

He

very publicly and ostentatiously accepted the blame for it, just in case any of us hadn't noticed

that it was all his fault.

And earlier,

he had made a good save from a Christian and Romero

shot that took a deflection.

And he asked someone behind the goal who was taking a picture of him if they'd got

that save he'd made.

He didn't do that noticeably after he'd fucked up and

allowed Sun to score into an empty goal, but it's it's quite worrying for Everton.

I mean,

I wouldn't hit the panic button yet because, as you say, they haven't won a league game in August for quite some time and they've been all right.

Uh,

but

Sean Dice

brought in some players uh during the summer and he didn't start them last week and he didn't start them this week.

And you're going wondering, well, why?

Because the players you are starting clearly aren't up to the job.

So he does also,

in mitigation, have quite a few players out injured.

But the only one of them you'd think who might make a massive difference is Jared Brantwig.

So, yeah, worrying times for Everton and a good win for Spurs after...

sort of throwing away the three points against Leicester in their opener.

How close to the panic button are you, Seb, for Sean Dice and Everton?

Well, I think that the past few seasons with Everton, I've covered so many of their games, and it's felt that they've had their fingernails on the edge of the cliff for some time, but been saved by the fact that the promoted sides have been a lot weaker and by the fact that somehow, right at the back end of the season, they always pull out the wins they need, but they just don't look like a side that's going to trouble three-quarters of the teams in the league.

They face Leicester

mid-late September away from home, home, and that will be, I think, the first one.

They host Doncaster in the League Cup before then.

These are the games that will be the ones that, if he was to lose those games, they're the ones where the pressure piles on the managers under pressure now.

But a lot of people recognise what he has to work with at the same time.

And I think a lot of Everton supporters obviously don't like the situation, but still, a big proportion of them blame the Premier League overall for the points deductions and the financial situation.

And that is maybe the get-out

clause for Deitch at the moment.

I have to say, I haven't been impressed by Everton in many of the matches I've seen them in.

Obviously not this one.

Every time I looked up at the screen, I had several games on at the same time.

And every time I looked up, there were gaps everywhere.

There was one point when Van der Wen was charging through about three or four of their players and was on the edge of the penalty area.

And that's a worrying sight to see, I have to say.

The fastest player in recorded Premier League history who's a centre-back.

I can't say why for them because I think the three that have come up, we'll find out when they play list.

I think the three that have come up are weaker when I look at it.

But who knows?

We'll have to see when they face each other.

But that's what it feels like it's going to come down to again.

Jackson, do you think Angie's punishment to Eve Basuma of him being the only midfielder in the Spurs side was enough?

Paul says, underside of the crossbar, roof of the net.

Where does Basuma hit on the Yaboa scale?

I mean, it's nowhere near Yaboa, right?

And that was, I think, 30 years ago last week.

But, you know, it was a lovely strike from him.

He's off the hippie crack

and back in the team.

And look, this is hard, isn't it, when Everton weren't really there, but Spurs needed that.

They really did need to win, I think, Wilson.

Yeah, I'm now worried for Everton that if their fingernails are clinging to the cliff, how do they hit the panic button and what happens when they do?

But yeah, I think Spurs were

very Spurs against Leicester, weren't they?

They were so much better for the first hour of that game and ended up not winning it that I think they did need a convincing win just to sort of settle people down, particularly given the slightly iffy end to last season.

I guess

that's not a problem, it's not a downside, but it is only Everton and

you would expect them to beat Everton at home.

So I still think there are

defensive issues there, particularly from set plays, that need to be ironed out.

But going forward, they looked hugely impressive.

Yeah, and Wilson Otto Bear made his debut sign from Burnley for 25 minutes.

He looked excellent.

And a lot of people had written Hyun Win Son off after the Leicester game, saying it's time to drop Sun.

So he scored a couple.

To the Edi Had, Manchester City for Ipswich Town one.

When, Wilson, should you score against Manchester City?

I mean, clearly the seventh minute is too early,

but it's hard to know exactly when the right time is to score against them.

No, I would say,

based on the

G Dong 1 principle, the 96th minute of 96,

which I think was that came on New Year's Day.

But that felt about right.

And even then, it was a nervous 12 seconds or so afterwards.

I was in the press room at Brighton, and as soon as Ipswich scored, everybody was like, well, it's going to be 5-1.

And it turned out it was only 4-1.

So credit to Ipswich.

But the fact that that the three goals then came in, you know, what, six minutes,

yeah, yeah, don't, don't, don't go with the beast.

We were talking yesterday about Murich, Barry, the Ipswich town goalkeeper, who didn't cover himself in glory at the weekend.

No, he was at fault for two, at least two goals, possibly three, and the other one was a penalties, which, you know, he couldn't do much about really.

Goalkeepers often have a shocker, and you know,

you're very aware of the fact that they're having a shocker because they're they're the goalkeeper but I can't remember him ever playing well at Burnley and I think he was at Forrest for a while

and he seems to constantly be making terrible mistakes and getting caught dawdling on the ball or giving the ball away when trying to play it out from the back and I was surprised when I discovered Ipswich had signed him with a view to being their first choice keeper because and I had to check is that the guy and yes it's the guy who just gives away cheap goals he did make one very good save as well from Haaland I think but yeah that's a puzzling signing

because he does seem to make an awful awful lot of mistakes but he presumably has

good qualities that he keeps well in.

Erling Haaland, four goals in his first two games, another hat-trick on 94 and 101.

Chances are he's going to get to 100 before

Danny Welbeck.

Clearly, he has in career goals, hasn't he?

It does feel impossible, Seb, to write a new or interesting question about Erling Haaland.

And I challenge you to say anything new and interesting about Erling Haaland without even having asked you a question about Erling Haaland.

I thought when you said, is he going to score 100 goals, I thought you meant before Christmas.

And you wouldn't write it off.

I'd say one funny thing I find about Erling Haaland, which is as the years have gone on, I'm liking him more and more as a person because he seems to just love where he sits, which is just, I don't touch the ball that much.

When I do, I'll put it in the net and I'll laugh about it with his teammates.

And then he had a moment where he had to remind himself, I think at 1-1, to remind himself, go, oh, no, no, we have to go again, don't we?

Yeah, we have to go again and score more.

Sorry, I forgot about that.

But I will score more and it doesn't really matter.

And, you know,

it's of ease to him.

But I also like the fact that Guardiola at the point where Haaland thinks I'm truly going to enjoy this match I'm on five goals I'm on three goals and there's still half an hour left to play or whatever it might be I think I could really cash in Guardiola takes him off and that's all and there's the disappointment still on his face that slight frustration of oh come on can't I really just let loose here That's why when we went back, when you were talking about Arsenal, Manchester City,

to think that the team that keeps on evolving in this way, where they had a season where they didn't have a recognised striker, where they had Sergio Aguero considered one of the greatest ever Premier League strikers, and they've moved on to this guy who, if he stays, if Man City stays in the division, full stop.

But if he stays and goes on, it is destined that he'll cruise, he could get to 200.

But we know that's not how football works.

There'll be a point where Real Madrid come in and he'll just go because they can get anybody they like.

Is that enough?

Is that different enough?

Yeah, no, no, I don't know.

No, there were some new things there.

Yeah, his long range goal was good.

His long-range goal was good.

I don't think I've seen him score many from that distance, if any, actually, when I think about it.

Is that his longest-range goal as a city player?

Or that shot under Torrent?

Donald.

How dare you, Barry, not having all the distances of Erling Haaland's goals at your face?

I was looking.

What are you even doing on this podcast?

Anyway, well done, Man City.

To Anfield, Liverpool to Brentford-I mean, Ipswich and Brentford is quite a kind start for Arnest Slott Wilson, but they've looked pretty convincing.

And Jake says if Jürgen Klopps football was categorised as heavy metal, would Arning Slots be considered something more like yacht rock, aesthetically nice and easy, but nowhere near as likely to lift your heart rate?

I mean, I haven't noticed a huge amount of difference.

Like, it's not as if every minute of Jurgen Klopp football was wild sprinting in every direction.

Like there were some times when players were walking.

Are you asking me for music analogy?

No, I'm asking you what you think of Have you noticed a discernible change at all between Slots Liverpool and Klopps Liverpool?

It's difficult to know.

I mean,

I think the more interesting game was last week.

The fact that the first half, they seemed quite ponderous.

And was that them?

Was that Ipswich pressing really well?

And I think

you give Slot credit for the change he made at halftime last week.

This week, I mean, Brea Brentford can be awkward.

I think Liverpool are a little bit lucky with

the penalty that wasn't given because it was offside.

That could easily have gone against them.

But fundamentally, without playing brilliantly, it was a totally professional, comfortable 2-0 win.

For slots, the fixture list is

fairly kind.

I think they're two games that they're not walkovers, they're potentially difficult, but the kind of games you should win.

And he has won them.

And 2-0 is a sort of tick-the-box move-on scoreline.

And maybe Manchester United next week will get a truer truer impression of what he's like.

How different is it from Klopps football?

Again, I think, I don't know, I feel there's been a sense, and this might be me as much as anything, but I sort of feel this season hasn't really got going yet.

That there's still a sort of a bit of a Euros hangover.

The fact that City, for instance, are still bringing players back.

I think players you have, you know, who did play in the Euros or play in the COP America, you can tell they're not quite right yet.

They're still building up.

So, I think it's very hard to judge anything at this stage but but maybe maybe that game the the the liverpool united game next week will we'll we'll we'll see more clearly what slots made of see how unmarked most allah will be in

in in the magic united box i mean that first goal felt very cloppy to me barry sort of lightning break from the brentford corner um

and uh yeah i match day two broke down sort of all brentford's mistakes in it but still it was sort of quite a scintillating attack yeah

uh vitally Janelt you know lost the fifty fifty and that was that basically um as after uh the corner had been headed clear by Canate.

I mean I I would say um

this version of Liverpool it's more the Eagles than heavy metal sort of MOR

or hair rock.

Right.

He hasn't had to change much.

Uh he's getting grief you know, in some quarters for not signing players.

I'm not sure signing players just for the sake sake of signing someone is is the way forward but they look okay to me.

This was a pretty straightforward win.

Brentford are renowned for their quality at set pieces and they went close at a corner and they went close from a free kick so they probably they could have scored and made it a bit more interesting but it was a pretty straightforward win.

But there will be more difficult challenges ahead.

I think uh is it Manchester United next up?

That may be a more difficult challenge.

It may be an easier challenge.

We don't know.

Manchester United do tend to raise their game against better teams, don't they?

Felt like the whole game was Nathan Collins hurling himself in the way of goal-bound efforts.

So he's just constantly just flying back and forth and the ball hitting his head.

David says, I can't look at Arna's slot without being reminded of the male vocalist from Aqua.

In interviews, whenever he's asked, I'm almost disappointed that he doesn't reply with, come on, Barbie, let's go party.

And actually,

it's quite astute.

I hadn't thought about the male vocalist from Aqua a great deal since Barbie Girl.

I'm not sure many middle-aged men do think about the male vocalist when they think of Aqua, Max.

Well, that is true.

No, that is true.

I mean, okay, I'll be clear.

I haven't thought of any of the vocalists from Aqua since Barbie Girl, if we're being really honest.

Obviously, I'll explain to you.

I'll send you Barbie Girl on cassette, Wilson, so you can be educated by it.

Well, I'll send you the video so you can see what he looks like.

But I thought it was a very astute lookalike.

Right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin at Bournemouth.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

As to the vitality, then Bournemouth won Newcastle one.

Who wants to do the is that a handball?

Is that not a handball of Dengo Watara's 93rd minute minute shoulder?

The one thing I would say about the is that a handball or is it not a handball is

not one single Newcastle player appealed for a handball when he scored.

And Kieran Trippier and Nick Pope both had a very, very clear view.

Kieran Trippier actually thought about handling the ball to stop it going in and then didn't, decided against it.

And I would argue whether it was a handball or not, if that decision went, an identical decision went against Newcastle, their fans would be outraged and so would Eddie Howe.

I personally don't think it was a handball.

The ref didn't think it was a handball.

And I think his call should have stood.

Oh, and Alan Shearer didn't think it was a handball either.

Yeah, and actually, he's not...

Because it was...

seen as a factual handball.

Whatever the hell that is.

Yeah, then he wasn't sent to the screen.

Was it David Coote?

Yes.

He wasn't sent to the screen.

And so he just disallowed it by the VAR guys.

Iriola says it was so obvious.

I think everyone who watches the game would agree.

I think the shoulder, it never touches the skin.

We have very short sleeves, he says.

They say it's factual.

Show me the facts.

I've just seen the video, and the fact is it doesn't touch the arm.

It's the shoulder.

A clear goal and three points for us.

And Eddie Howell said, look, you win some, you lose some.

So, like, I mean, I think we know, don't we?

Is there anyone?

I mean, Wilson, do you, what do you think?

Longer sleeves for the Bournemouth Bournemouth players?

I like a player in a long sleeve shirt.

The problem is they tinker with the law so much, or the regulations around the law so much.

If a t-shirt line still applies, and I don't know if it does, and I haven't been able to find with a quick Google this morning whether it does, then that seemed like non-ideal, but it made it straightforward that essentially

you're either just looking at he's wearing a short-sleeve shirt or you're imagining him wearing a short-sleeve shirt.

Does the ball touch skin?

Does it touch sleeve?

That obviously was sleeve.

I mean, it seemed to to me to come pretty much off the point of the shoulder.

I don't even think it was sort of the deltoid.

I think it was right on the shoulder, which is why it came off at some pace.

So, yeah, I find that a slightly baffling decision.

Said the other fun moment, as Ryan says, Can someone explain to me why Joe Linton was booked?

Seemed like a perfectly good tackle to me.

It's like Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

It was like an amazing clothesline.

How is he not sent off?

I don't know.

I mean, you used

Hacksaw Jim Duggan as a reference.

I was thinking of like the

APA.

I've completely forgotten the wrestler's name because it was about 20 years ago.

The APA.

APA for Bradshaw.

Bradshaw, that was it.

Right.

Bradshaw, Clothesline from Hell.

Again, we should probably send that to Jonathan as well.

I do find those really funny because as he's doing it, he almost expects to be booked for that sort of challenge.

He expects it when he does it.

He's halfway through and thinks, you know, okay,

I'll take

what comes my way.

um it's funny because obviously this game took place at the same time as the wolves chelsea match so i came out of that game and i thought okay i'll catch up on what happened in the other game and i do my heart always sinks when the headline from a game is about a uh an official's decision because i always just think so much else goes on in the match and i know it's a low scoring sport but the focus always being on the official's decision is so tiresome and ultimately they've made it it's happened Talk about something else, but we just can't, can we?

We just cannot talk about anything else.

Um, I know you've asked me about Joel Linton, so that is something else, but you know, generally, the headline I'm talking about from that match, yeah.

No, no, I totally agree with you, and that is difficult because you literally can't go, oh, Bournemouth won Newcastle, well, let's talk about how Bournemouth set up when there's this glaring, like, disallowed goal in injury time, and this clothesline as well.

I totally take your point.

I don't understand how, I mean, that's hitting rid of somebody with any any force on the windpipe is really dangerous.

And the idea that that is a lesser punishment than last week's headbutt.

I mean headbutt, like the touch of forehead, it's just nonsense.

And yeah, we know if you raise your hand to an opponent's face, it's a red card.

Clamping across a windpipe with your forearm must be a red card.

It's just

absurd.

But anyway.

Quite apart from the contentious decisions,

this was a pretty entertaining game.

There were some great chances.

Evan Eelson missed a sitter.

Two goals were decent.

If I was a Newcastle fan, I'd be slightly concerned about the performances of Anthony Gordon, who I know he scored, but he looks really leggy and tired.

Ditto, Bruno, Jimaraes.

The manner in which

Lloyd Kelly and Dan Byrne let Semenyu go get the cross in for the Bournemouth goal for Tavernes tapping

was, you know, that's very weak defending.

But

it was quite an entertaining game.

And if you're a neutral, the contentious decisions add to the gaiety.

But,

yeah, they obviously get the headlines, and that's what we end up talking about.

Yeah, I thought Antoine Semenyo was great, actually, in that.

And also, I think for Newcastle, every time I've seen Harvey Barnes come on, I know he's had some injuries, he's always looked like he's changed the game.

I thought that was a great ball in.

And I sort of think it's maybe about time for Harvey Barnes to you know get a start.

Imagine be knocking on Eddie Howell's door, won't he?

To Selhurst Park, Christopher Palace 0 West Ham 2.

Two defeats in a row for Palace Seb.

It was sort of one of those games, wasn't it?

Like Eze hit the bar with an amazing effort.

Like Palace could have won it.

And then like two goals so quickly for West Ham who also looked quite exciting, won it for them.

You know, I think Palace are in a situation.

You think last week it was a similar game with Brentford.

They're both both games when you look on on the surface, you think it's a tough one to call.

I'm worried about Palace in the fact that they

obviously in this state where they are a club who do look to obviously sell players when they reach a certain value and have to keep replacing them, etc.

But they have a good manager in there now, and they have a situation where you know what can he work with what he's given.

And I compared the two sides on the surface, and when you look at them on paper, West Ham do have by far

more quality in their line-up.

And when you base it off that, you think, well, they should win the game.

But then

you can't stay up by that logic, obviously, because you give up and you go down.

I did West Ham the week before, and even though Villa beat them, I looked at their front line and I thought, this is a really, really talented front line.

And if you were to think of Bowen and Kudas and Paqueta, they're all players who would get into the best sides in the league, for sure.

So there is a weird weird pressure on Lopotegi now

to see these players click.

John says that after they saved that ball boy on Saturday, can we now have a series on the continuing superhero adventures of Bowen and Suchek?

Pants outside the trousers, Barry, capes.

You know, it's sort of big man, little man, works quite well, doesn't it?

Batman and Robin.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that could have been far more serious than it ended up being for anyone who didn't see it.

Thomas Suchek scored,

popped up as he tends to do on the sort of fringe of the penalty area and rifled one home and then ran over to celebrate in front of the West Ham fans.

They surged forward down the stand and one of the LED advertising boards collapsed outwards onto the pitch.

And there happened to be a young ball boy sitting in front of it and he got trapped underneath.

Luckily, Thomas Suchek had the presence of mind to hold, or as as best he can, could hold the board up to stop the child being crushed underneath it.

And Jared Bowen just pulled him out.

He was, you know, hurt, but not badly hurt, and he was fine after receiving a little bit of treatment from the physios.

But yeah, that could have been very serious.

And it's something that needs to be looked at.

And I think Jared Bowen gave him a shirt after the game, so all is well.

Still nice to see Adam Wharton just playing, you know, quick passes.

I think we were chatting to Kevin Dame.

It was you and me, Barry, or yeah, it was.

And he was saying if Adam Wharton had started in the Euros, England would have won it.

Still think he's just a delight of a footballer if you get the chance to watch a palace game.

Fulham beat Leicester 2-1.

ML Smith Rowe scoring on his debut.

Some end product from Adama Triore.

Feels like the headline to me, Wilson.

It's interesting their signings that a lot of people have gone, well, they're all very Fulham and a bit mad.

And some have gone, actually, these seem really astute from Marco Silver.

Where are you on that pendulum?

Well, Smith Row, it was difficult to know because he played so little last season that he didn't know whether he got back from the injury and how good he was going to be.

But he started the season really well.

I saw him live at Old Trafford on the first Friday of the season.

And what I was surprised by was how deep he was dropping, picking up the ball.

And

in my head, he was sort of just sort of a

sort of nice footwork in the front third, but actually, he seems a lot more than that.

He seems a player who's very comfortable in deep positions as well.

If you can combine that with getting forward, making late runs of the box, scoring goals, which you have the evidence of sadness, Jesse Cannon, then I think that could be a very valuable signing.

And

I think a few Arsenal fans were a bit baffled that he was allowed to leave.

I guess he wasn't getting a chance last season, but

I think that bafflement might grow in the next few months.

And Leicester, I think,

really didn't look great.

And

having not looked great for a good two-thirds of Monday's game,

that seems worrying for them.

They have signed Jordan Ayu Wilson, so presumably you'll be keeping an eye out on one of your favourite players.

Jordan Ayu,

I wouldn't say I've gone complete one eighty on him, but

right.

The Jonathan Wilson pivot on Jordan Ayu is very exciting.

I was partly seeing him more recently for Garner, and I was at

Oliver Glassdoor's first game last season when Palace

beat somebody Burnley, 3-0, I think.

And he was really good in that game.

And he seemed to be playing in a totally different way to how he used to play, in that he wasn't just standing offside constantly, he was dropping deep.

And I sort of think that the mature Jordan Ayu might actually be now this paradoxically, now he's lost a bit of pace and he's having to think about the game a bit more.

He might have become a better player.

And I was always a huge fan of his brother.

Does it?

I mean, do you have like a do you have a sort of finite amount of appreciation for the Ayu?

So if your Jordan IO appreciation goes up, the Andre Ayu Ayu has to go down, or can you love them both?

I mean,

it is true that there's never been a period when I thought they've both been good because Daddy Ayu's gone completely.

But didn't he get sent off very early into his debut for La Have at the end of last season?

Dead AIU?

That's a good question.

And I do not have, I mean, maybe Barry has that experience.

He's

looking up at distances that Erling Harland has scored from right now.

So he can't be with us right now.

But, you know, your call is important to us.

I don't know, Wilson.

So, yeah,

can't remember a Danny Welbeck goal.

How am I meant to remember goals scored by Lahar?

No, it was a red card.

It wasn't a, wasn't it?

Not even.

Oh, right, a red card.

So

if I were only to have one IU, for a long time, it would have been Dead A, and now it's Stephanie Jordan.

He was sent off three minutes after being brought on in a game against Nought.

Thank you, producer Joel.

What fun you have while we're all recording?

To St.

Mary's Southampton-Nil, Nottingham Forest one.

Chris says, will you be doing a review of the Forest match?

Yeah, we didn't have time for a preview.

We didn't do a lot in their first game.

We have come in for some early season criticism, Barry, for not mentioning Nottingham Forest enough.

I mean, add it to our endless list of agendas.

I mean, they haven't been in the most exciting game so far, have they?

They have four points, which is good.

Yeah, Southampton's record against them is pretty atrocious, I think.

So it wasn't a huge surprise that Forrest won this game.

They scored one goal.

Their new signing, Milenkovich, I would say,

if it makes Ollie Watkins feel any better, had a miss that was arguably worse than either of Watkinson's.

He missed from three yards after Chris Wood had drilled the ball across the face of goal

as a corner was recycled.

I think if Forrest want more mentions in this podcast, they either have to become the subject of some atrocious VAR decisions, which they were, of course, last season.

They wanted, or no, it was Wolves, wasn't it, who wanted VAR obliterated.

um and then as far as Southampton are concerned Russell Martin I think summed it up after the game he said we we don't possess the same individual quality at the top end of the pitch as they do and that's the problem I think that's going to be a problem for Southampton in that their front three just looks very championshipy and not quite good enough for the Premier League yeah and I suppose if that's the case Ed does Southampton have to you know it feels like Russell Martin is going to stick to his principles but if if you don't have the, you know, the attacking talent, do you, you know, do they have to go and get Chey Adams back?

Or like, who I think who scored and set up a goal in Serie A at the weekend?

Like, like, do you have to say, okay,

like Chris Wood has great players around him, but he's a very solid, dependable guy.

Do they need that?

Well, a company just decided that they'll just carry on playing the way he wants to play last season and they ended up going down and he got the Bayer Munich job.

So maybe Russell Martin will think about this.

Be at the new camp.

If I continue playing this way, somebody will notice it it

in in barcelona i'd say the biggest worry is a game like southampton forest which is the game the last talking point for tv shows and podcasts if you've lost in that game or conversely with forest you've picked up the points i think that can dictate your whole season if you're the team because i used to think about crystal palace and people say they'd stay up season after season because they'd always be the team that won that game at three o'clock that no one was paying attention to and they were racking up points that way.

Southampton losing this game that not many were paying attention to yesterday,

that's the biggest worry for me.

You know, you can lose on Sky, that's fine.

You know, you can lose Sky.

You need to be picking up points at 3 o'clock on a Saturday because that's when football really matters.

That's when the hard graft is done.

That's when City batter sides in the bottom half again at 3 o'clock and no one's really paying attention.

This is the key to survival.

And I feared for Southampton from the moment the final whistle went at wemberley a few months ago how did that how did that manifest instant fear like like

well i was laughing initially because armstrong celebrated before the full-time whistle and after that chortle had subsided i then then thought oh they're not gonna they're not gonna stay up though are they and and i know a few southampton fans and they had that feeling straight away and and it's just it's just the way it is at the moment what seb is saying there is it reminds me that muhammad ali quote you know the fight is won, won or lost, far away from witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those sky sports Sunday afternoon lights.

If you could find that that quickly, Barry, you could have found Erning Harland's shot distances, couldn't you?

I knew it off by heart, Max.

Oh, very good.

Finally, Labs says, oh, we're doing the EFL tomorrow and a bit of Spain with Sid, but Labs says, can Jonathan be asked what he thinks the limits are for Sunderland's young midfielders, Grigg and Neil and Job, early days, but they look good.

Top of the championship.

Barry, keep your powder driver tomorrow.

But, Wilson, you can have a minute.

I mean, I'm surprised by how well it's gone.

I don't trust it.

But apparently, they were very good against Burnley on Saturday, and Burnley had started the season brilliantly.

They were really good against Trevor Wednesday the previous week, which, again, I hadn't expected.

But Chris Rigg looks great in midfield.

I mean, Daniel's now suspended because he got a daft second yellow.

But, I mean, I think ideally they'd still bring in a centre forward before the window closes.

And hopefully, now they've got the Jack Clark money, 15 million from Ips, which potentially rises into 20.

Hopefully, they can actually buy somebody.

But

I saw we were getting criticised for not having to mention Aberdeen, who've also started with three straight wins at the start of the season.

But they're kind of going about eight straight wins because five of them were in the Scottish League Cup.

So, you know, well done on that win against East Kilbride.

I think that's what they wanted.

So just to be patronised a little bit, done your job.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Thank you, Seb.

Nice to have you back.

Thank you.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back tomorrow.

This is The Guardian.